$1 Million One Drop Winners Colman, Esfandiari Among 23 Left
The $111,111 High Roller for One Drop is near the money bubble, as just 23 players remain with 20 places paid. It's a star-studded field, as expected.
Two of those stars are former winners of the event, although each took it down when the buy-in was $1 million. Both 2012 champ Antonio Esfandiari and 2014 champ Dan Colman remain in the event after Day 2. Esfandiari finished the night with 2,105,000, while Colman bagged 4,100,000.
The two former champs went in opposite directions at the end of the night.
Esfandiari got Scott Seiver all in for 40 big blinds late, with "The Magician" holding pocket kings and Seiver pocket queens. The flop was clean enough for Esfandiari, but Seiver ran out a queen-high straight on the turn and river to double up.
Colman can thank a stroke of great fortune for his continued presence. He shoved with a little over 20 big blinds in the cutoff when Charlie Carrel opened on his right during Level 16 (30,000/60,000/10,000), the last of the night. Behind him, a nightmare scenario unfolded, as both David Peters on the button and big blind Haralabos Voulgaris proceeded to get stacks in.
Luckily for Colman, his ace-two of clubs was actually fairly live against pocket kings (Voulgaris) and pocket queens (Peters). The flop brought a gutter for Colman, and he turned a wheel to triple up and leave Peters and Voulgaris on fumes. Voulgaris proceeded to bag after doubling through Peters, though.
Leading the remaining 23 is French superstar Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. He bagged 7,040,000 at the close of play, good for a solid lead of about one million over second-place Dario Sammartino (6,080,000).
Grospellier chipped up on the featured table in a late stretch that was largely seen by only the PokerGo stream audience. One thing is certain: He got the best of Phil Hellmuth enough to be on the receiving end of an infamous "Poker Brat" rant. In one late hand, Grospellier got Hellmuth to fold trip queens with a turn check-raise semi-bluff on a straight draw. Hellmuth mucked and then expressed his frustration when ElkY showed.
The hand, along with a Sammartino four-bet bluff that got Hellmuth to lay down pocket tens, left him fuming well after players had bagged. Hellmuth finished with 2,870,000.
Seiver, Martin Jacobson, Doug Polk, Phil Galfond and Byron Kaverman were some of the others making it through. Some of those falling on Day 2 included Ben Tollerene, Antanas "Tony G" Guoga, Isaac Haxton, Dan Smith, Bryn Kenney and 888poker Ambassador Dominik Nitsche.
One other major development during Day 2 was the release of the prize pool at the close of registration with 130 players entered. The winner will bank $3,686,865 this year, and a min-cash in 20th will pay $166,666.
Day 3 gets rolling at 2 p.m. Sunday, with coverage right back here on PokerNews.
Here is the Day 3 table and seat draw:
| Room | Table | Seat | Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brasilia | 1 | 1 | Connor Drinan | 1,540,000 | 25 |
| Brasilia | 1 | 2 | Dario Sammartino | 6,080,000 | 101 |
| Brasilia | 1 | 3 | Chris Moore | 4,315,000 | 72 |
| Brasilia | 1 | 4 | Haralabos Voulgaris | 1,970,000 | 33 |
| Brasilia | 1 | 5 | Simon Lam | 1,740,000 | 29 |
| Brasilia | 1 | 6 | Phil Galfond | 1,685,000 | 28 |
| Brasilia | 1 | 7 | Rainer Kempe | 3,950,000 | 66 |
| Brasilia | 2 | 1 | Nick Petrangelo | 800,000 | 13 |
| Brasilia | 2 | 2 | Michael Kamran | 2,500,000 | 41 |
| Brasilia | 2 | 3 | Charlie Carrel | 1,270,000 | 21 |
| Brasilia | 2 | 4 | Moritz Dietrich | 710,000 | 12 |
| Brasilia | 2 | 5 | Dan Shak | 2,180,000 | 36 |
| Brasilia | 2 | 6 | Igor Kurganov | 1,615,000 | 26 |
| Brasilia | 2 | 7 | Phil Hellmuth | 2,870,000 | 48 |
| Brasilia | 2 | 8 | Scott Seiver | 4,920,000 | 82 |
| Brasilia | 3 | 1 | Doug Polk | 3,500,000 | 58 |
| Brasilia | 3 | 2 | Dan Colman | 4,100,000 | 68 |
| Brasilia | 3 | 3 | Byron Kaverman | 1,495,000 | 25 |
| Brasilia | 3 | 4 | Bertrand Grospellier | 7,040,000 | 117 |
| Brasilia | 3 | 5 | Andrew Robl | 4,080,000 | 68 |
| Brasilia | 3 | 6 | Antonio Esfandiari | 2,105,000 | 35 |
| Brasilia | 3 | 7 | Martin Jacobson | 3,805,000 | 63 |
| Brasilia | 3 | 8 | Salman Behbehani | 835,000 | 14 |