When One Drop is mentioned, people immediately associate this charity with a huge poker event. The historic first million dollar event was dominated by Antonio Esfandiari back in 2012, who went down in history for many years with a massive $18,346,673 payout. In 2014, a similar thing happened to Daniel Colman, who beat Daniel Negreanu in heads-up for $15,306,668. The third version took place in Monte-Carlo, and this time professionals were prohibited from entering it (Elton Tsang became the champion for €11,111,111).
The last, fourth edition of the $1,000,000 buy-in event took place in July 2018 during the WSOP, when 22 world stars played for massive financial rewards. After a thrilling final table and heads-up between Fedor Holz and Justin Bonomo, the second-named finally enjoyed the win, and with this hit he experienced incredible heater, which in the course of one year catapulted him to the top of the world all-time money list (where is until today)!
While we're taking these trips back in time, we also have to mention the smaller versions of the One Drop events, which carried a more affordable, but still astronomical $111,111 buy-in. Here, the champion was, for example, Doug Polk, who has become more and more popular these days (for less than 3.7 million dollars), or Dominik Nitsche, who won the bracelet along with 3.5 million euros at King's in Rozvadov.
The hot news of the last few days is the announcement that one of the biggest events in history will return this year, again with a million dollar buy-in, again in Las Vegas, but instead of the summer WSOP, it will become part of the December WPT World festival Championship. The skyrocketing series will thus gain a valuable scalp, which will once again help a good cause - 6% of every buy-in will go directly to the account of the One Drop Foundation, which provides drinking water in at-risk areas.
"The Big One for One Drop is an iconic event for the entire poker world. We are honored and very pleased that this incredible event can be part of our Las Vegas WPT Championship at the Wynn Casino. The million-dollar buy-in is proof of how far the poker industry can grow, but it also proves the evolution of the World Poker Tour series," declared WPT Series CEO Adam Pliska.
The aforementioned WPT Championship festival has had a successful premiere, when it broke several records in no time last year. A total of 2,960 entries in this tournament produced a prizepool of 29 million dollars, making this event the largest sub-million dollar buy-in tournament in history (excluding ME WSOP). If we also count WSOP Main Events and million-dollar tournaments, we are talking about the 21st largest tournament in terms of prize pool in history. The aforementioned One Drop will certainly help the event with its prestige this year, so will we again witness the rewriting of historical rankings?
Source: WPT, OneDrop, Wikipedia, PokerNews,
