Deputy Editor
CoinPoker is bringing back its Cash Game World Championship for another go-round, and the newest edition should make for the most exciting format yet. Heads-up no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha will be the formats of choice.
Some of the best players in the world will duke it out in rake-free matches from April 6-May 3. That should produce some compelling viewing for poker fans, who have the chance to tune into the action on CoinPoker’s YouTube channel.
Each player who enters will post $10,000 to the prize pool, with the operator adding $5,000 per entry to juice things up. Contestants will battle at minimum $50-$100 stakes (old-school no-ante tables will be in use), though they can agree on bigger. Players must top up to 100 big blinds, and each match will last at least 1,250 hands.
There will be separate contests for each game, and PLO players can agree to play traditional PLO, 5-card PLO, or 6-card PLO.
The contests will begin with an application and selection process. Once the fields are confirmed, CoinPoker will separate everyone into groups for the initial round-robin stage. The top performers there advance to the semifinals, and the remaining competitors play 2,000-hand matches, bracket-style, until a winner has emerged.
No prize breakdown has been revealed yet, but CoinPoker has promised another Rolex watch to each winner.
Keep Reading
Heads-Up Poker Has Fallen Out of Favor
The choice to run the next Cash Game World Championship as a heads-up battle is an interesting one. In some ways, it’s intuitive, but in other ways, not so much.
Heads-up poker features plenty of lore. Many legendary matches have had their results woven into the fabric of poker history, such as Phil Galfond vs. Dirk Gerritse, and Daniel Negreanu vs. Doug Polk. Traditionally, it has been where the best of the best have cemented their legacies, where high-profile disputes have been settled, and where players have proved their superiority to rivals.
To this day, some of the biggest money in poker is won or lost in high-stakes heads-up matches.
On the other hand, heads-up poker has largely fallen out of favor. Top players are more reticent to battle with peers than they were in Full Tilt Poker’s heyday. The operators themselves prefer ring formats, which allow recreational players to lose more slowly. Some poker sites have eliminated the format altogether.
CoinPoker hopes that the no-rake format and added prize money entice players to take on tough opponents once again.
Cash Game World Champions, Competitors Include Some Legendary Poker Players
If history is any judge, they will. CoinPoker has experimented with several formats of the Cash Game World Championship, and it has largely proven a hit with top players.
Past champions include Owen ‘PR0DIGY’ Messere and Pedro ‘Biluzin’ Toledo. Additionally, legends such as Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates, Linus ‘LLinusLLove’ Loeliger, Dirk ‘venividi1993’ Gerritse, and Bjorn ‘asianflushie’ Li have participated.
Fans of cash game poker and high-stakes heads-up matches should be in for a treat, assuming a similar group of players signs on for the latest edition of the Cash Game World Championship.
