Big One for One Drop is the culmination of a long-term collaboration between the poker industry and the charity One Drop, which provides drinking water in the most challlenged regions. Dozens of events have already taken place under the auspices of this organization with buy-ins starting at $1,111 and ending at an astronomical price tag of millions.
The history of the Big One
The tournament with the characteristic name Big One for One Drop made its premiere in 2012, when it took the entire poker community by storm. The million dollar buy-in was paid out 48 times, but the winner of this tournament, Antonio Esfandiari, took home a record $18,346,673. For many years, this amount became the highest individual prize ever won in poker, until it was surpassed in 2019 by Bryn Kenney in the million-dollar Triton event.
Since this premiere, three more editions have taken place, but they have never surpassed the aforementioned year of 2012. In 2014, the best of 42 entries was Dan Colman ($15,306,668), who beat Daniel Negreanu in heads-up, in 2016 in the field made up of 28 entries, Elton Tsang became the winner for $12,248,912, but for now the last champion is Justin Bonomo from 2018, who collected exactly $10 million for the win.
Will the fifth edition be a record-breaking one?
It's no news that One Drop changed his partner this year as he moved from the summer WSOP to the WPT series. In December, a huge festival with the attribute World Championship will take place, which was written about mainly because of the Main Event and its record guarantee of 40 million dollars.
The aforementioned Big One for One Drop will be a part of this festival, which will delight players with the historically smallest fee, where the casino will take only 1%. From each buy-in, 6% will go to the foundation's account ($60,000), the goal of which is to "continue the mission of ensuring the basic needs, hygiene and safety of those who need it most".
The first big name
Even though the date of this tournament (December 18-20) is still quite far away, the world media has already managed to stir up one name. It is none other than one of the most legendary and best players of all time, Phil Ivey himself, who announced his participation in this tournament at a press conference. "Everyone's game is improving as they play higher stakes, so we have a lot to look forward to!" he concluded.
What do you think, will it be possible to break the 11-year record and see more than 50 entries in this tournament. What name would you like to see in the game? Let us know in the comments on our social networks!
Source: PokerNews, WPT, X (twitter), flickr
