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Hellmuth And Hansen Fills In Last Seats At Big One

Written By: PokerNet.com | July 2, 2012 | Posted In Poker News

Phil Hellmuth made a last minute entrance at the WSOP $1million Big One for One and took one of the last seats remaining in the tournament. This is the year’s biggest buy-in tournament and also the biggest in poker history.

MGM Resorts put up a satellite seat for what may seem as the first ever $1 million buy-in tournament. Hellmuth was quick to get his hands on the seat which was why he was able to take one of the last seats of the game.

Details are still unclear if he had won this satellite seat straight up or made a deal to buy it from MGM. But he tweeted that he had secured $600,000 in stakes to directly buy into the Big One for One tournament. Earlier, his name was not mentioned when the official list of players came out.

Reports say that Phil was not able to win the satellite seat, but he had the seat. It was later reported that Hellmuth “bought” the seat when the play got five-handed and percentages were given to all the remaining players. But nonetheless, Hellmuth will still be holding a seat in the world’s first $1 million buy-in game.

Another highlight of the Big One is Brandon Steven’s move to represent philanthropists in the tournament. Steven is playing for the Big One with a stake from a group of businesses. One of the businesses in the group is his own. The money that he will be winning in the game will go to charity like Wichita Children’s Home and Lady Bugg House.

Steven is a recognized active philanthropist and was even awarded National Man of the Year by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in 2007. He also helped out the residents of Joplin, Missouri in 2011 after it was destroyed by a tornado. When he finished 10th in 2012 WSOP Main Event, he was able to win more than $635,000 and donated most of it to charity.

Gus Hansen also made some noise when he secured the last satellite seat at the Big One after winning in the $25k Mega Satellite to the Big One for One Drop at the Rio. It wasn’t a bracelet event, but it sure was one of the most exciting tournaments at WSOP this year.

There were 96 players who bought in, which raised a pot of money of $2.4 million for the top three players of the game. The winner of this tournament would take the last seat at the Big One, while the runner-up will take an alternate spot or a $1 million dollar cash-in. Third place earned $400k.

Shaun Deeb fell to a runner-up position after Hansen took home the seat. It looked as though Deeb had dumped all his chips and allowed Hansen to win. He was placed last on the alternate list and if he does not make it into the tournament, he gets the $1 million in cash. Jason Somerville won third place in this non-bracelet event.

Other players they all will be going head to head with in the Big One tournament are Phil Ivey, Brian Rast, Talal Shakerchi, Jason Mercier, Erik Seidel, Antonio Esfandiari, Tom Marchese, Ben Lamb, Vivek Rajkumar, Sammy Farha, Shawn Buchanan and Chau Giang.

 

 

 

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