Esfandiari`s $18.3 Million WSOP Big One for One Drop Win...Was it Real?

Esfandiari with his cash
BULLSHIT!

You`ve all heard about Antonio Esfandiari`s humongous $18.3 Million dollar win in Guy Laliberte`s special 2012 WSOP grand event called the Big One for One Drop. The question is...was it real? Or was it another hyped-up super-colluded event to increase the poker world's fan base and the celebrity value of star professional poker players?

Well, I will tell you this: About the only thing real with Laliberte`s gig was the 11.11 percent of the forty-eight $1 million buy-ins going to charity. That of course did happen. But are we to believe that each of these 48 players, including former Main Event World Series of Poker champions Phil Hellmuth and Bobby Baldwin, really put up this money to risk?

Absolutely not!

It was all bullshit, just like the Game Show Network`s High Stakes Poker...just like that similar gig back in 2006 where Phil Ivy and a bunch of other poker stars were supposedly putting up $10 million each to win a $60 million grand-prize playing underneath some dome between casinos in Las Vegas. I forgot the name of that one and am not going to bother searching it on the Internet for this article, because it is just not worth wasting my time on bullshit.

In any event, I severely criticized that huge publicity-stunt rubbish back then, and sure enough it was quickly cancelled. This latest gig by Laliberte, who happens to be a billionaire thanks to his "real" make-believe stuff, the super-successful worldwide extravaganza called Cirque du Soleil, is just another adrenaline shot in the arm to the poker world and all its fans and players.

What really happened?

Nothing. Just a staged playout where no real money changed hands. Just like we see on High Stakes Poker.

I wouldn´tbe surprised if the French Canadian billionaire paid each of the other 47 players (excluding himself) a fee to take part in this sham.

Sorry to put the spoiler on this but that what it is...a spoiler.