After two full days of action the Big One for One Drop, $1,000,000 buy-in, final table is set, and it’s two well-know poker pros leading the way: Sam Trickett and Antonio Esfandiari. The two chip-leaders currently control nearly half of the chips in play, with the top 3 on the leader-board (Antonio, Sam, and One Drop organizer Guy Laliberte) sitting on nearly 100 million of the 144 million chips in play.

Each player is guaranteed over $1,000,000 for their efforts so far (although with a $1 million buy-in the 8th place finisher will only earn $1,237,333) with most of the prize-pool reserved for first and second place. Here is a look at the complete payouts for the event (notice the extremely top-heavy payout structure):

* 1st place: $18,346,673

* 2nd place: $10,112,001

* 3rd place: $4,352,000

* 4th place: $2,645,333

* 5th place: $1,834,666

* 6th place: $1,621,333

* 7th place: $1,408,000

* 8th place: $1,237,333

* 9th place : $1,109,333

The ninth-place finisher, Mike Sexton, may not have made the “official” final table, but the voice of the WPT and Party Poker spokesman did cash for just over $1.1 million. Unfortunately for 10th place finisher Ilya Bulychev, his journey to the final table of 10 ended with nothing to show for his efforts, as he was eliminated on the money-bubble.

The eliminations were fast and furious on Day 2 of the One Drop tournament, and the chip-lead changed hands multiple times. One player many thought would make it to the final based on his play early on was German poker pro Phillip Gruissem, but after making a questionable call just before the dinner break, Gruissem’s stack dipped too low for the uber-aggressive player to keep the pressure on as he had throughout the day. Gruissem was eventually eliminated in 11th place, two spots shy of the money.

It will be interesting to see how the players approach the final table, considering the payout structure almost forces them to play for the top two or three spots,. Because of this I can see the action being extremely fast and wild from the outset, and reminiscent of the 2010 WSOP Main Event final table.

Here is a look at the complete final table chip-counts the players will take into Tuesday’s action:

1. Antonio Esfandiari — 39,925,000

2. Sam Trickett — 37,000,000

3. Guy Laliberté — 21,700,000

4. Brian Rast — 11,350,000

5. Phil Hellmuth — 10,925,000

6. David Einhorn — 8,375,000

7. Richard Yong — 7,475,000

8. Bobby Baldwin — 7,150,000

The final table will kick-off at Noon local time and will be available on ESPN 3 and ESPN, on a 15-minute delay.

Tags: 1 Million, 100 Million, Aggressive Player, Chips, Eliminations, Guy Laliberte, Ilya, Journey, Leader Board, Leading The Way, Mike Sexton, Multiple Times, Party Poker, Payout Structure, Place Finisher, Poker Pros, Prize Pool, Spokesman, Stack, WPT

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012 at 8:43 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.