A recent release of World Series of Poker learned us that new names came from making their appearance on the list of the players in the poker tournament the most expensive in history, the "Big One for One Drop" tournament. Recall that this tournament is the initiative of the founder of the Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberté and that the buy-in is 1 M$. For each entry, $ 111,111 will be deducted to be delivered to the Organization One Drop.
8 new players are as follows:
-Erik Seidel
-Justin "Boosted J" Smith
-Richard Yong (Asian businessman)
-Paul Phua (Asian businessman)
-Paul Newey (co-founder of New Wave Ventures, LLP)
-Arnaud Mimran (french businessman)
-Cary Katz
-Bob Bright
These people join so the 22 players already registered for this tournament including Guy Laliberté, Bobby Baldwin, Phil Ruffin, Andy Beal, Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan, Tom Dwan, Tony Guoga, Jonathan Duhamel and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. For a short biography of these players, you can visit the site of the tournament in question: biography players The Big One for One Drop.
With 30 names on the list of players, the One Drop body launched in 2007 by Guy Laliberté will be insured for a minimum donation of $ 3.3 million. 20% of places will be paid only and 26, 6 M$ will form the prize pool. A player who finished in the first position of this tournament will win 12,2666,668$, or more than Jamie Gold in 2006. This will be the largest scholarship of history in a poker tournament.
Although this tournament is organized to raise money for a noble cause, it is not unanimous. For example, in an interview with PokerNews Liv Boeree stated:
"Very big tournaments buy-ins are a bad idea because they gather very compact fields and that you do not really need to be super good to prevail. Note that I am not trying to reduce the accomplishments of Erik Seidel, what he has done is extraordinary. I try to explain it is that this kind of tournaments won't teach us nothing. That will win it will have no right to proclaim himself the best players in the world, but it's still like this that people will see. "All this because he had had the means to pay a buy-in to a million dollars."
Vanessa Selbst adds: "I find that stuff is ridiculous and completely devalues the value of a bracelet. Ruined the idea of Poker stats. Things begin to escape us entirely. Already, 100 k tournaments$ or 250 k$ buy-in, this is stupid. Why people are not satisfied tournaments 'High-roller' classical 25 k $? "
Jonathan Duhamel for his part has proved favourable to this kind of tournament. He explains: "I know Guy and it really is a type. I also know its Foundation, One Drop, and I think that's a very good opportunity to raise funds in his favour. Slightly more than 10% of the prize pool will be used to advance the cause of access to water, which could make a lot of money."
Whatever it is, this tournament will take place July 1, 2012, starting at noon at the Rio hotel in Las Vegas. The tournament is caped to 48 entries. Players will begin the tournament with 3 m of chips and the blinds will be 250/500. The winner of this tournament will also win a WSOP bracelet.
For more details on this tournament, you can visit his official website: official website of the tournament The Big One for One Drop.
Discuss this news on PokerCollectif forums: 8 new registrants for the Big One by One Drop
