ARIA Expands Super High Roller Bowl Field to 56 Players
When registration for the 2017 Super High Roller Bowl opened last week a total of 54 players made the initial deposit to secure their spot in the biggest buy-in tournament of the year. Only problem is, there were only 35 seats available. The remaining 15 seats were being held back for ARIA VIPs and high rollers.
After holding a lottery for the available 35 seats, there were 19 players left out in the cold and unable to play in the $300,000 buy-in event. On Wednesday the ARIA announced they would be adding six more seats to bring the total to 56 players – eight seven-handed tables.
“Based on the success of last year’s Super High Roller Bowl and the overwhelming interest in this year’s event, ARIA believed it was in our best interest to increase the size of the event by six players,” said Sean McCormack, ARIA’s Director of Poker Operations.
The 21 open spots will now be at the discretion of McCormack and the rest of the ARIA poker management team. Announcements as to who is filling those available seats could come as early as next week. Some of the bigger names who missed out on the lottery include Daniel Negreanu, Jason Koon, Dan Colman and Dan Smith.
READ: 10 Players We Hope to See in the Super High Roller Bowl Field
“More players getting a chance to play against some of the best competition in the world and more recreational players getting a chance to measure themselves against those top players in a televised event will only add to the total experience for poker fans,” said McCormack.
With the rake-free event expected to sell out all 56 seats, the total prize pool will be $16.8 million with the eventual winner walking away with $6 million.
Given the overwhelming popularity of the event and the subsequent expansion of the field, organizers have already determined to expand the field for 2018 to 56 as well.
The Super High Roller Bowl runs May 28 – 31 at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
| Koray Aldemir | Bryn Kenney | Stefan Schillhabel |
| Matt Berkey | Igor Kurganov | Jake Schindler |
| Pratyush Buddiga | Jason Les | Erik Seidel |
| Christian Christner | Andrew Lichtenberger | Scott Seiver |
| Connor Drinan | Ankush Mandavia | Steffen Sontheimer |
| David Einhorn | Tom Marchese | Sam Soverel |
| Antonio Esfandiari | Dominik Nitsche | Ben Sulsky |
| Isaac Haxton | David Peters | Ben Tollerene |
| Fedor Holz | Nick Petrangelo | Christoph Vogelsang |
| John Juanda | Doug Polk | Haralabos Voulgaris |
| Byron Kaverman | Brian Rast | Sean Winter |
| Rainer Kempe | Andrew Robl |