Justin Bonomo Wins World Series Of Poker’s One Drop For $10 Million

The final event of the 2018 World Series of Poker wrapped up late Tuesday evening in Las Vegas. Justin Bonomo, a poker pro from Las Vegas, won event no. 78, the $1 million buy-in no-limit hold’em “Big One for One Drop” for a whopping $10 million.

Fedor Holz, a semi-retired poker pro from Germany, finished second for $6 million.

The win brings Bonomo’s lifetime earnings to $43 million, while Holz’s lifetime earnings are now $33 million. They stand in first and fourth place, respectively. Bonomo passed Poker Hall of Famer Daniel Negreanu for the all-time lead.

The win was Bonomo’s third career bracelet. He won his second this summer in the $10,000 heads-up no-limit hold’em championship event. Bonomo is in the midst of a run that arguably surpasses a heater that Holz had starting in late 2015 and extending through most of 2016. Dan Colman also had an historic heater in 2014, winning more than $22 million.

Bonomo has won nearly $25 million in 2018 alone, which makes his heater the best in history in terms of live tournaments. And there’s still plenty of time to win more.

“This year has been absolutely incredible,” Bonomo said to the WSOP after his latest victory. “It’s more money than I’ve ever played for in my life. I buckled down during all my breaks. I studied. Took the day off the day before and studied all day. I took this as seriously as I possibly could and tried to stay as focused as possible. It paid off.”

Bonomo had 36 percent of the chips in play when it was six-handed, but he was eventually on the short stack with three left. Holz held a commanding lead, but Bonomo battled back to take a massive lead of his own after eliminating Dan Smith in third.

After about 150 hands of play at the unofficial table of six, Holz and Bonomo tangled for the final time. According to WSOP live updates, Bonomo limped in on the button, and Holz moved all in for his short stack of 23.6 million. Bonomo quickly called with AJ, and he was in good shape against the A4 of Holz.

The board ran out K832Q, giving Bonomo the pot and all of the 135 million chips in play.

A total of 27 players posted the seven-figure buy-in for this event, building a prize pool of $24,840,000 and raising more than $2 million for the One Drop Foundation. The turnout was down compared to 2014 (42 entries) and 2012 (48 entries).

Here’s a look at the payouts:

Billionaire investor David Einhorn finished on the money bubble in sixth place.

Bonomo Photo Credit: Jamie Thomson/Joe Giron/WSOP