If you’re like me and have been pining for poker tournaments to start raising their buy-ins then Full Tilt Poker’s announcement that came at 1PM on Monday will likely have made your day. On their website Full Tilt Poker posted a video detailing their new poker live poker tournament series, The Onyx Cup, a six-stop tournament series with buy-ins ranging from $100,000 to $300,000.
The Onyx Cup was announced online via a streaming video narrated by poker commentator Ali Nejad, in which he says: “In big tournament fields, great players rarely have the opportunity to compete against one another and the rest of the poker elite, so we wondered, ‘How would these players fare if their only competitors were the other giants of the game?’ Well, we’re about to find out.”
The tournaments will take place around the globe and will be open to all competitors –of course you’ll need to have the $1,000,000 or so for the buy-ins—so unlike the Federated Sports and Gaming poker league being trumpeted by Annie Duke, the Onyx Cup will be an open event that limits the field by raising the buy-in to an obscene level –instead of making the tournaments exclusive to certain players only.
Full Tilt Poker is estimating the total prize-pool for the six tournaments to exceed $30 million, which includes the $250,000 buy-in Championship event –known as The Grand Finale– with $1,000,000 added to the prize-pool.
According to Full Tilt Poker’s Onyx Cup details, the top three finishers in each event will earn points toward the Onyx Cup leader-board. At the end of the Grand Finale, the player with the most points at that point will be crowned the Onyx Cup Champion, and will win the Onyx Cup, receive a luxury sports car, and be acknowledged as “the player that conquered poker’s elite”.
Full Tilt Poker is pushing the tournament series extremely hard, considering the events on the Onyx Cup will be broadcast in 40 countries and in 20 different languages. The tournaments themselves will take place in North America, Europe, and Asia –the only stop announced today was the May event in Las Vegas.
Full Tilt Pros will be bound to play in the Onyx Cup if they coincide with other tournament series taking place at the time –which seems to be aimed at the Annie Duke poker league and limiting Team Full Tilt players from lending their name to the fledgling tour.
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Written by Steve Ruddock on March 16th, 2011