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After Antonio Esfandiari’s amazing $18,346,673 win at the first ever Big One For One Drop – No Limit Hold’em Tournament Tuesday night, he now sits comfortably atop poker’s All Time Money List.
In all, the top nine finishers at the $1 million buy-in One Drop collected a total sum of $42,666,672. 48 players took part in the event.
“It’s better than sex that’s for sure,” Esfandiari proclaimed immediately following Tuesday’s huge win.
The newly crowned One Drop champ beat England’s Sam Trickett, who himself walked off with the third biggest money prize ever awarded in a poker tournament, $10.1 million.
When asked about the last hand and his sweating the last two cards, the flush draw, Esfandiari claimed his heart “wasn’t beating that hard”.
“I just went through the process and I was thinking: Okay here we are. This is the moment. If you fade this flush draw, you win the biggest tournament in history of the world. And that’s it. This is the moment. It’s here, right now. I was like please Jesus, this one time. And I’m pretty sure I used up all my one-times on this tournament, but I’m okay with that. I said earlier if I use my one-times for the next five years in this tournament, I’m happy with that. So, from now on, it’s one more time.”
Now sitting atop Poker’s All Time Money List, Esfandiari’s $ 23,245,828 is well over the previous top money grabber, Eric Seidel at $ 16,945,834. In fact, there are 5 players all vying for 2nd place with between $16 million and $17 million including Trickett, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu. Michael Mizrachi is creeping up with just shy of $14.1 million.
- Patrick Flanagan, Gambling911.com
