The Onyx Cup: Full Tilt's $100k To $300k New Live Tournament Series

This week Full Tilt Poker announced it was organising a new high-roller live tournament series known as the Onyx Cup.
With buy-ins ranging from $100,000 to $300,000, the six high-stakes tournaments will have a combined prize pool worth around $30 million. In addition, points will be awarded for players finishing in the top three of each event with a Onyx Cup champion crowned at the end of the series.
Further details emerging about the Onyx Cup is that the first two event will take place in Las Vegas starting May 11th, followed by two events in Asia in September and finally two events in Europe come October.
Commenting on the new high-stakes Onyx Cup series, Phil Ivey said: “It’s not just about the money in this event. It’s more about playing with the calibre of players that we’re going to be up against – playing against the best players. A lot of these guys here at the table are my friends and we’re friendly but we’re also super competitive against each other.”
However, despite the opportunity for poker fans to see a nosebleed-stakes tour where the games top pros compete against each other at the highest stakes, there have been other fans less excited by the prospect.
Criticism of the new series include Full Tilt pros being drawn away from PokerStars’ sponsored European Poker Tour (EPT) events taking place around the same time.
Also, some view the Onyx Cup as something which separates the Full Tilt pros from all other players. As a forum poster called Percival wrote on pokernews.com:
“Where’s their [talented amateurs] chance to compete in a super-high stakes contest or MAJOR, less coming up with $100,000? The PGA awards the Nation’s top amateur, and Public Links Champion, an invitation to the US Open. This is a bad ass model that Poker could learn from.”
However, despite the different views on the matter, the announcement of the Onyx Cup has already created a certain level of excitement, which is sure to only increase as the May kick-off date approaches.