High stakes pros boycott the Turbo Series

A mass protest was arranged in the $5,200 High Roller event but it had the opposite effect and PokerStars beat the guarantee.

There have been several attempts to boycott games at PokerStars before but this weekend's high stakes boycott of the $5,200 High Roller event during the Turbo Series looked like it could have had an impact. 

A group of over 250 pros, led by 'Girafganger7', pledged not to play in the event in response to the recent reduction in MTT rewards by PokerStars. With a $750,000 guarantee in this event it looked like their point could have been made with PokerStars potentially paying a big overlay. 

We are officialy boycotting.https://t.co/0PSjt2GnzZhttps://t.co/84oxS9lUjl

— giraf ganger (@Girafganger7) February 16, 2019

Also providing an alternative venue for those players, partypoker upped the guarantee in their own $5,200 event last night to $1 million. 

It started to look precarious for PokerStars, as at the time the first hand was dealt just 29 players had registered for the event. 

As the PokerStars $5K Turbo Series event begins, 29 players are registered. pic.twitter.com/M6I90yBqY7

— Lance Bradley (@Lance_Bradley) February 17, 2019

However, the prospect of a massive overlay in an event that was absent of all the best professional tournament players in the game was too much for the poker community. We have written before about a phenomenon called the Cobra Effect whereby sometimes the opposite outcome occurs in situations like these when there is a perverse incentive at play. 

In the end 187 players entered this event, creating a prize pool of $935,000 and beating the guarantee comfortably. 

The silver lining for partypoker was that they did boast the biggest High Roller of the night. 206 players entered their event creating a prize pool of $1,050,600, also beating their guarantee. 

Would a boycott by the best MTT players make you more or less likely to play in an event like this? Let us know in the comments: