In the latest episode of Run It Back we look at the biggest poker tournament ever played, the Big One for One Drop, a tournament created by Guy Laliberté a Canadian street performer, turned into business mogul with his huge success story of Cirque du Soleil.

The tournament raised huge money towards a really good cause of helping to provide clean drinking water for everyone.

Phil Hellmuth Nittin It Up

Here we have a classic hand where Hellmuth checked all three streets of action, despite there being loads of chips in the middle to win on any street and picking up huge equity on the Turn with his open ender. He was in full white magic mode during this event and likely sold a huge amount of action to even play the game.

Interestingly right at the beginning of this tournament review Antonio reports that the only reason he played the event was because one of his close friends really wanted to buy a huge piece of action of him in this game, I wonder who it was, maybe Brian Rast who also made the final table? Or possibly Bill Perkins, who is a gas trader and Poker lover himself!?

That’s the reality of these huge tournaments though, no one has 100% of themselves apart from the businessmen, but the Poker players have such a huge edge over this juicy field that anyone with huge piles of cash would want to buy a piece of their action.

Guy isn’t scared!

The creator of this event also plays a bit too! He made the final table and even played this hand, calling an All-in with just bottom pair on this dangerous board and being right to do so.

Guy Laliberté loves poker and has been playing high stakes for years, some of the biggest online cash games on Full Tilt Poker back in the day were based around his action and he’s even featured in the High Stakes Poker TV show.

Antonio has some lovely things to say about this generous man that is now dedicating his life to charity, he came along way from a street performer that’s for sure.

Sick River

This is about as sick as poker hands get, your Brian Rast, you take a flop with Ace Jack suited and flop the Nuts on the biggest final table that has ever been played and the River pairs the board and gives your opponent Quads!

Sam held the betting lead in this pot the whole way, firing all three streets and finally putting Rast all-in once he hit the nuts on the River. If this was an online poker hand some people would be throwing their laptops out of their bedroom windows and making conspiracy videos on youtube about poker being rigged, but this happened in Las Vegas in the World Series of Poker in front of hundreds of thousands of people. GG Rastinator.

Power of Position

Most people might be happy with having a pair on this board when the River is checked too you and maybe look to show it down and win the pot. That’s not how you win tournaments if your name is Antonio Esfandiari though, he turns his hand into a bluff on this four-flush board with the information his opponent is more than likely pretty weak in this spot and drags the pot with an instant fold from Einhorn.

This is why when we are playing pots out of position against aggressive players we need to have strong hands in our checking range, this way we can’t be bluffed out of the pot too easily, because we can just press call.

Knocking out Mr One Drop himself

Probably the most crucial pot played for Antonio was this huge coin flip against Guy, Antonio picked up Ace-King in the Blinds and 4-Bet against Guy’s Button 3-Bet and ended up calling Guy’s all in and spiking a King on the Turn to grab a huge chip lead and a stranglehold on this final table.

Soon to follow was Hellmuth who busted when his Ace-Ten didn’t fair too well against Sam Tricketts Ace-Queen, Sam made broadway on the River and crushed Phil’s dreams of laddering any more spots with these huge payout jumps.

Running Hot and Scooping it All

So when it boiled down to the last two, Antonio Esfandiari had a huge lead on Tricky Sam Trickett and he needed a double up to get things on an even keel again. This hand came up with Antonio flopping three of kind and with Sam holding an overcard and a flush draw all the money ended up in the middle.

This was a pretty aggressive move from the Englishman, but it’s not like you can just fold a draw like this in a heads up pot either, the chips fell Antonio Esfandiari’s way and the rest was history, over $18.3M won in a single tournament.
We are simply loving these Run It Back episodes and this might be one of the best yet, check it out here: