Poker Players Gone Wild: Going Overboard With Buy-Ins

Daniel Negreanu

We start with Kid Poker, specifically Negreanu’s making noise at the 2025 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event which carries a $26k buy-in and a very lofty $60 Million USD guarantee, one that Dainel called “bonkers”. This is for many reasons, this is the biggest tournament guarantee ever posted by any poker room or organization, and comes a year after posting the previous biggest tournament guarantee of $50 miillion USD that was just missed as 1,978 players played the Super Main Event. 

For it to not overlay in 2025, 2,400 players will need to buy-in to make the guarantee, which was in fact met part way through day 1D when the 2,400th entrant bought in, meeting the record guarantee and setting up for a massive payday for the final table.

It got there thanks in part to Negreanu, who fired 10 times, costing him $260,000 USD. For him to profit, he’ll need a very deep run. To compare, in the 2024 event, Negreanu would have needed a 22nd place to break even.  This year, because of the larger prize pool, he only needed to get to 39th place but Negreanu ultimately ended up in 286th place for a $55,000 payout.

But this isn’t the first time Negreanu has fired multiple times into a poker tournament. Back in 2009, he walked up to the cage at the Rio during the WSOP 47 times to register into a $1k event, believed to be a record to this day for the number of re-buys by one player in one tournament. 

He believed that the tournament suited his style, and if he could run a stack up, he would be difficult to beat. As it turned out, he did not cash, losing the $48k and prompting organizers to abandon the re-buy format, as they did not want pros to look like they were buying a bracelet. The WSOP of course did bring the re-buys back a couple of years later, branding them as re-entries.

Daniel went crazy a few years before this – although not to the same degree, when he re-bought 27 times into another $1k event at the 2004 WSOP. This time he was fortunate to cash and make the final table, winning just over $100k for finishing third.

Parker Talbot

The Canadian online poker pro and Team PokerStars played in the PartyPoker Millions that took place at the Playground Poker Club outside of Montreal, Quebec back in 2018 where it was reported that he bought into each of the five opening flights and took a re-buy on each flight, only to bust each flight. 

Once you added up the costs, he invested $53,000 CAD into the tournament and didn’t even get to Day 2. Had he gotten through to one of the day 2’s, he would have had to run hot all the way to 16th place to make a profit on the trip. Given the depth of the field, one would have had to think that this would have been an almost impossible task, but nothing is impossible to Tonkaaa!

Scott Seiver

Scott Seiver tried the Daniel Negreanu approach to a 2022 WSOP event where he bought 43 times into the initial stage of the Flip N Go tournament. All he had to do was hold one of those hands to get into the money, but the statistical gods were against him, as he busted all 43 of those attempts, losing $43k in the process. 

Thankfully his 2022 WSOP got off to a fabulous start where we won event #3, a $2,500 freezeout for over $320k, so even with holding the unofficial record in the flip n go tournament, the summer was still a profitable one for Seiver with his fourth gold bracelet.

Ryan LaPlante

Ryan LaPlante talked about times that he has fired many times in a tournament. Once he went 12 times in a tournament and spoke of his thought process of going ahead with firing again, to him, if this tournament is tough or not, and what your perceived edge is. 

If he believes that he has an edge, even with 12BB, he’ll fire again and again, even if that’s 10 or more bullets into one event. If he’s comfortable with the variance and can make this next bullet profitable he’ll go. Wonder if some of the next pros on our list were thinking that way.

2025 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event

So back to The Bahamas where we have reports of poker players hitting the cashier cage multiple times and it’s not just Daniel Negreanu either. Many top pros saw the value in buying and buying in again to the $25k Super Main Event, partially because of the lofty $60 Million guarantee but also because of the ability to make a profit firing more than once. 

In the end, some got carried away with that. We already talked about Daniel Negreanu firing 8 times but believe it or not, someone fired more.

Michael Moneck: 14 Bullets ($364,000 USD)

The title of Most Bullets Fired at the Super Main Event went to American pro Michael Moneck, who did not fire once on any of the day 1 flights, but when the day 2’s rolled around, Moneck came to play regardless of the outcome. He sent 7 bullets per day 2 off, paying $364,000 USD to attempt to win the bracelet and the $10 million top prize. 

On his 14th and final bullet on day 2B, he finally built a stack to make the money, ending up in 165th place to cash for $70,000.

Stephen Chidwick – 13 Bullets – $338,000 USD

Stephen Chidwick came loaded with money to The Bahamas and on day 2A of the Super Main Event, he unloaded an entire holster. The UK pro fired 7 times on day 2A and while he did make the money, earning $50k – or two more bullets – he did suffer a nasty cooler near the end of play, when he ran pocket tens into Jack-Ten offsuit on a board that flopped Jack-Jack-Ten.  

So while Chidwick isn’t going to leave The Bahamas totally empty handed, he is leaving Atlantis with much less baggage. Day 2B was no kinder to Chidwick, as his last bullets all fell short of the money, and he booked a $294k loss.

Other Pros Who Took Multiple Trips to the Cashier Cage

Many pros knew the Super Main was going to be treated like an unlimited re-buy by some poker players, but there were well known players in the field who only fired once, such as Phil Hellmuth Jr, Ari Engel, Lexy Gavin-Mather, and David Benyamine to name a few.

So the debate rages on: are re-buy poker tournaments good for the game long term or are they going to create a two-tier system where only the rich can properly play?