The 2016 edition of the WSOP is coming to a close. The $1,000 + $111 Little One for ONE DROP No-Limit Hold’em was the last gold bracelet event to take place this summer, leaving just the Main Event gold piece to find its owner, but as every year, this is going to happen in November.
Last night, Swede Michael Tureniec won this year’s Little One for ONE DROP tournament to collect $525,520 and his first WSOP gold bracelet. This has been the player’s tenth WSOP cash and his largest one so far. Tureniec came out on top of a massive field of 4,360 entries.
With the tournament attracting such a great amount of attention, the overall prize pool totaled $3,924,000 by the time registration was closed. The money was distributed to the top 654 finishers, with minimum payouts amounting to $1,501.
The event was to be played from July 12-16 but was extended into an additional day as players could not determine the champion within the original timetable. Day 4 began with 12 remaining hopefuls and Thai Tran as the chip leader. Tureniec did not boast a considerable chip stack at first. However, he began gaining speed and by the time there were only five players left at the final table, he was holding more than a half of all chips in play.
Eventually, the Swede faced one-time gold bracelet winner Calvin Anderson from Yukon, Oklahoma heads-up. Two-handed play lasted quite a bit as Anderson proved to be a particularly tough opponent. On the very last hand for the tournament, Tureniec raised to 1,075,000 and Anderson went all in. The Swede called and tabled [Qs][Js] against his opponent’s [Ks][10d]. The board ran out [Jd][9h][2c][3h][4d], securing Tureniec with the victory. Anderson collected $324,597 as the runner-up.
When asked how he felt about his victory, the Swedish player said that he was overwhelmed and happy to have eventually accomplished the “biggest thing” in poker.
The final table was comprised of a bright company of players, including two former gold bracelet winners, people with several WSOP cashes, and mostly players with not previous WSOP final table experience.
One-time gold bracelet winner Ryan D’Angelo, from Binghampton, New York took 3rd place for $239,232. Sam Ho from Morrow, Georgia finished 4th, good for $177,695. Thai Tolly from Houston, Texas collected $133,028 for taking 5th place in the tournament.
Lucas Blanco from the UK scooped a payout of $100,380 for finishing 6th. Samer Al-Shurieki from Pensacola, Florida took 7th place for $76,351. Shai Zurr from Israel finished 8th for $58,543. Rounding out the official final table, Frenchman Guillaume Diaz collected his fifth-ever WSOP cash of $45,254.
The Little One for ONE DROP and the High Roller for ONE DROP this year raised the total amount of $1,206,478 for the ONE DROP organization the WSOP has been partnering with for some time now. The money will be spent on providing access to water to people from developing countries.
