And how just one poker player will walk away with this fortune
POKER’S GLADIATORS! Welcome to the Pokerdome! Even Ali and Tyson at their peaks didn’t win $60,000,000 for a single event but this year it may well be won by a single poker player in a single event! Even in a world gone poker crazy this may sound like the stuff of fiction. The mighty World Series of Poker generates $100,000,000 but that’s in TOTAL prize money spread across quite a lot of categories and players. This is ONE player winning $60,000,000 for his or herself. George Greenberg, vice president at Fox, who are screening the mega event to a world wide audience of millions, explains how it will work. “The players will engage in a form of speed poker, in which each move will have to be made within 15 seconds. Viewers will be able to see as many as forty five hands dealt during each two hour show!”
TRIBUTE TO PACKER? It appears the whole concept of this extra-ordinary game may be a sort of tribute to the late great gambler Kerry Packer, especially as the event is to be staged in his home country of Australia. Only six players will compete and each will have to find the enormous individual buy-in of $10,000,000. Doubtless the likes of Phil Ivey will have no trouble finding a queue of wealthy backers ready, willing and able to offer the finance for a piece of the potential outcome. Fox have already announced that the $60,000,000 single prize will increase every year for two more years. $75,000,000 in 2007 and a draw-dropping $100,000,000 in 2008!
HIGH TECH ARENA The specially created playing area has already been described by the promoters as “like the inside of the NASA shuttle” and has been aptly named the Pokerdome. It will be fully equipped with robot cameras which will scan the players’ faces looking for visual “tells” and with integrated chip counting software. An automated card tracking system will enable viewers to review discarded cards in order to see what judgement errors may or may not have been made during actual outcomes. All of this is extremely valuable to novice players who will not only enjoy the buzz of seeing six of the best players in the world go for each others’ throats but will gain the opportunity to learn from seeing all the strategies attempted by he Poker Gods.
OCEAN’S 14? In case you were planning a bank robbery to fund your buy-in to the above game, leave that to George Clooney and the lads. Only the highest ranking and most respected players in the world are even being invited to “invest” $10,000,000 in their egos.
ALL THE ACES poker column: Monday, April 24, 2006: The Sixty Million Dollar Poker Game
