And 1st place received €11,111,111.

[bobAlike]

So they took 3 milly in fees for a 28 entry tourney? Nice

It's fashionable to knock the WSOP (& Jack Effel) but that's not really fair Mr Greek Bloke.

This is from the official Press Release.....

"Twenty-six players took to the felt in the largest buy-in poker tournament ever held – 1,000,000 euros, and at the end of it all, more than €3,000,000 was raised for One Drop"

"The WSOP began working with ONE DROP in 2012, creating the Big One for ONE DROP event, the first-ever $1 million buy-in poker tournament, which included an 11.11% charitable component.  Since the WSOP-ONE DROP alliance was formed, more than $17,000,000 in proceeds has been raised for ONE DROP via the CIE/WSOP platform."


I'm sure some will point out that the WSOP made a few bob, too. Well fair play to them, at least they helped raise a few bob for a really good charity. Which is a sight more than many Poker Businesses have done.

It may surprise you to hear but I don't usually follow many poker related stories and as such I didn't know this was a charity donation. I take the comment back and well played.

No surprise there, I've yet to meet a Greek sort who knew much about poker.

  

Oi! true though

[dino1980]

I was lucky enough to be there covering this event. Some thoughts...

I think they dropped the ball by not allowing the pros into the side events. Some didn't run, some had low numbers (two for the HU event for example) and by the final day they allowed pros into the €100,000 side event, the largest buy-in of the lot. The festival started on Thursday and by the Saturday they'd allowed pros into cash games if there were no objections. It should be said that I only saw four pros (five if JRB is a pro?) in the cash games and there were four to five games running. The pros in the cash games were all drinking, conversing, having fun etc and had been attending the event primarily as coaches to a player in the Big One. There were some serious games, stakes from 25/50 to 1,000/2,000 but man you could feel the general bonhomie of a group of men and woman who weren't going to be affected if they lost a six of seven-figure pot, it was remarkable how relaxed it was.

The Main Event was exactly what it was meant to be and so different to covering normal poker events. Two pairs of headphones total, one of which belonged to Voulgaris, who's the most chatty, entertaining, funny guy at most tables he finds himself at. The other to Shak who only ever wore them if he needed to shut out noise from other players. There was zero stalling on a €1,500,000 bubble and no slow play. This despite three players having less than starting stack on the bubble <5bigs. Was a beautiful thing.

There's been some criticism of numbers, and I think 35 was the expected field size, so that's fair. While there was a TV crew there filming for a later release I was surprised there was no video crew there doing daily videos like PN do at EPT events.

Geek point, on a final table that lasted for 273 hands and began eight handed, the eventual winner (who was not the chip leader when the final table began) had amassed more chips by hand #3 of the final table than anyone else ever would. Bonkers. I've covered many a final table and have seen wire to wire winners, zero to hero winners but never anything like this.

Lastly, the venue itself was incredible and fitting for such an event and the organisation etc was top rate.

P.S. I think 'closed' events are generally a bad idea for poker as one of the greatest thing about this game is how democratic it is and that no matter who you are, as long as you have the buy-in you're welcome. But, this was an exception that felt right and was very much down to Guy's decision, which I can't imagine why anyone would be upset with. I'm sure the next Big One will be open to all.

[dino1980]

Oops, quoted instead of modifying.

[SuuPRlim]

(five if JRB is a pro?)

Very few pro gamblers earn more money than JRB at gambling per/year!

[FUN4FRASER]

I was lucky enough to be there covering this event. Some thoughts...

I think they dropped the ball by not allowing the pros into the side events. Some didn't run, some had low numbers (two for the HU event for example) and by the final day they allowed pros into the €100,000 side event, the largest buy-in of the lot. The festival started on Thursday and by the Saturday they'd allowed pros into cash games if there were no objections. It should be said that I only saw four pros (five if JRB is a pro?) in the cash games and there were four to five games running. The pros in the cash games were all drinking, conversing, having fun etc and had been attending the event primarily as coaches to a player in the Big One. There were some serious games, stakes from 25/50 to 1,000/2,000 but man you could feel the general bonhomie of a group of men and woman who weren't going to be affected if they lost a six of seven-figure pot, it was remarkable how relaxed it was.

The Main Event was exactly what it was meant to be and so different to covering normal poker events. Two pairs of headphones total, one of which belonged to Voulgaris, who's the most chatty, entertaining, funny guy at most tables he finds himself at. The other to Shak who only ever wore them if he needed to shut out noise from other players. There was zero stalling on a €1,500,000 bubble and no slow play. This despite three players having less than starting stack on the bubble <5bigs. Was a beautiful thing.

There's been some criticism of numbers, and I think 35 was the expected field size, so that's fair. While there was a TV crew there filming for a later release I was surprised there was no video crew there doing daily videos like PN do at EPT events.

Geek point, on a final table that lasted for 273 hands and began eight handed, the eventual winner (who was not the chip leader when the final table began) had amassed more chips by hand #3 of the final table than anyone else ever would. Bonkers. I've covered many a final table and have seen wire to wire winners, zero to hero winners but never anything like this.

Lastly, the venue itself was incredible and fitting for such an event and the organisation etc was top rate.

P.S. I think 'closed' events are generally a bad idea for poker as one of the greatest thing about this game is how democratic it is and that no matter who you are, as long as you have the buy-in you're welcome. But, this was an exception that felt right and was very much down to Guy's decision, which I can't imagine why anyone would be upset with. I'm sure the next Big One will be open to all.

Great Report & Observations .

Thank you