culture
The far edge of the game.
A tournament you enter for a million dollars, and private matches where the entry runs higher than that. These games are worth understanding for one reason: they are so unlike ordinary poker that nothing in them transfers, and knowing why is more useful than being impressed.
the million dollar tournament
The Big One for One Drop has been held five times, always at a buy in of one million dollars. The fields have shrunk each time, which tells you more about the economics than any of the prizes do.
| Year | Entrants | Winner | First prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 48 | Antonio Esfandiari | 18,346,673 dollars |
| 2014 | 42 | Dan Colman | 15,306,668 dollars |
| 2016 | 28 | Elton Tsang | 11,111,111 euros |
| 2018 | 27 | Justin Bonomo | 10,000,000 dollars |
| 2023 | 17 | Mikita Badziakouski | 7,114,500 dollars |
The 2018 edition is the one where the charity share is documented: eighty thousand dollars of each buy in went to the One Drop Foundation, which across twenty seven entrants came to 2,160,000 dollars. We could not verify the share for the other four editions, so this page does not claim one. How a prize pool of this shape is divided, and why a chip is worth less than its face value once the payouts start, is worked out on the page on multi table tournaments.
the private matches of 2025
In August and September 2025 the Finnish player Ossi Ketola played a run of scheduled heads up matches at the Triton series, with buy ins that PokerNews reports as running from one million to six million dollars, against opponents including Kayhan Mokri, Dan Cates, Wiktor Malinowski, Alex Foxen, Elias Talvitie and Bjorn Li. On 16 September, at blinds of 40,000 and 80,000, one of those matches produced a pot of 12.7 million dollars.
What makes the format interesting is exactly what makes it contested. These were fixed matches with an agreed buy in rather than a game people could join and leave, which is why part of the poker world declines to compare their pots with those of an ordinary cash game. The article that reported the record also reported the objection, which is the honest way to do it, and we carry both on the biggest pots page.
one banker against a group of professionals
The best documented private match in poker ran from 2001 to 2004 and again in 2006. The Texas banker Andrew Beal played limit hold em at stakes of 100,000 and 200,000 against a group of professionals who pooled their money, known as the Corporation. Wikipedia records both directions of the result: on 13 May 2004 Beal won 11.7 million dollars in a single session at the Bellagio, in February 2006 he won about 13.6 million, and later that same month he lost 16.6 million.
Michael Craig wrote a book about the games called The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King. It is the one high stakes story where an outsider can read a full account rather than a highlight, and it belongs alongside the titles on the poker books page.
why none of it transfers
Three things about these games are unlike anything you will sit in. The fields are tiny, so the tournament arithmetic is completely different from a field of thousands. The players are frequently settling a private arrangement rather than trying to make a living, so their incentives are not yours. And the money is not the constraint it is for everyone else, which changes how willing anyone is to be wrong.
The single number that does transfer is the one about your own money: at what stake can you absorb a bad run without stopping. That is not a matter of nerve but of arithmetic, and it is the same calculation whether the stake is one euro or one million. It sits behind variance in the glossary and behind the page on setting limits.
next step
What a prize pool is really worth while you are still in it.
The ICM calculator works out what your stack is worth in money rather than in chips, which is the arithmetic underneath every deal ever made at a final table, including the ones at the tournaments on this page. Free, no account.
questions about high stakes poker
What are high stakes in poker?
There is no fixed line, and the phrase means something different at every level. On this page it means the games that make news: a million dollars to enter a tournament, or a private match where a single pot runs into seven figures. For most players high stakes simply means a level where losing would matter, and that number is personal.
What is the largest buy in in poker?
The Big One for One Drop has a buy in of one million dollars and has been held five times. Separately, scheduled heads up matches at the Triton series in 2025 were played with buy ins reported up to six million dollars, which is a different kind of event: a private match rather than a tournament with a field.
What is the biggest first prize ever won in a poker tournament?
The largest on this page is 18,346,673 dollars, won by Antonio Esfandiari in the 2012 Big One for One Drop against a field of 48. We name it as the largest figure we verified rather than as an all time record, because tournament prizes are exactly the kind of number that gets overtaken quietly.
Who plays in these games?
A mixture of professionals and wealthy amateurs, which is the whole economic point: the tournaments and the matches only exist because a small number of people can enter for reasons other than expected profit. Take those people away and the games do not happen.
Does part of the money go to charity?
In one case, documented. Wikipedia records that eighty thousand dollars from each buy in for the 2018 Big One for One Drop went to the One Drop Foundation, which with twenty seven entrants came to 2,160,000 dollars. We could not verify the charity share for the other editions, so this page does not state one.
Is there anything to learn from watching these games?
Less than the production suggests. The stack depths, the field sizes and the reasons people are sitting there are all unlike an ordinary game, so the decisions do not transfer. Watch them for what they are, which is spectacle at the far edge of a game most people play for a few euros.
sources
Every buy in, field, prize and date on this page comes from one of these, read on 30 August 2026. Where a figure was only available in a summary we could not check, it is not here.
- Wikipedia, The Big One for One Drop
Every figure in the table below: the million dollar buy in, the five editions with their fields, winners and first prizes, and the fact that eighty thousand dollars from each 2018 buy in went to the One Drop Foundation, 2,160,000 dollars in total.
- PokerNews, Two Players Fight for a $12,700,000 Hand of Poker
The largest pot of the 2025 Triton matches, on 16 September 2025 at blinds of 40,000 and 80,000, and the argument reported in the same article about whether scheduled heads up matches belong in the same record book as cash games.
- PokerNews, Top Stories of 2025, Ossi Ketola’s heads up matches
The series of scheduled heads up matches played in August and September 2025, with buy ins between one and six million dollars, and the opponents named on this page.
- Wikipedia, Andrew Beal
The matches against the group of professionals known as the Corporation between 2001 and 2004 and again in 2006, the stakes played, the documented wins and losses, and the book Michael Craig wrote about them.
Back to poker culture, or read where the line sits between playing and playing too much on the responsible play page.