James McManus, Columnist

How a Poker Heavyweight Ambushed Einhorn

On the first day of an absurdly high-stakes poker tournament, there were plenty of surprises.

June 30, 2014 at 9:53 PM UTC

James McManus is the author of "Positively Fifth Street" and "Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker." He has written about the game for the New York Times, Harper's, the New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Esquire and Grantland. He teaches writing and literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Forty-two players wound up paying $1 million apiece to play in the second biennial Big One for One Drop, a three-day poker tournament at the Rio in Las Vegas. Already, the hugely remunerative contest -- widely considered the heavyweight championship of No-Limit Hold 'em -- has had some major surprises.

A few pros who were expected to play -- including online prodigy Tom Dwan and a pair of Chinese businessmen he plays with in Macau -- didn't show. Erick Lindgren, another pro who has experienced some deep financial setbacks in the past three years, surprised many reporters when he was introduced. It turned out he'd won a seat in a $25,000 satellite game just a few hours before.