Daily Rewind: One Drop Update, Full Tilt News, Cates' WSOP Prize & Balaz Fails

In today's Daily Rewind we see which players have made the One Drop finale, learn of Ray Bitar's surrender, celebrate with Dan Cates' WSOP winner and get the latest on Martin Balaz's SNG challenge.

The Daily Rewind is your one-stop-shop for a sharp review of the day in poker. Join us here for a mix of the latest news and a more irreverent insight into the poker world. Today we discovered the following topics for you:

One Drop Finale

One Drop dreams

Finding yourself on the wrong side of a $1 million bubble is never fun, but that nightmare became reality for Ilya Bulychev today in the One Drop event.

The Russian player had managed to outlast some of the world’s best players including Phil Ivey and Erik Seidel but, after falling short, he decided to take a stand with Qd 6d from the small blind.

A chipped-up Sam Trickett made the call with Kc 7h and instantly hit top pair on the 7d 4d 2c flop.

Down but not out, Bulychev sat anxiously in his seat as the 3s and 2s offered him no help and sent him out of the tournament in 10th.

With the largest bubble in tournament history burst, Mike Sexton was the first player to hit the rail with some return on their investment.

After the WPT host said his goodbyes the final eight bagged their chips and posed for pictures.

When the stacks were counted it was Antonio Esfandiari who was leading the way ahead of Sam Trickett and Guy Laliberte.

The final table will commence tomorrow with an exciting mix of billionaire businessmen and poker players all looking to take down the tournament and jump straight to the top of the all-time money list.

Bitar Gives Up

In case you missed the news yesterday, Ray Bitar, the former CEO of Full Tilt Poker, has officially handed himself over to the US authorities.

Having remained elusive since the Black Friday indictments, Bitar addressed the company’s employees in what appears to be a parting email.

In addition to thanking them for their hard work he assured them that their wages for July will be covered by PokerStars.

His statement adds further credence to the rumours that Full Tilt will be taken over by its biggest rival.

Bitar’s fate is to be decided by the US authorities as he now faces nine charges ranging from violating UIGEA to money laundering and missing funds.

In the latest update, Bitar has pleaded not guilty and his bail has been set at $2.4 million with $1 million in cash required. It's been reported that Bitar hasn't been able to raise the cash yet and is currently still in prison.

Bitar bites the dust

Free Hugs Wins

Generosity is seldom found in the poker world. While the community as a whole are proactive when it comes to giving money to charity, doing something for other players doesn’t come so easily.

However, Daniel  junglemandan Cates has decided to buck that trend by choosing someone to stake in the Main Event based on their acts of kindness.

After weeks of entries the final decision has been made and the lucky winner is Daniel Sauva. The British poker player took the most basic form of kindness, a hug, and turned it into a winning entry.

With the help of his good friend Emily, Daniel set about spreading some love around London.

After much deliberation the panel of Party Poker judges decided that Daniel’s entry was “unique, funny and captured something pretty special”.

The final seal of approval was given by Cates and after being informed of the news, Sauva said:

“Words cannot possibly describe how incredibly excited, gobsmacked and thankful I am. This is a dream come true. Wait, this is real right? Somebody slap me. Whoop whoop! Vegas baby!”

The Final Phase

After a long battle with negative variance, Martin “phasE89” Balaz has finally decided to end his marathon SNG challenge.

Plagued by bad results from the start, Martin’s quest to play 40,000 SNGs in a month and finish with a profit has come to a premature halt.

The news came via a Twitter post which read: “Another 25 BI bellow EV (-$3k). Sorry guys, thank you for your support, but I am officially ending my challenge. More info in my blog soon.”

Martin now faces the prospect of having to pay out more money to those who bet again him.

Despite losing this particular challenge it’s likely we’ll see Martin back at the tables very soon with yet another test of his poker skills.

Bad times for Balaz

Daily Signoff

He's currently leading the biggest poker tournament ever held and in this classic WSOP clip we see why Antonio Esfandiari is able to make big folds when it matters.