How many runners will the PSPC get?

Barry Carter thinks the allure of $9 million added and over 300 freeroll qualifiers will make the new PokerStars event one of the biggest ever.

There is a lot to be said about last week’s big announcement by PokerStars that they will be sending over 300 freeroll players to a $25,000 event with $1 million added to first place. The PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship is clearly a reaction to a stellar year from partypoker’s live tour. It is also clearly the best value High Roller event of all time.

Whatever you think of PokerStars (and some people have very strong opinions) this is clearly a good thing for poker. The thought of 300+ amateur players playing in a $25,000 High Roller is tremendously appealing and I suspect will give this a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ appeal that could only be beaten by the WSOP Main Event itself. 

We have to play the waiting game to learn more about the event, but with a whole year to wait the main thing I am wondering is how many direct buy-ins and traditional satellite entries will be added to the field of 300+ freeroll winners?

The ‘staked players’ Main Event

This is simply going to be a must-play event for professional poker players and backers. I fully expect this event to be the biggest High Roller event ever in terms of mid stakes grinders taking their first shot at getting backed into a large buy-in event. It will also be the event backers want a piece of, with essentially $9 million added to the prize pool and a significant portion of ‘soft’ players.

Don’t let the fact it is a $25,000 buy-in make you think it will be a small field, when a player is selling action there really is not much difference between a $5,000, a $10,000 or a $25,000 event. They can either find backers, or they can’t. In that respect you only have to look at some of the bigger recent €10,000 to $25,000 events to get a glimpse of what to expect.

The most recent €10,350 WSOPE Main Event, for example, attracted 529 players. Several €10,000 High Rollers on the EPT have attracted over 400 players (471 being the highest at EPT Barcelona in 2016). In 2016 a $25,000 High Roller at the PCA attracted 173 players. These are all events without added value, few if any satellite qualifiers and notoriously tough fields. 

Just like players have their ‘one shot’ at a big event in Las Vegas during the WSOP, I think this event will be the ‘one shot’ of the year for a lot of mid level tournament grinders playing their first ever High Roller. With all that extra value, it will also be a 'must-invest' event for backers. 

The biggest event for backers too

I’m sure people are sick of me bringing it up, but I actually think the thing that may affect this event considerably will be the price of Bitcoin in January 2019. Right now a vast amount of poker players have a vast amount of their bankrolls in Cryptocurrency, which is great currently because the prices are soaring. If that remains the case, there will be a lot of money in the poker world’s collective bankroll. If it crashes, it will be like a mini-Black Friday and backers will tighten up their purse strings.

You simply do not get events any more where you would expect over 300 players to be out of their depth. You hardly ever see any soft spots in $25,000 High Rollers. And added money, rather than a big guarantee, very rarely happens. If the price of Cryptocurrency has not hurt the poker economy in 2018, I think this will be the biggest High Roller field ever, maybe even before you added the 300+ freeroll qualifiers.

I’d set the line at 750 and take the over, I even think we might see over 1,000 players if PokerStars are able to market this event well over the next 12 months.