The latest round of 2012 WSOP tournaments was dominated by the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop, which saw the biggest winner in poker history crowned. Furthermore, there were also some billionaire businessmen who managed to finish well in this intriguing tourney as well. Of course, there were plenty of other recent WSOP tournaments with big stories, so let’s discuss all of the action.

Event #46: $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em – Joey Weissman brought an interesting four-legged friend to bark him on to victory in the Event #46 tournament. After beating out a field of 1,607 players and collecting $694,609, Weissman posed for pictures with his dog and good buddy Revis.

Event #47: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better – Steven Loube spends a lot of his time playing the video game Call of Duty. However, he recently took a break from his favorite game to capture the Event #47 title along with $267,345.

Event #48: $3,000 Limit Hold’em – Ohio grinder Kenny Hsiung won his first WSOP gold bracelet after taking down Event #48. He collected $165,205 for beating out the 247-player field.

Event #49: $1,500 Ante Only No-Limit Hold’em – In the first ever “ante only” WSOP tournament, Greg Hobson emerged victorious while facing 939 players; his prize for the victory was $256,691.

Event #50: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em – Pete “The Greek” Vilandos grabbed his third career gold bracelet here by outlasting 1,001 players en route to the $952,694 top prize. What made Vilandos’ victory remarkable was that he survived a really tough final table that included pros like Kyle Julius (2nd, $589,687), Dan Smith (3rd, $368,943), Matt Giannetti (7th, $112,725), Tommy Vedes (8th, $86,896) and Amir Lehavot (9th, $67,889).

Event #51: $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship – The Ladies Championship was pretty void of star power this year since no big names finished in the top spots. But Yen Dang had no complaints about this since she took the win along with $170,587.

Event #52: $2,500 10-Game Mix 6-Handed – After capturing the Event #52 title along with $244,259, Vanessa Selbst became just the second woman in WSOP history to win two open-entry tournaments (Jennifer Harman is the other). She’s also the second lady to win an open-entry tourney at the 2012 WSOP.

Advertisement

Event #53: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em – Jim Willerson has led a very balanced life since he’s an attorney and was a 3-time letterman on the SMU tennis team. Willerson balanced his life out even more by adding a WSOP gold bracelet to his poker resume. To do this, he had to beat out a massive 3,166-player field on the way to a $737,248 first place prize.

Event #54: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em – The huge field sizes continued in this $1k buy-in Hold’em tourney as 3,221 players entered. Will Jaffe wasn’t fazed by the large amount of entrants since he cruised to the victory and $500,075 payout here.

Event #55: $1 million Big One for One Drop – Finally….the most anticipated tournament of the 2012 WSOP. For starters, Antonio Esfandiari earned the biggest single payout in poker history after he won the One Drop event along with $18,346,673. Esfandiari also took over the all-time tournament winnings lead with $23,245,828. UK grinder Sam Trickett fared well by finishing runner-up and collecting $10,112,001. Finally, investment guru David Einhorn (3rd, $4,352,000) and Cirque du Soliel founder Guy Laliberte (5th, $1,834,666) showed that businessmen can play too.

Event #56: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em – Tomas Junek became the first Czech player to win at the 2012 WSOP after he outlasted this 2,798-player field to capture the $661,022 top payout. Also, 2008 WSOP Main Event winner Peter Eastgate took fourth place in this tourney ($209,111).

Event #57: $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed – 474 players paid the hefty $10k buy-in in this tournament, which created a very large $4,455,600 prize pool. Online poker guru Gregory Merson was the biggest beneficiary of this prize pool as he won and collected $1,136,197. Noted pros Shannon Shorr (3rd, $455,362) Andrew Lichtenberger (6th, $140,351) and Layne Flack (8th, $100,696) also fared well.

Event #58: $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better – Viacheslav Zhukov might start thinking about dropping out of Moscow Mining University since the Russian captured his second WSOP bracelet in this tournament. The student earned $330,277 after winning a bracelet for the second straight year.

Event #59: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em – Germany’s Dominik Nitsche navigated through a ridiculously large 4,620-player field to win this tournament and the $654,797 first place reward.

Event #60: $10,000 2-7 Draw Lowball – In a pro-heavy event, Nick Schulman collected his second gold bracelet along with $294,321. Other famous pros who had strong performances included Ashton Griffin (5th, $55,482), John Juanda (6th, $41,270) and Ali Eslami (8th, $26,004).