The biggest cash game in the world is back, as Hustler Casino Live announces the return of the Million Dollar Game for the third year running.
Just days after announcing the acquisition of Nick Vertucci’s shares in the show by GGPoker’s parent company, HCL brings the good news that this year’s Million Dollar Game will run from April 28 to May 2.
Like previous years, the Million Dollar Game will run over consecutive days and presumably have multiple lineups, although only a few player names have been revealed thus far.
What we do know already is that the game will have a million dollar buyin and will feature some of the most prominent cash game players in the world, creating potential for wild action.
Keating and Airball Return to High-Stakes Action
So far, Hustler Casino Live has announced only a handful of players who will be joining this year’s Million Dollar Game.
Among those is Alan Keating, the legendary cash game player who has built up a reputation with his fearless playing style and mysterious presence at the table.
Keating will be returning to the game for the third year straight, and is likely to bring enough cash to cover the rest of the table, which is his typical approach to cash game poker.
He will be joined by Nik Airball, who is expected to make his return to HCL following a one-year ban from the premises of the popular LA casino.
Unlike Keating, who has remained as reckless as ever, Airball’s playing style has adapted over the years, and we can expect to see him playing a much tighter game with fewer big moves.
They will both be joined by Peter, a mysterious Chinese businessman who has been a staple of all high-stakes HCL shows this year.
Keating and Peter just recently played a million dollar pot on High Stakes Poker, which was won by Keating’s third pair, so we can expect these two to bring the heat and potentially tangle in some of the biggest televised poker hands ever.
The last of the four players we know of so far is Steve, who famously won a huge pot against the lawyer Tom Goldstein on last year’s show when Tom mucked the winning hand.
These four give us an amazing preview into what we might expect in this year’s Million Dollar Game. Even if they were the only “action players” at the table, the games would still probably be some of the most epic we have seen to date.
Who Else Might Show Up?
There is no doubt that HCL will bring us more details on the lineups for the Million Dollar Game over the coming weeks in order to build some suspense.
Yet, even without any official announcements, there are some names we can expect to see in the mix come April 28.
The likes of Tom Dwan, Texas Mike, Brandon Steven, and Santhosh Suvarna all come to mind when the Million Dollar Game is mentioned.
These players were all a part of last year’s lineups, with Dwan being the only player to have a seat on all four days.
Texas Mike and Santhosh Suvarna are both players with an open seat in any high-stakes game out there, and we don’t expect to see them shy away from action.
Some of the other participants of last year’s game, such as Doug Polk, Handz, and Stanley Tang may also join the action once more, although their appetite for such nosebleed stakes may not be quite as big.
There are plenty of others out there who would love to have a seat in a game like this, with the likes of Dan Cates and Andrew Robl coming to mind. However, it’s not easy for professionals to get seats in private games at the highest stakes, and we will have to wait and see if any of them are given an opportunity to compete.
Finally, the Million Dollar Game would be a great opportunity for Daniel Negreanu to make his HCL debut on behalf of the show’s newest partners at GGPoker, but the stakes might be a big too high for DNegs, who has been focusing on tournament poker in recent years.
What Happened Last Year?
For two years straight, the Million Dollar Game has been the biggest televised game in the world, reinforcing the HCL brand as the best in business.
This time around, the show will have the extra backing of the NSUS Group and GGPoker, who may help make the streams even more epic than before.
But HCL doesn’t really have to make this game more epic than last year’s, but simply repeat the success and bring us more of the same.
The last time around, we saw Peter go from complete obscurity to winning nearly five million dollars over the course of a few days, Texas Mike and Tom Goldstein lose massive sums with some reckless play, and Alan Keating dominate on the two days he played.
This year, we can expect the action to once again revolve around the likes of Peter and Keating, who will certainly come to play some big pots and not shy away from action.
All that remains now is to wait for HCL to announce the remaining players and set up the lineups for particular days, before we can start speculating more on the potential results of this year’s Hustler Casino Live Million Dollar Game.
