The week-long high roller tournament series expands to seven events. This is the second edition of the annual high-stakes tournament series, to be aired by the PokerGO Studio and the venue would be at the ARIA Resort & Casino.
According to the Poker Masters' website, "The Poker Masters revolutionizes the high roller landscape with a week of tournament poker at the highest stakes. The series pits the best players in the world against one another in a series of events, each with 7-figure prize pools. Millions will be won every day, but only the richest of the rich will be named the Poker Masters Champion and awarded the inaugural Purple Jacket by netting the highest earnings across the whole series. There's no time to be "one and done" as consistency is the key at the Poker Masters.
This year's Poker Masters schedule features one $10,000, five $25,000, and one $50,000 tournament, including a $25,000 PLO event. The series is scheduled to start on September 8 and will conclude on September 15.
A new feature to the Poker Masters shall be the maximum of two re-entries per event, with the exception of the $50,000 event that will only have a single re-entry allowed. All tables shall have a 30-second shot clock and five 30-second time extension chips per player. All events shall be uncapped and there's no tourney fee on the first entry for each player registering prior to 2pm local time on the day of the event.
Also, there's a new event added - a $10,000 buy-in short deck game. Short deck poker is actually one of the most popular poker games played in Macau, China. Some of the promoters of this Texas Hold'em variant game include Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan. The game is played almost the same as NLHE except it doesn't have any 2s, 3s, 4s, or 5s in the deck, which changes up the hand rankings. Top hands are still the royal flush, straight flush and quads. However, in short deck poker, a flush ranks higher than a full house, and three-of-a-kind is stronger than a straight. Other than that, the game remains the same.
VP of Content Sam Simmons said regarding this year's Poker Masters, "We were pleased with the turnout for last year's inaugural Poker Masters series and look forward to building upon the legacy of one of poker's leading majors. As we add on even more high stakes events, fans can expect a week's worth of world-class poker action featuring some of the game's best."
The highest total earner after 7 events shall be crowned the Poker Masters champion and will receive the prestigious Poker Masters Purple Jacket. Furthermore, results from all Poker Masters events will count towards the High Roller of the Year points race. As a High Roller Triple Crown major, extra points are awarded for all Poker Masters events.
The winner of the inaugural series was German poker pro Steffen Sontheimer, who dominated in 2017 making four final tables and eventually winning two events, filling his pockets with a total of $2,733,000!
All of the events shall be entirely played out of the new PokerGO Studio, with the final and featured tables streamed on PokerGO.
Players who are expected to join the 2018 Poker Masters series include reigning champ Steffen Sontheimer, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Fedor Holz, Jason Koon, Justin Bonomo, Phil Ivey, and many other high-stakes grinders.
Source:
https://www.pokermasters.com/schedule/
