Name: The Stack — CISO Poker Championship
Start: 2026-08
End: 2026-08
Location: TBA — Las Vegas

The Honest Case

We know what you're thinking.

You've been to a thousand vendor events. You know how this goes. Here's why this one is different — and we'll let you decide.

What you're thinking

"It's just another sponsored open bar."

It's usually true. You show up, get a drink, see the same 6 people you already know, and leave in 45 minutes. Your badge got scanned. Someone will email you on Monday. You've forgotten the company name by Friday.

What this actually is

"A tournament changes the math entirely."

There's no pitch because nobody needs to pitch. You're there to play cards and compete for The Stack — a security and privacy prize pack the sponsors are assembling. The Stack contributors are at the table with you, not behind a booth. And between hands, anonymous table kiosks turn the room's read into a live scoreboard — you leave with peer signal, not a logo'd tote. Three hours goes fast when you have skin in the game.

What you're thinking

"I have better things to do Wednesday night."

That might be true. There's no shortage of events that week. Half of them are better funded than this one.

What this actually is

"75 peers, no vendor pressure, and a shot at the sponsor-backed prize pack."

The room is curated — CISOs from companies like yours, not junior SDRs with a quota. FeltIQ runs anonymously all night, so you see what 75 peers actually think on the questions you can't ask out loud. The break conversation is worth the night alone, the prize is worth winning, and 5% of every sponsor dollar goes straight to WiCyS, Let's Encrypt, and Shadowserver. You'll have a story for RSAC.

What you're thinking

"Whatever they're 'donating' is probably free trials."

Fair. Most event prizes are. A Yeti cooler with a logo. A gift card. Something you'll never use.

What this actually is

"Real security and privacy tools from the sponsors — not swag."

The prize pack is security- and privacy-focused, contributed by the sponsors and assembling now — PortSwigger is in, with more rolling in through August. And you don't need to win the whole table: every player draws a randomized NFC bounty chip at check-in, each loaded with real sponsor-contributed access. Nobody leaves with a gift card.

Request
your seat.

Seats are limited to 75–100 attendees and filled from a curated waitlist. Applications open now. Official event details drop in early June — seat notifications go out in June. The event is during DEF CON / Black Hat / BSides week 2026 in Las Vegas.

Hosted by CyberAdX Network & CISO Marketplace
Presented by The Stack coalition — contributors revealed rolling May–August.
events.cisomarketplace.com · cisonearme.com

Questions: [email protected]

♠ Chip detected Your chip token has been linked to this application.

* Required

Your Name * Title * Role context * Company * Work Email * Enter a valid work email address. LinkedIn (optional) Enter a valid LinkedIn URL. Company Size * Industry (optional) Poker Skill Level (optional) T-Shirt Size (optional)

Events Attending This Week (optional — select all that apply)

Black Hat USA BSides LV DEF CON 34 Just The Stack

If the tournament fills up (optional)

We may expand capacity based on demand. Would you like to stay in the room as a cash game?

Yes, keep me in the room Tournament only

Partner / Referral Code (optional)

Venue Facility Gaming License Requirements I understand the venue may require ID verification, age confirmation (21+), or a players card under their gaming license — this is a venue requirement, not CISO.POKER's. *

Film Event Videography & Social Media I understand this event may be filmed for marketing and social media. General play footage is de-identified, and final table streaming is a separate opt-in. An additional photography/videography consent form will be provided onsite at check-in. *

FeltIQ Intelligence Platform Active at This Event I understand FeltIQ debuts at this event as an anonymous, optional intelligence platform — participation is voluntary throughout the tournament, and no responses are tied to my application or play. I have read the FeltIQ Terms & Data Use Agreement. *

Official details drop in early June. Seat notifications in June — two confirmations required to hold your spot. Day-of check-in at the door. No SDRs, BDRs, or vendor sales staff.

DEF CON / Black Hat / BSides week, Las Vegas Strip. Black Hat Day 1 Briefings are done. DEF CON opens the next morning. The tournament runs approximately three hours. Exact start time (afternoon or evening) depends on final venue selection and is confirmed to approved applicants by June. Here's the structure either way.

Pre-game

Doors Open — Cocktails, Buffet & Registration

You check in, get your chip stack, find your table. Open bar and buffet running from the moment you walk in — and they keep going through the tournament. No badge scan. No lanyard required. You know some people in the room already. You'll know more by the end of the night.

Start

The Stack Revealed

Three minutes. The Stack is unveiled — all five contributors, what the winner takes home. One sentence from each sponsor. Then cards in the air.

+5 min

★ Cards In the Air

75–100 players. 8–10 professional tables. WSOP-caliber dealers. 15-minute blind levels. You play. The contributors play. Nobody is pitching anything. For three hours, you're just a card player.

~Mid-tournament

Structural Breaks — Chip Counts & Real Conversations

A couple of dedicated breaks baked into the tournament structure — chip counts posted, dealer rotations, blind level resets. Food and drinks have been flowing since doors opened, so the breaks are about regrouping, not feeding. This is when it gets interesting. Eliminated players are loose. Chip leaders are confident. Everyone has something to talk about that isn't a product roadmap.

+2.5 hr

★ Final Table

The room consolidates around the last 9 players. The entire room watches. This is the moment everyone in the room is thinking about the same thing at the same time. That's rare at a conference.

+3 hr

Winner Crowned — The Stack Is Awarded

The Stack contributions go home with one CISO. Each sponsor gets 60 seconds to describe their contribution — what it does, not what it costs. Then the bar reopens and the night is whatever you want it to be.

Post-tournament

Post-Tournament — Open Format · ~2 hours

No agenda. No one is going to corner you with a deck. You've spent three hours with 75 peers. You know who's interesting. Go find them at the bar.

Seats are application-only and curated by the CyberAdX team based on title, company size, and security program maturity. This is not a first-come-first-served signup.

🔐

CISOs & Security Leaders

Enterprise and mid-market CISOs, VPs of Security, and Directors of Information Security. The people who actually run security programs and control budgets.

🏢

Company Size: Mid to Enterprise

Attendees are curated from companies with real security programs — not startups with a single IT person wearing the CISO hat. Meaningful peer conversation requires meaningful peer context.

🌐

Industry Mix

Healthcare, financial services, energy, SaaS, manufacturing, government. The security problems in this room span every vertical. Which means the conversations do too.

🎯

Mixed at the Tables

A small number of seats are reserved for sponsor representatives, professional poker players, and select industry guests. Mixed across the tables, never concentrated — CISOs remain the majority at every felt. Three hours of cards is the best icebreaker in the industry.

🚫

No Vendors. No SDRs. No Quotas.

Sales reps, BDRs, account executives, and anyone with a pipeline number are not invited. The tournament format creates natural accountability — everyone is there to play, not prospect.

📋

Application Required

Request a seat below. The CyberAdX curation team reviews every application. Official event details drop in early June — seat notifications go out in June.

"Three finishing positions. Community moments throughout. Everything donated — no buy-ins, no cash, no strings."

The Stack is assembled from donated product access and community contributions — built by the people in this room, awarded at the table. No cash equivalent. No renewal pressure. No upsells.

First, second, and third each walk out with something real — third place locks in The Pocket, a Nitrokey privacy & hardware-security kit. The Bubble (last out before the final table) takes a 1-year PortSwigger license. Beyond that, community contributors hand out recognition all night — High Hand, Bad Beat, and more.

Contributors are being finalized and revealed rolling through August. The full stack is announced at the event.

The Stack — Finishing Position Contributions

Donated Community Access

First · Second · Third · Plus felt moments throughout

1st place — Sponsor-contributed prize pack (assembling)
2nd place — Sponsor-contributed prize pack (assembling)
3rd place — The Pocket: a Nitrokey privacy & hardware-security kit
The Bubble — last out before the final table: 1-year professional license (PortSwigger)
+ Felt moments: High Hand · Bad Beat · and more
+ Mystery bounty chips — community-contributed digital access, revealed on knockout

Questions

What people
actually ask.

Do I need poker experience?

No. Texas Hold'em is a game of incomplete information — which is a skill set most security executives have in abundance. Dealers will briefly explain the structure at the start. Players range from occasional home-game participants to serious students of the game. You don't need to be either to have a good night.

Is there really no buy-in?

Correct. Entry is free for all approved attendees. Tournament chips are provided with registration. No money changes hands. The prize is donated product access, not cash — which is why CISO.POKER itself doesn't require a gaming license. The venue (Las Vegas Strip casino) does have its own gaming-license-required entry compliance though — see the check-in & security FAQ below for the ID / age / players card details.

How are seats allocated?

Every application is reviewed by the CyberAdX curation team against three criteria: title (qualifying security executive role), company size (mid-market to enterprise), and program maturity. Here's the timeline once you apply:

Early May — Official event details released publicly.
June — Seat notifications go out. Approved applicants receive a confirmation email and must confirm their spot to hold it.
~2 weeks out — A second confirmation is required to finalize attendance. This is how we keep the tournament full — DEF CON / Black Hat / BSides week is busy and we respect that people have conflicts.
Day of — Check-in is required at the door. This is an invite-only event; seats are non-transferable and cannot be passed to a colleague.

Late arrivals & waitlist backfill: Tournament starts on time. There's roughly a 15-minute grace period for late arrivals to claim their seat. After that, empty seats may be backfilled from the waitlist — typically waitlisted CISOs who are already on the casino floor playing the public cash game tables. The grace window closes around the 30-minute mark. If you can no longer attend after confirming, let us know as early as possible so we can pull from the waitlist directly.

Will I be filmed or recorded?

The event may be professionally filmed for recap and promotional use. An additional photography/videography consent form will be provided onsite at check-in — your application acknowledgment is preliminary; the explicit, granular consent (face blurring, full opt-out, identifying info usage) is captured in person on event day. Privacy is a first-class concern: no names, titles, or company affiliations will be used in any footage without explicit consent. What's said at the tables stays at the tables.

Is the final table streamed live?

We are exploring a live stream of the final table in the style of poker broadcast production. Participation is opt-in — if you make the final table and prefer not to be on stream, that will be respected, no questions asked. Players who do participate can choose how they're identified on stream — handle, title only, or anonymous. Details will be confirmed closer to the event.

Can I bring a guest or colleague?

Each attendee applies individually. If a colleague also meets the criteria and wants to attend, they should submit their own application. Qualifying roles include CISO, VP Security, Director of Information Security, vCISO, Compliance / Risk Officer, Privacy Officer / DPO, and Legal Counsel with security & privacy focus — self-attested in the application's role context dropdown and reviewed by the curation team. Plus-ones, assistants, and colleagues without a qualifying security executive role are not admitted to the tournament floor.

Who else is in the room?

CISOs and security leaders from mid-market and enterprise companies across multiple verticals. A handful of sponsor representatives, professional poker players, and select industry guests are mixed across the tables. No vendors, no SDRs, no one with a sales quota. The application process exists specifically to maintain the composition of the room.

What happens if I get eliminated early?

The bar stays open and the room stays active. Eliminated players typically have the best conversations of the night — no pressure, nowhere to be. Buffet-style food and open bar run throughout the entire event, with a couple of structural breaks baked into the tournament for chip counts and regrouping. Post-tournament format is open and casual for ~2 hours after the winner is crowned. If cash games are your thing, participants receive a voucher to continue playing at the venue's cash game tables after the tournament wraps.

Is there a cash bar or is it all included?

All included. Open bar and buffet-style food run from doors open through the post-tournament social — you're not paying for anything on-site. Food and drinks aren't gated to a single break; they're continuous. The structural breaks during the tournament are for chip counts and regrouping, not for feeding.

What's a mystery bounty?

Every player draws a randomized NFC bounty chip at check-in. The prize on your chip is a mystery — sponsor-contributed digital access, tools, or licenses from the prize pool. When you knock someone out, you permanently collect their bounty chip. The prize reveals on the spot via NFC scan. You never lose bounties you've already collected — only your own original chip stays on your head. It keeps every elimination interesting regardless of your stack.

What's the deal with the NFC poker chips?

Every approved applicant receives an NFC-tagged poker chip — your seat credential. Most people get theirs at check-in on event day; some approved applicants receive one in advance in the weeks leading up to the event. Either way, no one walks in without one. Tap it with your phone to pull up your seat profile. At check-in you'll also draw a bounty chip (mystery prize) and pick up an optional anonymous FeltIQ token. All three are yours to keep. The chips stay active after the event — tap them anytime to reach your profile, and they carry into future CISO.POKER events.

Will there be poker pros at the event?

We're scouting professional players to join the table for the day. They play in the same tournament under the same rules — no special treatment, no commentary role. Just another seat at the table that you might have to bust.

Are there cash games before, during, or after the tournament?

The CISO.POKER tournament happens on a public Las Vegas Strip casino floor with active cash game tables adjacent — those are the venue's own cash games, run by the venue's dealers, separate from CISO.POKER's curated tournament. The cash games are public to anyone on the casino floor and run continuously.

Before the tournament: early arrivals and waitlisted CISOs can warm up at the venue cash game tables.
During the tournament (15–30 min in): waitlisted CISOs at the cash tables are the primary backfill pool when registered tournament seats open up due to late arrivals.
After the tournament: tournament participants are expected to receive a venue voucher to continue playing in the cash game. Completely optional, no pressure, just there if you want to keep the night going.

Final venue details and cash game logistics confirmed to approved applicants closer to the event.

What happens at check-in & what's the security situation?

Two layers of entry, both apply:

Casino floor entry — the venue is a licensed Las Vegas Strip casino with its own gaming-license-required entry compliance: government-issued photo ID verification, age confirmation (21+), and possibly a venue players card or rewards enrollment. These are venue requirements, not CISO.POKER requirements — we cooperate with the venue but don't control them. See Terms of Service §3 for the full disclosure.

CISO.POKER check-in — name verified against the approved registration list, T-shirt size confirmed, photography/videography consent form completed onsite (this is when granular face-blurring and stream opt-out preferences are captured — your application acknowledgment was preliminary). Private security is on-site to ensure registered attendees only access the tournament floor and the room composition stays as curated.

You'll receive specific check-in instructions (location, ID requirements, arrival window) in your seat confirmation email.

Three hours.
No pitches.
The Stack.

We know what you're thinking.

Request
your seat.

Nitrokey

PortSwigger

CISO.DIY

GeneratePolicy

CyberPolicy.shop

What people
actually ask.

Three hours.No pitches.The Stack.

We know what you're thinking.

Requestyour seat.

Nitrokey

PortSwigger

CISO.DIY

GeneratePolicy

CyberPolicy.shop

What peopleactually ask.

Wear the night. Back the cause.

Three hours.
No pitches.
The Stack.

Request
your seat.

What people
actually ask.