One Shot One Drop

The bottom line is that with the buy ins and the contributed winnings of Guy and David Einhorn, they raised about $8M dollars for a very worthy charity. I can't imagine what it would be like not to have access to clean water.

I know everyone has their own opinion on bracelets, POY points, etc. Its all up for debate, but in the end, it all pales in seriousness to people not having clean water. Maybe Antonio shouldn't have been awarded that bracelet and the POY points. Maybe people will give him way too much credit for winning a 48 person half amateur tourney, but honestly who cares? When you compare the two things, all the controversy means absolutely zero against the money raised.

I highly doubt this will spark some kind of super high roller tourney trend. This was extremely unique. Most of the time tourneys run $100k+ buy in tourneys the turnouts are very small and not much credit is given to the winner. I don't doubt that this same exact tourney can be duplicated again but I don't think thats a bad thing.

In addition to the amazing charitable contributions, its also good for poker to be put in a good light for a change. I talked to so many non poker people about this tournament and they were absolutely amazed. The idea that all these guys put up a million dollars to play in a tourney where the rake was 3-4x that of a normal WSOP event was shocking to them.

This event reminds me strongly of the "Skins Game" in golf that was broadcast on Thanksgiving weekend for about twenty years. That's not a good thing!
Same premise - so-called charity event with big stars competing together so we, the general public, can drool as the biggest stars bantering together as they compete for a prize that most of us dream about.
Oh, lucky us - we get to watch excessively rich people and much sponsored poker pros play holdem poker. Why not a $5000 buy in satellite where one in every two hundred entered makes the big tournament? Where was the "Dennis Phillips/Chris Moneymaker/Davin Moon entrant to cheer on?
The WSOP succeeds because it's NOT a millionaire's game like the America's Cup (Sailing) but something that average poker players can dream about making the big time.
This was a vary bad step in a very wrong direction. You had a first place prize already awarded at this year's WSOP that's twice the size of the winner's take from the Main Event!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

sorry for the wrong their in p2.

@WPS22; I don't think anyone would try to seriously argue that raising the final number of $11 million or whatever it was including donations accrued from other players is a bad thing. But the way in which that number was achieved is what I have a problem with personally.

I would love to see another One Drop charity event next year. What I don't want to see is another buy in tournament that is at the detriment of the poker world and that's what this $1,000,000 buy in was. I have no issue raising money for charity, but I don't want it to come at the expense of the poker community and I certainly don't want it to be the secondary reason for buying into a tournament, which is how I feel it was this time around.

It basically comes down to the fact that you guys both agree that raising $11M for charity is nice, but you think if it happens in a way that you don't 100% agree with, you'd just soon have it not happen at all.

The fact that the money is real and its going to really help people survive doesn't seem to be factoring in.

If you guys have a better idea for a poker tournament to raise 8 figures for charity in 3 days, I'm sure the WSOP or whoever you want to would be all ears. I'm sure you guys can think of a way to raise that much money without offending the common poker player. Cause thats what its all about, our feelings. Who cares about poor people having water if it makes us feel inadequate?

I am an avid poker fan and player that more or less trolls many of the poker news type sites and enjoys reading blogs like yours. My two cents on the One Drop tournament is to respectfully disagree with what dtools22 said: "This level of buy in is so far out of my reach that it angers me and makes me feel excluded from the elite poker players of the community. But I feel like that’s not a problem unique to me. The tagline of the WSOP and poker in general is that anyone can play. Well when you make a buy in this high you break that illusion." I think this tournament did wonders for the poker community and I do feel like dtools22 is in the minority in feeling angry about such a tournament. The elite poker pros that we see on tv make up a small percentage of the poker community and to them they very well may feel left out or angry that such an event is outside their grasp at this time. But for the grinders and casual poker player at your local casinos and card clubs I think a tournament of such a stature provided a spark for them to dream big. I am one of those grinders that even though I was realistic about my chances I think it was worth a shot playing a One Drop satellite at my card club. I mean I will throw $500 towards a shot at $18 million. To a Joe Schmo poker player we live for satellites like this. Things like this is why we play the game. Fame, fortune, ROI...whatever way you look at it, the One Drop was the biggest event since Moneymaker or dare I say Jamie Gold. Like WPS22 stated, when you told the non-poker playing public of such an event they were downright amazed. If people didn't watch the live stream or ESPN's presentation on Tuesday then I am sure they will tune in for the edited production when it airs later on (and maybe at that time ESPN can dedicate more to the charity aspect of things). I am by no means brushing aside the charity aspect of this tournament but on a whole our society is very concentrated on socieconomic status and the suttle mentioning of $18 million would outweigh any amount of coverage ESPN could give towards One Drop. It is my hope that the WSOP runs this event every two or four years (without dishing POY points) so to not lose its grand stature and to once again give poker a boost by drawing in the non-poker playing community in as viewers. Thank you for your blogs and good luck at the tables.

@WPS22 I listed a few of my reasons in the original post why I don't particularly like this event and why I think it's bad for the game. I will say again, I have no problem with the charity getting $11 million out of this.

What I do care about is if this tournament catches on two problems will occur. First it will desensitize the poker audience with regards to the money and suddenly events that have $10K buy ins just don't seem as exciting. The popularity of the game will suffer in the long run if this catches on. The second issue is that this tournament, regardless of the buy in, isn't really a tournament. This was capped at 48 players, which by today's standards of poker is a puny field, especially considering this was a no limit holdem event. Given that field size, this event was just an over hyped sit and go and I don't think winning an event like this is an achievement that deserves recognition on the same level as winning almost any of the other WSOP bracelets.

I'm not suggesting the $11 million dollars shouldn't have been raised, but I think the tournament did a poor job for the charity in general. Who outside of the poker community knows what One Drop does? Who learned anything about the charity from the telecast? Who even knows that the event was a charity event for one drop? It was barely mentioned on the telecast, the issue was never really discussed. The money is great and going to a great cause, but now if everyone just forgets about it that doesn't help to solve the problem. I'm not inclined to think anyone watched the ESPN broadcast and felt inclined to do some research on One Drop and see if they could also contribute. People just kept staring at the gaudy pile of money in the middle. This event should have been about the charity from day 1 and it wasn't. That's why I have a problem with it.

@Cleebert Anger might not be the right word, frustrated maybe a better choice. The satellite to enter this event was a $25,000 buy in, more than twice what the main event buy in was. That's a tough number for anybody to hit that is just a causal player. Sure there were a bunch of $500 super satties, there was even one down at Foxwoods in early June, but that doesn't make the One Drop event accessible. Most of the people I talked to at the tables had the same opinion, "boy that would be sweet to get into, but it'd be a waste of money." The more casual grinders as well as some of the local pros all saw this and thought it would be in their best interest to sit out. I totally understand that this event ignited a spark in the poker community, but I don't think that curiosity added this event to anyone's bucket list the way the ME has been ingrained in society today.

I'll just post one last time because I don't want to take up your whole comment section or anything...

I just want to touch on the last thing you said..."This event should have been about the charity from day 1 and it wasn't. That's why I have a problem with it"

To be honest, I have a hard time believing the reason you don't want this event to continue is because they didn't talk about the charity enough. That just wouldn't make any sense. If that really bothered you, you'd want the event to run again just with a bigger focus on the charity.

Are you really claiming that if this the commentators talked about One Drop more, you'd be supportive of this? What if they announced it again but promised to talk about it more? Would you write a blog in support?

It seems like you think this is terrible for poker so you hate it. But, you don't want to trash a charity event, so you pick at the fact that they didn't talk about the charity enough (which i agree with). But again, if that was your real angle, you wouldn't want this event dead, you'd want it improved to raise more awareness.

If you don't like it because you think its bad for poker, just say so. You seem to be a serious player, and whats good for poker is good for you, you aren't a terrible person if you don't want something you don't feel will be detrimental for your industry in the long run. But please don't act like your whole objection from this tournament comes from your anger that they didn't mention One Drop enough.

Sorry i typed that really fast. Threw an extra don't in the 2nd to last sentence

@WPS22, I'm probably not doing a good job of explaining myself because my point here is NOT that if the announcers just simply talked about the charity more then the problem is solved. Let me try like this.

If I asked 100 non poker players, Family Feud style :), what they thought of the One Drop event you'd get a lot of answers saying they thought the show was great, they are really happy for the guy that won, they were enamored by the piles of cash being awarded and so on. I'd be surprised if more than a few people thought this was a charity event. So the public doesn't know this event was a charity event.

Yes $11 million got raised, but the charity itself only generated about $5.3 million and the other $5.7 came from donations. The event only took 10% of the buy in. In this case that was a ton of cash due to the gaudy buy in, but most of the time if you see a charity that you'd like to donate money to and see that only 10% of your donation goes toward charity you are going to be very skeptical of the organization. It would appear to you that they are more interested in making money than fighting the cause, or that they don't understand how to run a charitable organization.

My argument simply put is that this event really isn't a charity tournament. It has a cause to fight for, and it donated money to that cause, but that doesn't make it a charitable venture. From my viewpoint, the charity was used as an excuse to put together a super high roller buy in event that would shake the foundations of the poker world. The charity is a secondary concern, the real purpose for this event was to run a tournament with 20 businessmen and 28 pros for each of those groups to try and compete against the other, one side looking for the challenge while the other side looked for the cash.

There was a charity cause Phil Gordon ran where everyone involved pledges 1% of their tournament winnings for each event they played in. A great idea, and a great cause, but that doesn't make those tournaments charity events even if EVERYONE in the field agrees to it. The purpose for all of those players buying into that event was to make money, the same as it was for the One Drop event. The charity was just an afterthought to them and not a priority. From the perspective of the charity that doesn't really matter. Money is money, regardless of how you get it. That part I don't have a problem with. What bothers me is that the charity was used as an excuse to run this huge buy in event where people could compete for the $18.3 million first place prize. This is a charity event in largely name only, and that's why I'd rather not see it come back. At least not like this.

First of all, in your entire 6 paragraph page long blog, you don't mention one time that you didn't like the way this was run from a charitable standpoint. It was all about how you think its bad for poker. Now, all of the sudden, you are claiming your main reason is this.

Please read your own blog if you want to see how I came to my conclusion. The whole thing is about being bad for poker.

I just want to get clear on what you are saying. YOu are saying that you don't want an event that raised $11M to happen again purely because you didn't think it was run in a charitable enough way? You do realize by saying that you are putting your own standards of how a charity event should be run over actual human beings whose lives are in danger right?

You are saying "$11M is nice, but if its not raised just the way i like it, better to just not be raised at all."

Would you look a human being in the eye who could be helped by a future tourney and tell them you don't want it to happen because it wasn't charitable enough for you? I seriously want to know if you would do that. The money is real and it goes to help real people.

Are your standards really more important than possibly saving the lives of thousands of people? Is your stance really that you think its nice to try to help them, but only if its in a way that totally lives up to your standards?

Here are your (new)reasons for not wanting to improve thousands of peoples access to clean water, possibly saving their lives...

#1- 100 non poker players wouldn't know it was a charity event.

#2-The event only took 10% (really 11.1) of a $1M buy in. So each player ONLY donated $111,111.

#3 Only half of the $11M came from buy ins, the other were from donations (how is this relevant?)

#4- Its not a REAL charity tourney because that wasn't everyones primary reason for playing. (it raised way more money than any charity tourney in this history of the world..not a REAL one though)

#5 Some of the players played because of the money, not the charity

Because of those reasons, you don't want another possible 8 figures to be raised for some of the most unfortunate people on the planet? Please, please think about what you are saying. You can't possibly believe this.

When people make charitable donations (like the one Drop Buy in was) we don't question whats in their heart and only take the money if their intentions are pure.

Lots of people do charity stuff to make themselves look good all the time. Who cares? Do you go around and scrutinize the intentions of all kinds of people who give money to charity? Or just when it involves poker?

The unfortunate people who benefit from charitable contributions don't have the luxury of deciding whats in the heart of the donator, and they most certainly don't need people like you doing it on their behalf.

Sorry for posting so much. You just have to realize the stance you are taking is infuriating. You are acting like this event didn't live up to your standards and therefore should be done away with, not ever once considering the real life consequences of raising that money.

You never answered my two main points: it doesn't have to be part of the WSOP. It could be held at anytime of the year, and
the size of the buy-in and the size of the first prize detracts from the marquee event of the WSOP - i.e. the main event. I think it's wonderful that so much money was raised for such a worthy cause but I agree with dtools22 - the "good cause approach" was what got this event on the schedule but it was, first and foremost, a "look at the size of the first prize" poker tournament.

My bet is that the event will be back next year. Who thought of it? Guy Laliberte who founded Cirque Du Soleil. How many shows are on in Vegas under the "Cirque Du Soleil" label? Five, six?

I agree it doesn't have to be part of WSOP. I think it should be held the same time b/c thats when all the players are there, but there doesn't have to be a bracelet or POY points. It could be like AUFA used to be. I don't think it takes anything away from the Main, but I guess we'll have to disagree on that.

I wholeheartedly agree with both of you about the charity/super prize pool aspect. There should have been more focus on the charity and less on the money.

My point is that no one in their right mind doesn't want a successful charity even to continue because it wasn't conducted in a way that focused on the charity enough. That is just mind boggling. Acting like its not a "real" charity event like he did is ludicrous, its the most successful one of all time.

If you, him, or anyone else doesn't want the event to continue because you believe its bad for your game, then fine. It doesn't make you a bad person. I just think you should be honest about it instead of acting like you thought the most successful charity event of all time wasn't charitable enough for your standards.