Poker ace Justin Bonomo’s multi-million dollar win in the Big One for One Drop charity match over the World Series of Poker this year (see previous reports) may not have been as large as was originally thought.
Flush Draw writer Dan Katz reported this week that in fact Bonomo and his last final table opponent, German poker pro Fedor Holz, agreed a chop as the final stage started with Holz holding 84.3 million chips to Bonomo’s 50.7 million.
The chop has been confirmed by Bonomo on Twitter, writing: “Fedor and I chopped half of the prize pool when we got HU and played for the other half. My final share was $8,751,111. I discussed how this would work with Scott from YouStake before the FT and he said I should wait until I get paid before announcing it. I messaged him privately as soon as the deal was struck so that everything would be transparent.”
The reference to YouStake was aimed at the “hundreds” of poker fans who ponied up part (around 9 percent) of Bonomo’s buy-in for the competition.
Katz explained the mechanics of the split thus: The first prize was $10 million, which combined with the second place prize of $6 million meant the two players were negotiating around $16 million.
“Both players had already guaranteed themselves $6 million, since they worst they could do was second place, so they subtracted that from the total, leaving $4 million. It was half of that $4 million that they chopped based on heads-up chip counts, leaving $2 million on the table for which to play,” Katz explains.
Using the heads up chip counts as a base, Holz had 62.44 percent of the chips in play at that stage, with Bonomo holding 37.56 prcent. Applying those percentages to the $2 million that the duo chopped meant that Bonomo received $751,111 and Holz got $1,248,889.
“So, Bonomo was awarded $6 million as guaranteed second place money, $751,111 as his portion of the chop, and $2 million for winning the tournament, bringing his actual prize money to $8,751,111, just as he said in his tweet,” Katz summarises.
Bonomo was generous in victory, donating $75,000 to the One Drop Charity, which he said consisted of the “entirety of the mark-up” he charged his YouStake backers, plus an additional donation.
According to the page for Bonomo’s Big One for One Drop campaign, he had 235 backers via YouStake, amounting to 9 percent of his buy-in. Those 235 people received a total of $787,599.99 for his win, a collective profit of $697,599.99.
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