There is only one tournament that tops everything, including start of World Series of Poker. It is ARIA Super High Roller Bowl with buy-in of $300,000! It is one of the most expensive, spectacular and famous tournaments in the world. Only poker elite plays here, players who are the best of the best. There are no fishes, almost all the players are semi-gods. There are exceptions though.

The things are Germany is the country, where strongest super high rollers live in. For the second time in a row, champions belt of ARIA Bowl goes to the resident of this country. In 2016,  Rainer Kempe triumphed here, and Russian online high roller Timofey “Trueteller” Kuznetsov even used to be a chip leader after one of the playing days.

Usually it is prohibited to use mobile devices during the hands of tournaments. However couple of days ago room manager and tournament director of Aria told about changes of rules of the famous casino.  Now people can call right in the middle of the hand without any punishment.

 “Players are disallowed to speak on the phone while at the table. Regardless of whether the player is in the hand or not. The call can be made only out of the table”.

This is an excerpt of the European Poker Tour tournament rules. It is said that players can use phones, tablets and laptops but not during the hand.

WSOP is pretty much the same:

Should children be called the flowers and men are considered children (bigger ones but still), women are the most tolerated and resistant gardeners. They feed the roots, wash the buds and cut dry leaves. In poker women are equal to men, but they always play special role at the table.

Hendon Mob database has data of approximately 9,000 who have been ITM at least once in live tournaments. This is just 2.6% of total number of players of male sex. Relatively small number.

There are even fewer female pros – several times fewer. Stats try to persuade us that poker is not for women. But we can see women in tournaments all the time and sometimes even at the cash tables. Feelings of being raised by the opponent that beautiful are quite opposite to those of being raised by the bearded man.

Well, there is just one conclusion – there is not many women in poker. So we must save them as last pieces of your bankroll.

Last summer Aria held big cash game with many famous “whales” and the toughest pros participating. The person who draws maximum attention with his entertaining non-standard and incredibly loose game was an Australian Matt Kirk, who, by his own words, was just warming up before the real game.

It is quite hard to discreet name of the top online and live regulars. Sooner or later hype grows that big, the personality of this or that pro becomes practically public.

Almost nothing was available on the Australian Matt Kirk. His style reminded us of the one of Viktor Bloom or Ilari Sahamies. Fist name of famous live players that come to mind as an example is young David “Viffer” Peat.

Kirk is 28 and unlike many he never played online. He visited casino at the age of 18 for the fist time and soon joined under-the-table games in Australia.

“My usual stakes I play at are much higher,” said Matt (Aria stakes were $400/$800/$200+).

Daniel Negreanu decided to come back to high stakes world this year and faced known to every Russian problem: those players “with connections” have more rights than others. Love to the private high stakes games came from Macao and took over all the popular rooms in Las Vegas.

Last year Daniel hasn’t played a single hand at live cash tables. In the beginning of the year the Canadian set a goal: to play at least 200 hours and year at least $250k.

The first playing session of mixed games took place in Aria, where Negreanu was invited personally. Blinds were $300-$600 with $600 antes. There were quite strange exemplars of the game besides traditional poker formats.

One of them is called PLO Flip. Each player contributes $10k, gets dealt four cards and they deal the board cards. The best hand wins. As easy as a pie, no skill involved.

In poker, like in the film industry, only stars enjoy all the attention. And what about the medium and low stakes first-class players? Kind of supporting actors. They are, perhaps, no worse, but their names are only mentioned in the credits.

Some users of the TwoPlusTwo forum became interested in this problem and paid attention to the stunning results of the American Joe McKeehan.