Million Dollar Poker Tournaments

All of a sudden, million dollar poker tournaments surround us.

For years, the World Series set the standard with its million dollar guarantee in the $10,000 buy-in championship event. Then last year, inflation hit poker with the championship paying $1.5 million to champion Carlos Mortensen.

This year is certainly off to a good start. Jack Binion's World Poker Open guaranteed a $1 million prize pool in its championship event in January. February brought us two $1 million guarantees at Commerce Casino's L.A. Poker Classic, including the first ever for a limit hold'em tournament in addition to the championship event. The limit hold'em tournament (won by Diego Cordovez, who is featured on the cover of this issue) was a huge success, surpassing the guarantee by more than 50 percent. Great job, Commerce Casino.

I was planning on resting during most of March after the very heavy January and February tournament schedules, but two more huge tournaments are coming up. Both are outside of the United States. Card Player Cruises is hosting the PartyPoker Million tournament, which is the first-ever limit hold'em tournament to guarantee $1 million to the winner. Then at the end of the month, I'll be back on a plane to London for Ladbroke Casino's Poker Million. Once again, the winner is guaranteed a million – pounds, that is; this is equivalent to approximately $1,445,000.

April will provide a breather, and then it will be time for poker's granddaddy at the World Series of Poker – the no-limit hold'em world championship. Rumor has it that the winner will take home $2 million and the prize pool will be well over $6 million.

And by then, summer will not even have arrived. It is truly amazing. Now, Bellagio is throwing its hat into the tournament ring (see Jeff Shulman's column and Vegas News and Views). Bellagio management hasn't said anything about $1 million guarantees to me, but I do know they always try to be tops in everything they do. I wonder what they have in mind.

However, it is not all fun and games. Before you think about traveling the circuit and playing tournaments, please realize that the buy-ins alone can cost $250,000 annually, which does not include expenses. Indeed, poker is becoming very big business.