How many pros will play the $51,000 WCOOP?
Barry Carter makes some bold predictions around the success of the highest ever online buy-in tournament.
After the WSOP we tend to have a bit of a lull in poker, and (Even though the EPT restarts in August) interest in the game really renews around September when WCOOP starts.
This year they have announced a $51,000 Super High Roller on September 20, the biggest ever buy-in online tournament with a $1 million guarantee.
The Super High Roller scene is thriving and it seems inevitable that a buy-in of this size would eventually appear online. Now the only question is, how many runners will it get?
What does the small guarantee mean?
The first place to look to get an idea for what to expect would be the most recent high buy-in online events. The biggest buy-in event in some time was this year’s $21,000 SCOOP Heads-Up event, which attracted 33 players. That, however, is a niche format.
Last year’s $10,300 WCOOP High Roller attracted 365 players, while this year’s $10,300 SCOOP High Main Event featured an impressive 694. These are probably much more reliable measuring sticks, so the next question is, of those 694 players, how many could potentially play the $51,000 Super High Roller?
Generally speaking poker players play lower stakes online than they do live. For example a $100 online MTT player might play $1,000 live events. The reason for this is the sheer speed of online poker and how quickly you can load up a new table, which you cannot do live. You can play more carefree online and you also need to invest more live to make it worth your while.
With this in mind, a $51,000 online MTT could be considered equivalent to maybe a $250,000 or $500,000 Super High Roller live. Which would suggest we get a low turnout.
There is also a low guarantee for this event of $1 million, just 20 entries. It’s always cool to have the word ‘million’ in a form of marketing and perhaps this was the reason for that decision, rather than an approximation of how many players to expect.
High Rollers don't care where they play
However, this is poker and these common sense guesstimations of what the poker economy can bare do not always become fact. Arguing how many runners this event will get based on the estimated bankrolls of the potential runners does not make sense, because buying, selling and swapping action in Super High Rollers is so rife.
This is one of those vanity events that lots of pros will want to play, simply because they don’t want to be seen not playing it. There are probably a core group of 20-30 players who would play this event even if it was $100,000. There is a clear Super High Roller scene that just want to play the biggest games - whether that's Vegas, the Bahamas, Monte Carlo or online.
Given that the field will be small, everyone will know each other at the table and it’s an online event that will actually play very similarly to it’s live equivalent. There will be a contingent of players who just treat it like any other Super High Roller (Maybe even preferring it because of the convenience of online) as well as a bunch of high stakes online regulars who would normally avoid the live scene.
Add to that the fact that there will have been a noticeable lull in poker action between the end of the WSOP and the start of WCOOP, and there will be players simply itching to get back in a big game.
The guarantee suggests 20 runners, but live Super High Rollers often get over 50 players. You have to take into account the state of the live high roller scene for a one-of-a-kind event like this, as well as obviously the high stakes online players. The over looks really good on 60+ entries, and maybe we will even be discussing this tournament for getting 100+ by September 20.
How many players do you think will play this event? Let us know in the comments.
