Countdown to the 2018 Super High Roller Bowl Begins
The ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas is gearing up for the latest edition of the Super High Roller Bowl, a high stakes tournament that pits some of poker’s elite players against relative unknowns with millions of dollars on the line.
This will be the fourth edition of the Super High Roller Bowl and will see 48 players exchange a wallet-damaging $300,000 on May 27 for the chance to become the tournament’s champion, an accolade that will come with a first-place prize in the region of $5 million.
Super High Roller Bowl Lottery
Thirty of the 48 places in the 2018 Super High Roller Bowl have been filled after a random draw took place in March. Sixty-one names went into the hat, 30 were drawn out and an additional 18 seats are still available; more on that later.
Former Super High Roller Bowl champions Brian Rast and Christoph Vogelsang were among those 30 names drawn out of the lottery. Rast triumphed in the inaugural Super High Roller Bowl in 2015, outlasting a field of 43 to win $7.5 million, while Vogelsang is the reigning champion having topped a field of 56 in 2017 to pocket $6 million.
Some of the other stellar names who will be competing for the winner’s trophy, so long as they wire the buy-in before the tournament starts, include Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, recent Super High Roller Bowl China winner Justin Bonomo, Erik Seidel, David Peters and Stephen Chidwick.
Confirmed 2018 Super High Roller Bowl Players
| Player | Country | Player | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adrian Mateos | Spain | Igor Kurganov | Russia |
| Andreas Eiler | Germany | Isaac Haxton | United States |
| Andrew Lichtenberger | United States | John Andress | United States |
| Andrew Robl | United States | Justin Bonomo | United States |
| Arne Ruge | Germany | Kahle Burns | Australia |
| Ben Tollerene | United States | Kathy Lehne | United States |
| Brian Rast | United States | Keith Tilston | United States |
| Byron Kaverman | United States | Koray Aldemir | Germany |
| Cary Katz | United States | Markus Dürnegger | Germany |
| Christian Christner | Germany | Nick Petrangelo | United States |
| Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus |
| Dan Shak | United States | Phil Hellmuth | United States |
| Daniel Negreanu | Canada | Sergio Aido | Spain |
| David Peters | United States | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom |
| Erik Seidel | United States | Talal Shakerchi | United Kingdom |
As mentioned, the 2018 Super High Roller Bowl will have a field of 48 players competing for a share of what will be a $14.4 million prize pool. With 30 players already confirmed, 18 more places are up for grabs. Of these 18 seats, 16 will be assigned by ARIA at their discretion and the remaining two spots will be filled by winners of a $10,000 satellite to be held at ARIA on May 26.
Big Names Miss Out; Will They Get a Seat in the Game?
There are some big-name players who paid the $30,000 deposit but did not see their name pulled out during the lottery stage. Such luminaries as Jason Koon, Germany sensation Fedor Holz, Bryn Kenney, Doug Polk, 2016 Super High Roller Bowl champion Rainer Kempe, and 888poker ambassador Dominik Nitsche. All six in this talented bunch will be hoping ARIA selects them to compete; if not, they will likely all be entering the aforementioned $10,000 satellite on May 26.
May is a busy month for ARIA because its schedule is jam-packed with some massive events. A new stop on the World Poker Tour, the Bobby Baldwin Classic, and the WPT Tournament of Champions run before the 2018 Super High Roller Bowl. Plus there is the normal ARIA high roller series, including a $100,000 buy-in on May 24.
Those of you wanting to follow all of the action from the 2018 Super High Roller Bowl can tune into the PokerGO stream or wait for a series of episodes broadcast on the NBC Sports Network. You can sign up for a PokerGo account via PokerNews to get front row seats for this gigantic event.
