The last event on the schedule of the 47th Annual World Series of Poker was completed late on Sunday. And what better conclusion to the whole poker festival than players raising money for a good cause while playing their favorite game. Quite surprisingly, the WSOP $10,000 was not the last event on the Series schedule this year. Instead, the $1,000 + $111 Little One for ONE DROP No-Limit Hold’em took that role.
The event together with the $111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP, held a few days ago and won by German poker pro Fedor Holz, are part of WSOP’s partnership with ONE DROP, a charity organization focused on raising awareness and funds for the provision of water to people located in parts of the world where water sources are scarce.
Played from July 12-17, the Little One for ONE DROP saw Swedish player Michael Tureniec emerge as the winner, collecting $525,520 in prize money and joining the elite company of gold bracelet winners. Tureniec said in the minutes following his victory that he was overwhelmed to finally lay hands on the coveted gold piece, an accomplishment that every self-respecting poker player is striving for.
The Little One for ONE DROP was yet another event on this year’s WSOP schedule to attract quite a lot of attention. In fact, it drew as many as 4,360 entries to generate a prize pool of $3,924,000. Although the tournament was slated to take place over five days, there was a dozen of players still in contention late on Day 5, so an additional day was scheduled during which the final table was to be set and the name of the winner was to be determined. As it could be seen, Day 6 was concluded with the Swede as the victor.
Prior to last night, Tureniec had 9 WSOP in-the-money finishes and a little more than $100,000 in WSOP winnings. The Swedish player’s victory was not an easy one, however. During Day 6 of the event, he had to emerge from one of the short stacks to a chip leader. Once this was done, he had to face a more experienced opponent heads-up. Calvin Anderson, a one-time gold bracelet winner, was the last man standing aside from Tureniec.
Despite his former experience in the Series, with his 27 WSOP cashes and gold piece as a sure indication of this, Anderson could not record his name as the 2016 WSOP Little One for ONE DROP winner last night. The player received the amount of $324,597 to console himself for the missed chance to win another gold bracelet.
Play at Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, where the WSOP has been taking place for several years now, will be concluded today with Day 7 of the $10,000 Main Event. There are 27 players left in contention and it will be up to them to set the official nine-handed final table. The nine finalists will then return at the host venue on October 30 to take part in the WSOP final table festivities and to play for three days until the name of this year’s big champion is clear. The winner is to receive a first-place prize of $8 million and a gold bracelet, hand-crafted specially for the occasion.
- Author
Harry Evans
