Super High Roller Cash Game with $250,000 Minimum Buy-In To Be Broadcast on Twitch
For three days starting June 29, an invite-only, no-limit hold'em cash game will be filmed at ARIA. Deemed the Super High Roller Cash Game, it will be played eight-handed with $400/$800/$200 stakes and require players to buy-in for a minimum of $250,000 with no maximum.
What's more exciting is that the entire cash game, which will run on all three days from approximately 2 p.m. to 2 a.m., will be broadcast live on Twitch.tv for the viewing audience. The broadcast will take place on the Poker Central Twitch channel.
"Twitch.TV is a natural fit for Poker Central," said Poker Central CEO Clint Stinchcomb. "The poker category is exploding on Twitch, it's watched by our core demographic — 18 to 36 males — and it is a compelling and unique way to launch a TV channel that's groundbreaking in the way it will launch and air."
The high-stakes game will be closed to public viewing, but the Twitch broadcast will give those interested all they can handle. Some of poker's biggest names are expected to be in the fold, but right now only Antonio Esfandiari could be named as a confirmed participant. Ben Lamb and Phil Hellmuth are two players rumored to play, but you'll have to tune into the Twitch broadcast to find out just who else joins "The Magician" at the table.
"I'm excited to play," Esfandiari told PokerNews in a previous article announcing the game. "High Stakes Poker was, I think, the most popular poker TV shows in the history of poker TV shows, and in a way this feels like HSP. It's a televised cash game with decent sized blinds and an ante, and so I think there should be a lot of action. Given that, I'm pretty excited to play, but I'm also pretty excited for poker, to sort of bring back the big TV cash game."
Although Esfandiari hints at the game's likeness to HSP, it is important to point out that this is not a reboot of the classic poker TV show. The cash game will be filmed by POKER PROductions, though.
"We here at Poker Central knew that we wanted to reach out to the Twitch audience as a means of promoting the network, given the platform's new explosion in the poker world," added Sam Simmons, Director of Marketing. "We chose the cash game specifically because it had no immediate distribution like the other two events. Our goal became to deliver exciting, high-stakes cash game action to the poker community in a way that has never before been done."
The "other two events" Simmons is talking about are the Super High Roller Celebrity Shootout and the $500,000 Super High Roller Bowl, the latter of which will be covered by the PokerNews Live Reporting team July 2-4. The SHR Bowl features the biggest tournament buy-in of the year at a half million dollars and plans to attract such top names as Dan Colman, Bryn Kenney, Erik Seidel, Daniel Cates, Jason Koon, Phil Hellmuth, Sam Trickett, Tom Dwan, Scott Seiver, Tony Gregg, and many more.
Click here to see more players planning on participating in the event.
"Scott Ball from Twitch has been instrumental in getting this stream set up," added Simmons. "He has provided us with incredibly valuable input on how we can masterfully broadcast a live poker event on Twitch. Our two commentators were recommendations of his. These two are Andre "Gretorp" Hengchua and Jamie "PokerStaples" Staples. Andre comes from the e-gaming space on Twitch, while Jamie comes from the poker space. Both are masterful in interacting with and commentating to the Twitch audience, and have done so successfully for a long time. They will be excellent contributors to the Super High Roller Cash Game Twitch broadcast."
"Unlike you usually see in poker on Twitch, the focus of the stream will not be the commentary," added Stinchcomb."Instead, the focus will be on the interaction between the high-stakes players in the game itself. Fans will have the opportunity to practically be on the rail for every hand of this exclusive game as they get a raw, unfiltered glimpse at the action. It will be incredibly entertaining."
PokerNews did want to know if Poker Central plans to do more Twitch broadcasts in the future. We were informed there are no current plans laid out, but that the Poker Central TV network "will have some of the best poker programming from the world, including tournaments, news and highlights, instructional TV for all players from beginning to experts, poker-ographies, destination-based programming, and new and classic poker films," according to Stinchcomb.
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