Chamath Palihapitiya Plans to Revolutionise High Stakes Tournament Poker

Former Facebook executive and Social Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya has announced plans to launch a new high-stakes tournament series that revolutionises the landscape.

The billionaire entrepreneur has long been known to enjoy the occasional flurry into the world of high-stakes poker, but now it looks like he wants to start cleaning up the scene from all of the little annoyances which have crept into the game over the last two decades.

My friends and I are considering starting a new hi limit poker tournament circuit in the US. Millions in payouts per tournament (think Triton++) but some conditions:

1. There will be drug tests. You can’t be on any drugs including any performance enhancing drugs like Ritalin or…

— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) February 19, 2025

Chamath Palihapitiya’s New Vision for High Stakes Poker

Chamath Palihapitiya posted his tweet a few days ago with a series of tweaks that he thinks will improve tournament poker as a spectacle and also remove some minor annoyances, but does he really have his finger on the pulse.

Although we know he’s a keen poker player, he’s not exactly embedded deeply in the game. New rules and a fresh approach is always appealing to some degree, but do we really need it?

Another major super high-stakes series would always be welcome. The Triton Super High Roller Series has quickly become a fan favourite, also fixing a few things along the way, such as the ever present shot clock.

What Will Be Different?

So, what are the main talking points after a few days worth of replies to the Canadian’s thread?

First up is the intent to drug test players. Without joking too much, how many players is this likely to put off? And, more to the point, does poker have a drug problem?

Palihapitiya stated:

“There will be drug tests. You can’t be on any drugs including any performance enhancing drugs like Ritalin or Adderall.”

Well, both of the mentioned drugs are prescribed widely across the United States for legitimate reasons, according to physicians. It is unknown how many poker players use these compounds on a regular basis, but Palihapitiya claims that they are widely abused.

The problem is poker players abuse these drugs during big games and tournaments. Not fair for those of us who don’t do them and gives the folks taking them a clear edge at times, especially during late runs.

— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) February 19, 2025

One poster brought up beta blockers which are banned in several sports such as golf, darts, archery and shooting. Would they be banned? This doesn’t look to have been thought through too deeply.

What about nootropics? Same thing, just not provided under a prescription service. How would this be policed?

Alcohol, on the other hand, appears to have been welcomed, no doubt annoying more than a few tee-totalers who dislike being around people drinking.

On a more positive note, the next suggestion will please a lot of players. Participants must play with their faces fully visible. That means no sunglasses, hoodies, or masks allowed. Prescription glasses are all players can wear on their faces.

Finally, Palihapitiya wants to make sure that the tournament format is up to scratch for the mega buy-ins he’s suggesting. Not a turbo nor an “11 day nit-fest”, he wrote. This is kind of obvious, really.

The high-stakes crowd will make their feelings known pretty quickly if something like this is way off target before they start travelling, particularly those who need to cross the Atlantic.

What Do the Crowd Think?

There were plenty of interesting replies to Chamath Palihapitiya’s post. Andy Bloch suggested chess-style clocks where players can clearly see how much time they have left to make their decisions.

He also thought of a rule to stop this pattern of players betting all-in except one chip which sometimes leads to mistakes from opponents who don’t realise their tournament life isn’t at risk. Tom Dwan agreed with this but couldn’t come up with a clear rule of how to do it.

There were also more chess-style suggestions like having some kind of a rating system combined with leagues. That would certainly shake up the scene no matter what stakes we’re talking about. GGPoker does, in fact, have a rating system for its Spin & Gold tournaments.

Make it like the Triton Invitationals… Business men must invite a pro for them to be able to play.

Keeping the ratio of Recs to Pros at a reasonable ratio will keep recs coming back as they have a better shot to win and a more enjoyable experience overall

— Chance Kornuth (@ChancesCards) February 19, 2025

One of the more controversial ideas was to copy the Triton Invitational events where rich businessmen get to invite a single professional. Chance Kornuth thought this would keep the “Recs to Pros” ratio reasonable but is that what we really want?

Building a tournament series to rival Triton would be amazing so why should we be excluding the very players we want to see?

We’ll give the final word to GGPoker ambassador Fedor Holz.

“Triton has done literally exactly all the good things that would need to be done. Drugs are not a problem, what are you on about? People excessively hiding themselves also not a problem. If you want to run it in the US, just copy-paste it and bring your friends to play, then it’ll run.”

This sounds fair enough. Triton has indeed nailed everything it set out to do, surprising even the most hardened naysayers.

As far as we are aware, there is no data on how many poker players abuse the likes of ritalin and adderall to gain an edge. All a ban would achieve there is to potentially exclude a subsection of the community.

And the whole hoodie thing isn’t really as prevalent in high-stakes events, but more so in lower buy-in tournaments.

A carbon copy of the Triton Super High Roller Series built to suit players in the North American community would be a great hit, we think.

If it’s not broken, don’t try and fix it, right?

There’s one point we should leave this discussion on. Chamath Palihapitiya is a billionaire who knows how to get things done. He will certainly have listened to the feedback on his ideas and will likely come back at a later date with an update. Until then, we just have to wait and see what happens.