Esfandiari dominates the tourney and leads at Level 17

The million dollar buy-in Big One for One Drop reached the final table stage Tuesday with Antonio Esfandiari leading the group of the last eight players left to battle for the main prize.

So far, Chamath Palihapitiya lost his stack to John Morgan in the first hand to be followed by Vivek Rajkumar just twenty minutes later after a clash with Frederic Banjout, who himself did not stay in the field much longer.

The first hour of the game also saw Mikhail Smirnov sending home Daniel Negreanu and Tom Dwan, which were soon followed by Phil Galfond and Noah Schwartz.

More respected names headed for the exit in the short order including Thomas Reinkemeier, Phil Ruffin, John Morgan, Paul Newey, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, Ben Lamb, Bob Bright, Dan Shak and finally Smirnov.

An hour later Jason Mercier and Rick Solomon left the field to see the latest leavers Mike Sexton and the quot;bubble boyquot; Ilya Bulychev .

Sexton will take home $1,109,333 for his 9th place finish.

These are the final table entrants:

Antonio Esfandiari – 39,925,000

Sam Trickett – 37,000,000

Guy Laliberteacute; – 21,700,000

Brian Rast – 11,350,000

Phil Hellmuth – 10,925,000

David Einhorn – 8,375,000

Richard Yong – 7,475,000

Bobby Baldwin – 7,150,000