The Big One For One Drop Player Profiles [Part 3]
With just two days before the $1 million buy-in Big One For One Drop charity event at the WSOP, the attention of the poker world has turned towards the participants. Which players will compete for the biggest poker tournament prize ever?
One Drop is a charitable organization started by Guy Laliberté which aims to provide clean water to poor areas of the world.
This Sunday, the World Series of Poker will host "The Big One For One Drop", a $1 million buy-in event with $111,111 of each buy-in going directly to One Drop as a charitable donation.
Below you can find 12 profiles of players who are probably entering the event (all are either confirmed or have stated that they will play). You can also check out our previous profiles:
Part 1 (Profiles 1-12) Part 2 (Profiles 13-24)
| Andrew Robl, Poker Player | ||
| Age: 25 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $2,383,719 |  |
| Nationality: American | Major Tournament Wins: None | |
| Biography: Andrew Robl is an American poker pro who started playing poker in home games and at a local casino in high school. He played online as "good2cu", and within a few years was earning enough that he dropped out of college to play full-time.
Today, Robl can be found wherever there are massive cash games. He lives in Las Vegas, and he is a regular participant in the big games that frequently take place in Macau. |
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| David Peat, Poker Player | ||
| Age: N/A | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $277,047 |  |
| Nationality: American | Major Tournament Wins: None | |
| Biography: David "Viffer" Peat is an infrequent tournament poker player, but he's still a recognizable face to most poker fans because of his appearances on numerous cash game TV shows.
Peat is known as both an aggressive poker player and an aggressive partier. Although he rarely gets drawn away from the biggest cash games in Vegas, a $1 million buy-in tournament was apparently big enough to grab his attention. |
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| Frédéric Banjout, Businessman & Backgammon Player | ||
| Age: 41 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: None |  |
| Nationality: French | Major Tournament Wins: None | |
| Biography: Frédéric Banjout is a 41-year-old businessman from Paris. He has been known to participate in high-stakes private cash games, but he has no major recorded poker tournament cashes.
Banjout may not be known to the poker world, but he's no stranger to the discipline necessary to play a strategy game at a high level - he is a world-class backgammon player and finished in 2nd place in the World Championship in 1997. |
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| Jason Mercier, Poker Player | ||
| Age: 25 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $7,770,291 |  |
| Nationality: American | Major Tournament Wins: 2 WSOP, 1 EPT | |
| Biography: Jason Mercier is a member of Team PokerStars Pro and has one of the most impressive tournament records in the world over the last several years. He began playing seriously in college, although he did earn a degree and briefly worked as a substitute teacher.
In 2008 Mercier won entry to the EPT San Remo online. He won the event and hasn't looked back since - he's won at least $1 million in tournament earnings each year since then. |
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| Nick Schulman, Poker Player | ||
| Age: 27 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $5,135,017 |  |
| Nationality: American | Major Tournament Wins: 1 WSOP, 1 WPT | |
| Biography: Nick Schulman grew up in New York City and played billiards very seriously since a young age. When he was 18 he also began playing poker, and he quickly took to it - by 19 he was playing professionally.
When he turned 21, Schulman's first live tournament cash was a huge one - over $2 million for winning the 2005 WPT World Poker Finals. Schulman is considered a very well-rounded player who can play all poker variants well in both cash games and tournaments. |
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| Roger Teska, Poker Player | ||
| Age: N/A | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $544,586 |  |
| Nationality: American | Major Tournament Wins: None | |
| Biography: Roger Teska is an American poker pro from Bloomington, Indiana. He finished in 4th place in the 2011 WPT Championship and played as "term_" online.
Perhaps he plays in some very juicy cash games, but it is difficult to explain how he came up with the $1 million buy-in. |
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| Sam Trickett, Poker Player | ||
| Age: 25 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $6,359,096 |  |
| Nationality: British | Major Tournament Wins: 1 Partouche | |
| Biography: Sam Trickett is a British poker pro who will turn 26 on Day 2 of the One Drop event. Trickett started his poker career beating a home game in a friend's bar, but when he suffered a knee injury he turned away from his dream of playing soccer professionally to focus on poker full-time.
Trickett has a remarkable record in super high roller tournaments, so he should be one of the favorites in this event. In 2011 he won a $100,000 buy-in event at the Aussie Millions for about $1.5 million. |
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| Vivek Rajkumar, Poker Player | ||
| Age: ~26 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $4,315,715 |  |
| Nationality: Indian | Major Tournament Wins: 1 WPT | |
| Biography: Vivek Rajkumar is an Indian-American poker pro who spent time in India and Singapore as a child before moving to the United States when he was 12. He started out playing poker online as "Psyduck", and moved to live tournament play as soon as he could.
Although Vivek plays lots of events in several poker tours, his biggest successes have come at WPT events. He won the 2008 Borgata Poker Open, and also has 2nd and 4th place WPT finishes. |
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| Antonio Esfandiari, Poker Player | ||
| Age: 33 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $4,899,155 |  |
| Nationality: Iranian | Major Tournament Wins: 2 WPT, 1 WSOP | |
| Biography: Iranian-American Antonio Esfandiari moved to California from Tehran with his family when he was 9 years old. When he was a teenager he began working as a professional magician. He began playing poker when he was invited to join a home game, and he began to take the game very seriously.
In 2004 Antonio won the L.A. Poker Classic to take down his first WPT title and $1.4 million. Since then, Antonio has been a frequent player in many televised poker shows. |
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| Haralabos Voulgaris, Sports Bettor & Poker Player | ||
| Age: ~37 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $1,959,614 |  |
| Nationality: Canadian | Major Tournament Wins: None | |
| Biography: Haralabos Voulgaris purchased his One Drop seat from Carlos Nahas, a fellow Canadian who won the seat in a satellite. Voulgaris is known in the poker world for his tournament results and appearances on poker TV shows, but his primary income comes from betting on basketball.
Voulgaris' first major bankroll increase came in a pretty crazy manner - he bet his life savings that the Lakers would win the NBA Championship in 2000. They did, and today he's one of the most successful NBA bettors in the world. |
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| Noah Schwartz, Poker Player | ||
| Age: ~28 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $2,513,817 |  |
| Nationality: American | Major Tournament Wins: None | |
| Biography: Noah Schwartz is an American poker pro from Florida. When he was younger, he wanted to play professional baseball. While playing in college he seriously injured his arm, so he turned more seriously to poker.
Schwartz played online as "forUhaters" and has made numerous major tournament final tables despite not having won a major title yet. Among them was an 8th place finish in the $40,000 40th Anniversary WSOP event. |
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| Ben Lamb, Poker Player | ||
| Age: 27 | Lifetime Tournament Earnings: $6,586,357 |  |
| Nationality: American | Major Tournament Wins: 1 WSOP | |
| Biography: Although not yet on the confirmed list of participants, American pro Ben Lamb has tweeted that he will be playing.
Lamb has been a poker pro since 2006, but he became a household name to poker fans when he became the 2011 WSOP Player of the Year. To gain that title he won the $10K PLO event and made 3 additional final tables - including both the $50K Players Championship and the $10K WSOP Main Event. |
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