Big One for One Drop Photo Gallery

by , Jul 1, 2012 | 2:27 pm

Cirque du Soleil drums pounding in the Rio Amazon room, a crowd of poker fans with phone cameras aloft, the WSOP’s first ever $1 million buy-in tournament started Sunday afternoon. Guy Laliberte’s One Drop charity, which helps provides safe drinking water worldwide, sponsored the event and had raised more than $5.8 million.

The 48-player tournament is a veritable who’s who of the poker world — Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu, Bobby Baldwin, Mike Sexton, Antonio Esfandiari, “Elky” Bertrand Grospellier, Jason Mercier, Phil Galfond, Gus Hanson, Roland De Wolfe, Haralabos Voulgaris, among others.

More than an hour into the tournament, however, fans were still awaiting a (grand?) entrance from 12-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, known for his self-aggrandizing late arrivals in big tournaments.


7 Comments to “Big One for One Drop Photo Gallery”


  1. Dan Michalski
    says:

    It’s nice to see a charity event where the amount donated and the prize pool all actually add up.


  2. Dan Michalski
    says:

    How did Antonio get in? And who won the big satellite yesterday?


  3. Dave Ferrara
    says:

    Update: Hellmuth arrived rather uneventfully. That is to say: without a chariot or an entourage of bikini-clad ladies.


  4. Dave Ferrara
    says:

    Antonio bought in, as far as I know. Hansen won the satellite at Rio last night, and Hellmuth won a VIP satty at MGM.


  5. Dan Michalski
    says:

    interesting for antonio. must be all that Victory Poker money, lol.


  6. Dave Ferrara
    says:

    The noticeable absence, of course, is Doyle Brunson.


  7. Dan Michalski
    says:

    and yeah, so interesting on brunson not playing. did he give any indication as why he didn’t consider it? i would think playing in the biggest buy-in event ever (in Las Vegas) would be a matter of pride for him.