25 Days of SHRBowl: Tested and Respected

The countdown to the year’s biggest event has begun and over the next 25 days, Poker Central will introduce the entire 2017 Super High Roller Bowl field. From the world’s best high-stakes players, to online crushers and successful businessmen, poker’s most exclusive event has it all. Follow Poker Central’s “25 Days of SHRBowl” to know who will be competing when cards get in the air on May 28th.

The world’s biggest events are where professionals are supposed to compete for millions of dollars of prize money and career defining titles. Don’t tell that to Cary Katz, Dan Shak and Bill Klein though. They’ve kicked in the High Roller door and crashed the party on multiple occasions throughout their careers, while earning respect and building resumes that prove they can do much more than just compete with the best in the world.

It is no secret that ARIA is the home to the best High Roller action in the world and in 2016, Cary Katz crushed the ARIA High Roller series. The player that was instrumental in the early development of the series cashed fifteen times last year, including four wins and over $3,000,000 in earnings. This year, Katz has already picked up one ARIA win and two other scores to move to the top of ARIA’s all-time cashes list, with 23 career results. 

Outside of ARIA, Katz also final tabled and cashed last year’s €1,000,000 buy-in The Big One for One Drop in Monte Carlo. That result made him one of two players that have ever cashed The Big One more than once, Katz’s first score came in 2014, with Rick Salomon being the only other player to achieve that momentous feat.

Those results have pushed Katz’s career earnings close to $11 million and another player that is nearing eight-figures of career results is Dan Shak. One of the first non-professionals to enter the High Roller arena, Shak, pictured above, has earned the respect of his professional counterparts over the better part of the last decade.

And rightfully so, as Shak has eight career results in $100,000 buy-in events, including two wins. He won the Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge in 2010, good for a $1,100,000 score and two years later, Shak won the PartyPoker.com Premier Poker League for $528,000.

The veteran High Roller also has runner-up finishes in some of the biggest events in the world, including two in the $100,000 Super High Roller from the 2012 and 2014 editions of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Those two results earned Shak over $2 million and outside of those 1-2 finishes, Shak has over two dozen six-figure scores dating back to 2006.

More recently, Shak is the only non-pro to ever cash the Super High Roller Bowl. He finished 7^th for $600,000 in 2016 and while only one player has ever been able to make back-to-back Super High Roller Bowl final tables, that player being Erik Seidel, no one would be surprised to see Shak make another run this summer.

While numerous non-pros have come close in big buy-in WSOP events, none have come closer than Bill Klein. The Californian finished 2^nd in the $111,111 buy-in High Roller for One Drop in 2015, good for a nearly $2,500,000 result and Klein, pictured above, then donated that entire sum to charity, something he’s done with nearly all his $4 million career earnings.

Klein has a wide variety of cashes from smaller WSOP events but the majority of his tournament resume consists of High Roller results. He has nine cashes in events with $25,000 or $50,000 buy-ins and notched four podium finishes in ARIA and Bellagio High Rollers in 2016.

He is also no stranger to the high-stakes cash game arena. He battled in the 2015 Super High Roller Cash Game, which boasted a buy-in of $250,000, and even when the cameras are turned off, Klein never shies away from the highest stakes. Neither do Dan Shak or Cary Katz, meaning all three will be stiff competition come May 28^th.

Tomorrow, “25 Days of SHRBowl” moves into the final week of player features and highlights two of the world’s best High Rollers. Follow Poker Central’s coverage of the year’s biggest event here.