I thought that some of the WPT and WSOP events were getting a little crazy by charging $25,000 and $50,000 buy-ins. Obviously there are still interested parties since people buy into these events, but I think they’re only created for poker’s elite. I guess I should have held my thoughts though after seeing the $250,000 buy-in event offered by the International Poker Players Association.
This colossal $250k event obviously breaks any organized poker tournament records, and even makes a run at the $10 million buy-in fictional tourney shown in Casino Royale. Getting back to reality, the $250,000 IPPA Championship is going to be held in Monte Carlo and will offer a $12 million prize pool; the winner gets $5 million of this amount.
Seeing as how the field will be capped at 48 players, this obviously gives any of the 48 players a solid shot to win the $5 million. Of course, filling out the 48-player field isn’t a given as evidenced by the fact that this same tournament was canceled last year due to a lack of entrants. Fortunately for the IPPA, plenty of players are already registered with their $250k in hand.
Tony G, Johnny Chan, Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan, Freddy Deeb, Huck Seed, Phil Ivey, Robert Mizrachi, and his brother Michael Mizrachi are ready to go. There are some other high stakes players currently signed up, which means there is a good chance this tourney won’t get canceled in 2010.
One of the most interesting things about the players currently signed up is that Tom Dwan is playing. Aside from the 2010 WSOP – where Dwan had millions of dollars in prop bets going – Dwan doesn’t really play tournaments because he makes so much playing high stakes cash games. However, the $5 million top prize appears to be enough to lure Dwan away from his Full Tilt Poker lair.
