Poker player Antonio Esfandiari

Antonio Esfandiari

Amer Esfandiari, an American poker player Antonio Esfandiari, received over $18 million for winning The Big One for One Drop poker tournament. This is the largest prize pool in the history of modern poker.

Previously, the largest amount of money received for winning a poker tournament was $ 12 million, which went to Jamie Gold for his successful performance at the WSOP Main Event in 2006.

But back to the Big One tournament. To participate in it, it was necessary to deposit exactly 1 million dollars, and this is also a record for world poker. Note that 10% of this amount went to charity.

In total, the organizers allocated 48 places for participants, and all of them were occupied. Moreover, two of them went to two Moscow businessmen – Ilya Bulychev and Mikhail Smirnov. Looking ahead, let’s say that they played more than worthy. And although they did not get into the prizes, that is, at the final table for 9 people, but Ilya Bulychev took 10th place, becoming a bubble boy. His flush draw after the flop did not close, while Sam Trickett got out of the situation only due to an overcard – a king against a queen.

Who is Antonio Esfandiari

By the way, it was Trickett who eventually reached the heads-up, and received $10.1 million for his second place, which is also one of the five largest cash payments to players.

Third place in the Big One went to David Einhorn ($4.3 million), Phil Ivey’s manager. Ivey himself took part in the tournament, but like many stars – Jonathan Duhamel, Gus Hansen, Bertrand Grospellier, Jason Merce, Phil Galfond, Eric Seidel and others – he dropped out of the race before the “finals”. The only one who supported the reputation of a superstar is Phil Hellmuth, who took an honorable 4th place (2.6 million dollars).

Even after a while, Esfandiari is one of the most successful and richest poker players in history, ranking 16th in the ranking of poker players with the highest total income. During his career, Antonio won $27.8 million in poker. True, since 2019, the player has not been included in the prizes at live tournaments.