Are you interested in The Monster Stack and what it means within the wider world of professional poker? If the answer is yes, continue reading to find out more.
If you are a professional poker fan, you probably keep up to date with the World Series of Poker either online or in-person when the action unfolds every year in the unofficial home of poker, Las Vegas. If you have tuned in during the past couple of years, however, you are probably also familiar with The Monster Stack and its standing as one of the most popular events of the entire tournament to attract thousands of players and attendees every year. If you are interested in finding out more about this somewhat modern poker phenomenon, continue reading to find out everything there is to know.
A brief history of the event
In 2014, the WSOP introduced a brand-new event by the name of The Monster Stack. It provided every player with a starting stack that was significantly larger than any tournament that had come before it which was relatively unheard of at the time. It may be a widespread belief that professional poker players with a larger stack have a competitive edge over their opponents but The Monster Stack saw the largest stack of the series and, as a result, attracted a staggering 7,862 players desperate to try their hand at this brand-new event. In the years since, it has continued to be a mainstay as WSOP tournaments and a firm favourite of professional poker players with years worth of knowledge and experience under their belt.
A common choice for poker pros
It is clear that, in the years since its 2014 WSOP debut, The Monster Stack has become a popular choice for professional poker players as opposed to amateur poker players during in-person and online tournaments, such as those held on ggpoker.com. It is largely due to the fact that starting a poker match with a larger stack tends to allow for longer playing times with more opportunities to win back any losses which are the types of situations that professional poker players are accustomed to. In comparison to a $1,500 WSOP event when your entire performance can be hindered by a single bad move at the start, for example, a larger stack will allow you to spend more time at the table and make up for lost time.Â
2021’s WSOP Monster Stack winnerÂ
In 2021, Michael Noori completed a career-defining performance at the table to walk away with his first WSOP bracelet and a cash prize of $610,437 in the Monster Stack event. It was during the fourth and final day of the $1,500 Monster Stack event when the professional poker player defeated Ryan Leng after beating over 3,520 entries to claim victory. It is, however, clear from taking a look at the professional player’s past results at the table that he does tend to fare better during mixed games or the act of playing multiple games in rotation by switching from one to another after a predetermined number of hands have been dealt. It remains, nonetheless, a monumental win for an event that, up until 2014, had gone largely unheard of within the wider world of professional poker.Â
If you are a professional poker fan, you have probably heard of The Monster Stack during past tournaments but wondered what exactly it entailed. It is, in the very simplest of terms, an event with a large starting stack that originated at the 2014 WSOP, is a common choice for professional poker players rather than amateur poker players, and was won by Michael Noori during the 2021 WSOP for his first WSOP bracelet and a cash prize of $610,437.
