Event #69: Little One for One Drop - $1000 +111 No-Limit Hold'em

Michael Tureniec is the final gold bracelet winner of the biggest and most successful poker series in history.

The professional poker player from Stockholm Sweden won the $1,000 +$111 buy-in “Little One for One Drop" tournament, which was played over five days and nights at the Rio in Las Vegas.  The 69th and final gold bracelet competition was played concurrently with the $10,000 buy-in Main Event Championship, which will conclude in November.

Tureniec collected $525,520 in prize money, making this the biggest win of his career.  He also won his first gold bracelet.  His victory was cheered by a several of his fellow countrymen.

Tureniec's come-from-behind victory by storming back from a huge chip disadvantage at one point during the final table.  His final-day opposition included a wide spectrum of players with different levels of experience.  Some had a few cashes.  One player cashed for the first time.  Most had never appeared at a WSOP final table before.  However, two finalists had previously won gold bracelets – including Ryan D’Angelo who ended up finishing third and Calvin Anderson, who was the runner up.

By the time play was five-handed, Anderson had more than half the total chips in play.  His victory seemed to be a foregone conclusion.  After D’Angelo was eliminated, that left Anderson with a big chip lead over Tureniec.  However, that’s when the momentum shifted.  It took two hours for Tureniec to subdue Anderson.  The ultimate moment of triumph came when the Swede scooped the final pot of the tournament, leaving Anderson with a mixed emotional reaction.

“I started to pick up some big hands when we got short-handed,” Tureniec said.  “It helped me a lot to get some chips when we were down to 3 or 4 players, and then when I was heads up against him, I had a chance.  Calvin was a tough player, so getting some chips to play with was very important by the time I got to heads up.” 

As for the runner up, Anderson won his first WSOP title back in 2014 in the $1,500 buy-in Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split event.  He came really close to winning a second in this event.  Anderson now has 27 series cashes and approached the $1 million mark in career WSOP winnings.

Meanwhile, Tureniec earned something of a surprise victory.  This was his 10th time to cash.  His best previous finish was a 15th-place finish two years ago.  Tureniec’s victory was the 11th victory at the WSOP by a Swede in history.  Only one Swedish player, Chris Bjorin, has more than one gold bracelet win.

This tourney attracted yet another huge turnout as 4,360 players packed the Rio for the final gold bracelet competition of the summer.  The Main Event Championship ran concurrently to this tournament, and will conclude later in the year with the November Nine. 

The tournament prize pool totaled $3,924,000.  The top 654 players collected prize money.  Moreover, this tournament capped another successful year in terms of raising money for charity as well.  The two feature charity-linked tournaments including the Little One for ONE DROP (Event #69) and the ONE DROP High Roller (Event #67), plus the 1 percent for One Drop campaign, where players have the option to donate 1 percent of their winnings to the cause which supports the WSOP’s official charity partner the ONE DROP organization (www.onedrop.org), raised a combined total of $1,206,478.  ONE DROP uses donations to directly implement water access projects, where an average of $100 can transform someone’s life forever.  The poker community via the World Series of Poker has donated more than $14,700,000 since the partnership began in 2012 – enough to directly impact the lives of over 147,000 people.

Here’s how the other top nine finishers fared:

Second Place:  Calvin Anderson, from Yukon, OK finished as the runner up after dominating much of the Day Three action.  He collected an impressive payout totaling $324,597.  This was Anderson’s third final table of the summer and eighth appearance overall.  He posted 2^nd, 8^th, and 8^th place finishes in 2016.

Third Place:  Ryan D’Angelo, from Binghamton, NY added another big cash to his WSOP resume, coming in third place.  He received $239,232.  This was D’Angelo’s third final table at this year’s series.  He won a gold bracelet in the $1.500 buy-in Deuce-to-Seven tournament.

Fourth Place:  Sam Ho, from Morrow, GA went out fourth, which paid $177,695.  This was Ho’s first time to cash at the summer series after coming in-the-money multiple times on the WSOP Circuit.

Fifth Place:  Thai Tolly, from Houston, TX finished in the middle of the pack so far as the final table goes, exiting in fifth place.  This was Tolly’s fifth time to cash at the series, which paid out $133,028.

Sixth Place:  Lucas Blanco, from Great Britain ended up as the sixth-place finisher.  He collected $100,380 in his second time to cash at the WSOP.

Seventh Place:  Samer Al-Shurieki, a Syrian-born physician from Pensacola, FL finished in seventh place.  His third time to cash in a WSOP event way his best-score so far, paying out $76,351.

Eighth Place:  Shai Zurr, from Petach Tikva, Israel cashed for the first time ever at the series.  Eighth place paid $58,543.