The headline news on a fine May afternoon on the Adriatic Coast is that deep inside the Maestral Resort and Casino, Budva, Montenegro, a poker player will tomorrow win HKD 26.3 million ($3.35 million).
Registration closed at around 2.30pm today on the Triton Series Montenegro short deck main event, with 47 players contributing 98 HKD 1 million ($127,000) entries. It built a prize pool of HKD 92.12 million ($11.74 million), from which the top man will earn that staggering payout.
| POS | HKD | USD |
| 1 | $26,300,000 | $3,350,725 |
| 2 | $17,100,000 | $2,178,608 |
| 3 | $11,800,000 | $1,503,367 |
| 4 | $9,070,000 | $1,155,554 |
| 5 | $7,200,000 | $917,309 |
| 6 | $5,620,000 | $716,010 |
| 7 | $4,400,000 | $560,578 |
| 8 | $3,400,000 | $433,174 |
| 9 | $2,630,000 | $335,073 |
| 10 | $2,300,000 | $293,029 |
| 11 | $2,300,000 | $293,029 |
Barring something miraculous in the smaller buy-in events next week, this will be the single biggest prize-pool of the 11-event series and will determine yet another major winner on the richest and most prestigious tournament series in the world.
Eleven players will be paid, with a “min-cash” redefining that term. The smallest payout is HKD 2.3 million ($293,000).
Players celebrated news of the enormous prize pool with a visit to an exclusive buffet — replete with goldfish and bubbling cauldrons of red liquid (not for consumption) — before settling back to play into the money tonight.
They’ll play the final table tomorrow, at the same time as the first Pot-Limit Omaha event gets started on the Triton Series.