Last year, poker fans watched in admiration as 48 players took part in an event that promised both big paydays and philanthropy as the Big One for One Drop million-dollar buy-in event raised money to promote water equality around the world. Earlier this summer, even more players helped the cause with the $111,111 One Drop High Roller event.
Before this week though, in order to play for the bracelet and help the cause, players needed a bit of a bankroll. That changed as the Little One for One Drop created a venue for thousands of players to help the One Drop charity as well as earn a giant payday and a gold bracelet.
Thousands turned out and contributed, but in the end, the player who managed to capitalize the most on the opportunity was 23-year-old Brian Yoon, who defeated the field of 4,756 to win his first bracelet as well as an impressive $663,727 payday. Yoon, who hails from Torrance, California, steamrolled over his final table competition to play from a final table to victory in just about three hours.
Yoon battled heads-up with Cuong Nguyen of Houston, Texas for just a few hands before capturing his first gold bracelet at what was his first WSOP final table. Nguyen earned a healthy $408,264 for second place.
The Little One for One Drop was a new event for the WSOP this year. The $1,111 buy-in tournament featured unlimited re-entry for the first four levels of play as well as two different starting days of action. With $111 from each buy-in going to the official charity partner of the WSOP, One Drop, the event helped to raise over $525,000 for the organization. Combine those efforts with the one Drop High Roller event and this year more than seven figures have already been raised for One Drop. The field size makes it the second-largest event of the summer behind only the Millionaire Maker event, which drew 6,343 entries.
With such a large field, the prize pool came in at $4,280,400 and the top 495 all earned a payday of at least $1,797. Notables in the money included Tommy Vedes (350th), Chance Kornuth (345th), Matt Salsberg (221st), Xuan Liu (130th), Liv Boeree (107th), Humberto Brenes (75th), and Cliff Josephy (68th).
The turnout for the Little One for One Drop was so high that the event required an extra day to complete, with the final eight players coming back for a fourth day of action on Monday afternoon.
The final table featured no previous bracelet winners, but did include two-time Circuit winner Roland Israelashvili and Ring winner Henry Tran in addition to noted pro Justin Zaki.
Here are the final table results for the Little One for One Drop Event 58:
1st: Brian Yoon – $663,727
2nd: Cuong Nguyen – $408,264
3rd: Roland Israelashvili – $295,433
4th: Justin Zaki – $218,771
5th: Henry Tran – $163,340
6th: Joseph Morneau – $122,933
7th: Kevin O’Donnell – $93,269
8th: Alex Case – $71,311
9th: Adriano Santa Ana – $54,960
