American Billionaire Proposes Creating New High Roller Series

Does Paul Phua have a new competitor?

Former Facebook executive, billionaire, and poker enthusiast Chamath Palihapitiya posted a lengthy post on X about his project:

He and his friends have been thinking about launching a high roller poker series in the US with millions of dollars in prizes, more elite than Triton (backed by another entrepreneur, Paul Phua).

Chamath stressed that there would be three conditions necessary for the series:

1. Players will have to pass a drug test; stimulants such as Ritalin or Adderall will not be allowed
2. Hoodies, masks, and glasses will be banned
3. Optimal tournament structure, seeking to find a middle ground between turbos and "11-day reg" festivals

Palihapitiya did not share any further details of the new project. The main goal of the post was to see how the community reacted.

Reactions from the poker world

The entrepreneur's post had more than a hundred responses. Many famous players expressed their opinion on Palihapitiya's idea.

• Daniel Negreanu: The most important thing would be not to host tournaments in California; a 7% tax would be fatal for any high-roller series
• Chance Kornuth: Host invitational tournaments: have business owners invite pros. This way, you keep the balance between regs and beginners.
• Andy Bloch, one of the owners of Full Tilt Poker, suggested adding a clock at the tables similar to the one used in chess so that players could see how much time they had to make decisions.

To Liv Boeree's question about the size of the buy-ins, the business owner replied that they should be from $50k to $1M but that there would be several tournaments from $5k to $25k.

The comments also suggested that players prove that they were playing with their own money and not with stacking.

Interestingly, there was a lot of controversy about the ban on substances. Joe Ingram asked if marijuana should be banned. Chamath replied that it definitely should be, which disappointed some readers.

Tom Dwan and Fedor Holz suggested "not reinventing the wheel." The American said it was better not to suffer and try to promote Triton in the US, while the German said:

"Triton Poker has already done literally everything that needs to be done to organize a good series. If you want to do the same in the US, just invite your friends to play."

We hope that Chamath Palihapitiya will make significant progress in implementing this project and that dates for the series will be announced soon.

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