High stakes tournament specialist Mikita Badziakouski is the winner of the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop that took place at the World Poker Tour Championships at the Wynn this week. The 31-year-old from Belarus won a career-best $7,114,500 for being the last of 17 players standing.
“I feel great. The tournament itself is the biggest title I’ve ever had,” Badziakouski told WPT reporters after the victory. “I just got lucky in a couple of big coolers. That’s how it goes, one of the sides has to get lucky and that was me today.”
Badziakouski, who is listed as Bodyakovsky on the Hendon Mob’s site, now has more than $50 million in winnings, putting him near the top of the all-time list at seventh.
With such a small field, only four of the last six players who made it to the final table made the money. That means Nick Petrangelo and Santhosh Suvarna were the bubble-boys, but don’t feel too badly for them: Petrangelo has $32 million in lifetime tournament wins and Suvarna, a fairly recent regular on the high stakes circuit, $6.6 million.
Isaac Haxton min-cashed in fourth for a $224,400 profit. Dan Smith followed him next in third, adding another $2.8 million to his pile of tournament winnings that now also sits over $50 million.
That left former professional soccer prospect Mario Mosbock and Badziakouski to battle for the $2,450,550 difference between first and second. Mosbock begin the heads-up fight as a slight chip leader, but Badziakouski cut off Mosbock’s legs after he found a double-up four hands in and it was soon over.
The $4,663,950 Mosbock earned as runner-up was his second multi-million score of 2023. He also came as close as possible to winning the $200,000 Triton Monte Carlo Invitational for $2.6 million in October. He’ll soon break the $9.7 million mark if he keeps going deep in these nose-bleeders.
As for Badziakouski, this is his 14th score worth a million dollars or more. He moved into that neighborhood in 2018, when he won three tournaments with seven figure cashes, including his second-best, a $5.2 million score in a Triton Poker Super High Roller Event in Asia.
Sixty-thousand dollars of every buy-in — $1,020,000 — went to the non-profit One Drop, which has the mission to “provide access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene to communities facing extreme barriers.”
Other players who entered the six-figure event included Chris Brewer, Stephen Chidwick, Matthias Eibinger, David Einhorn, Fedor Holz, WPT Ambassador Phil Ivey, Martin Kabrhel, Jason Koon, Adrian Mateos, Rick Salomon and Talal Shakerchi.
| Place | Player | Earnings | County |
| 1 | Mikita Badziakouski | $7,114,500 | Belarus |
| 2 | Mario Mosbock | $4,663,950 | Austria |
| 3 | Dan Smith | $2,806,750 | U.S. |
| 4 | Isaac Haxton | $1,224,800 | U.S. |
