$1 Million Big One for One Drop to Return at 2018 World Series of Poker

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Prior to the €111,111 One Drop High Roller restart on Saturday at the 2018 WSOP Europe, WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart announced that the Big One for One Drop will be returning to the World Series of Poker in 2018.

After a failed experiment in Monaco in 2016, the $1 Million buy-in event returns to the World Series of Poker next summer. Also, one player has already locked up their seat for the event.

$1 Million Big One for One Drop Returns at 2018 World Series of Poker

The monster announcement by WSOP officials was met with applause from attending players on Saturday and will be a welcome edition to the WSOP schedule. In 2016, the event was moved to the Casino de Monte Carlo in Monaco in a failed experiment to try and make the event attractive to high rollers around the world. What resulted was poor attendance with Big One drawing its worst attendance ever.

Not surprisingly, the WSOP has once again partnered with One Drop to host the $1 million buy-in tournament where a staggering $111,111 will go to charity. Like every version of this mega-buy-in tournament, the field is capped at 48 players, which means that the top prize could reach $18 million.

Antonio Esfandiari won the first Big One back in 2012 for $18.34 million. In 2014, Dan Colman bested a field of 42 to win $15.3 million. The Big One in 2016 drew the smallest field to date with 28 entries. Elton Tsang ultimately won the event for €11.11 million.

Of course, the main reason for the event is charity. Should the field reach it’s cap as in 2012, over $5 million will go to One Drop, a charity that provides clean drinking water to regions of the world in need.

Leon Tsoukernik Becomes First Players to Register for Big One

We already know one player who will participate in the field. King’s Casino owner Leon Tsoukernik was announced as the first player to register for next year’s event. Tsoukernik is presently hosting the WSOP Europe and is a well-known high stakes player.

Anyone wishing to play in the event can reserve their seat by making a $50,000 deposit by July 1, 2018. They must then provided the remaining funds by July 10. The event is scheduled to kick off on July 15, 2018 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the home of the World Series of Poker.

The question now remains which players will take their shot at the Big One field. Initially intended to be an event attractive to both high rolling philanthropists and poker pros, the 2014 edition was extremely pro heavy with high rolling whales deciding to back pros for a percentage rather than donate $1 million to the prize pool.

The failed Monaco experiment in 2016 was supposed to eliminate the pros from the event as only amateur players were supposed to be allowed to play. That rule was later stretched and ultimately ignored completely due to the lack of general interest from the high rolling amateur community.

As such, you can expect this field to be predominately filled by poker pros. Some the obvious names you can expect to see are Erik Seidel, Dan Colman, Fedor Holz, Rainer Kempe, Bryn Kenney, Daniel Negreanu and more. We may even see Phil Ivey buy into the event should he keep his word to return to live tournament play in 2018.

Regardless, this event promises to be the largest single first place prize in live poker history. Unlike the 2016 version, don’t be surprised to see this event meet its cap and ignite the poker community as some of the game’s top high rollers compete at stakes most only dream about.