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Rick Salomon Leads After Day 1 of Super High Roller Bowl V

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The Super High Roller Bowl V kicked off on Monday at the PokerGO Studios at the ARIA in Las Vegas. As expected, the event failed to perform as well as past incarnations, but the eventual winner will still walk away with over $3.6 million in prize money.

Also, the format of the event sparked a bit of discussion amongst players with some not liking recent changes to the event. By the end of the day, Rick Salomon found himself with the chip lead. Ali Imsirovic and Daniel Negreanu round out the top three. Defending champion Justin Bonomo tread water for most of the day and finished the day with a starting stack.

Super High Roller Bowl V Only Draws Field of 56

When the Super High Roller Bowl V was announced earlier this year, I speculated that the move to December may be detrimental to attendance. Boy did I nail that. When registration closed, the event only managed to pull a field of 36 players. Earlier this month, Poker Central announced that 34 players had confirmed their seats, meaning only two additional players signed up before the beginning of the event.

Several big names that played back in May chose to skip this event. Brandon Adams, Erik Seidel, and Tom Marchese were among the players that played in May’s Super High Roller Bowl but chose to skip this event. The event being so close to Christmas may have played a part into attendance.

With only a 36 player field, first place for this event will be just $3.67 million. Seven players will receive a payday with seventh getting $540k. The top four players will become poker millionaires.

Poker Players Not a Fan of the Bullet System

This time around, the Super High Roller Bowl used a “bullet” system where players had an option to use 100k of their 300k stack and have two 100k add-ons. Most players opted to play 100k at a time while Rick Salomon decided to use all three bullets at once.

However, some players did not appreciate the new format. As soon as Daniel Negreanu got to the feature table on Day 1, he voiced his displeasure about the format and that players were not liking it. Brian Rast agreed and said this was not a good idea by Cary Katz. After praising Katz for adding Big Blind Ante to high roller tournaments, he went on to comment on the new format, stating, ”Add-on, no good-o.”

Rick Salomon Leads – Justin Bonomo Still in Contention

At the end of Day 1, 27 of the 36 player field remained. Some of the players that donated $300k to the prize pool were Steffen Sontheimer, Jake Schindler, Christoph Vogelsang, Dominik Nitsche, Ben Yu, Bill Klein, and Poker Central founder Cary Katz.

Rick Salomon came into the event at the last minute and used a different strategy than other players. Rather than using his bullets one at a time, he used all three at once. The decision apparently worked well for him as he managed to nearly triple his stack throughout the day. He finished the day as the overall chip leader with 806,000 in chips.

Both Daniel Negreanu and Ali Imsirovic were on the featured table for most of the day and made the most of their time there. Imsirovic finished the day second in chips with 661,000 while Negreanu finished with 623,000. Stephen Chidwick and Nick Petrangelo rounded out the top five.

Justin Bonomo came into the event as the defending champion and managed to tread water most of the day. He finished the day with 335,000, or just 35k above what would normally be a starting stack in this event.

The “bullet period” is now over and players with remaining add-ons have had those chips added to their stacks. Now the tournament will play out as a freezeout, changing the dynamic of the game and making it more like the players prefer.

Action will resume at the ARIA at 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday and play down to the final table.

Photo Credit: Poker Central

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