Another day, another huge tournament here on the Triton Poker Series. And we’re not even talking about Justin Bonomo’s latest victory — although that did happen too, of course.
But while poker’s hottest talent was adding another US$500,000 and change to his ledger, another massive field was assembling at the at the Landing Casino, in the Shinhwa World Jeju Resort, for the second tournament of the week. This time is was a HK$500,000 buy-in short deck event, which attracted 69 entries (including 24 re-entries). That’s more even than the tournament with a buy-in half the size.
That’s the way things go here on the Triton series, where poker’s normal rules are turned on their head. Raise the buy-in, watch the fields swell. And that means the prize pool does as well. Some time tomorrow, one of the 14 remaining at the end of today’s 11 levels will win the HK$9.730 million first prize. That’s around $1.24 million in USD and the first seven-figure tournament prize of the 2019 Triton tournament series. It will not be the last.
At bagging time, France’s Romain Arnaud had snatched the chip lead, having increased his 300,000 starting stack to 3.030 million — the kind of stack someone would be happy to take to the final table. The man known online as “moirhums” is also a formidable live tournament player, who beat his countryman Rui Cao heads up here in Jeju in another Super High Roller tournament last December. “I got really lucky,” Arnaud admitted at the end of the day, with a bashful chuckle. “Against Rui again.”
Arnaud then described how he cracked Cao’s pocket aces twice, once by rivering a set of tens and another time by taking pocket kings up against the aces and winning that too. It’s how come Cao was on the rail by the end, while Arnaud is at the top of the leader board.
Almost everyone who played the first event came back for another shot today, but it a few of the new faces who got the photographers’ shutters clicking with most eagerness. Both Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Timofey “Trueteller” Kuznetsov played their first tournament of the week.
It was important that the photographers were so on their game, because neither Dwan nor Kuznetsov lasted the night. At least Dwan fired only one bullet, while Kuznetsov misfired with three. Gabe Patgorski hit the rail after five buy-ins, Mike Watson headed back to his room after four.
But they need not worry about missing the action. Tomorrow we have a HK$500,000 6-Max tournament starting (and they’ll be using all 52 cards in that one).
Here’s the full list of counts for the remaining players. Yes, that’s the same Bonomo in there with heaps of chips as the man who won Event #1. He hopped straight into this one and continued the fun. Full payout schedule is below. This tournament resumes at 2pm local time tomorrow and plays to a winner, while Event #3 starts at 4pm.
Event #2 Day 2 chip counts and seat assignment:
| NAME | COUNTRY | CHIPS | SEAT |
| Arnaud Romain | France | 3,030,000 | 1-4 |
| Ying Lin Chua | Malaysia | 2,135,000 | 2-5 |
| Wai Leong Chan | Malaysia | 2,010,000 | 3-6 |
| Ying Seng Devan Tang | Hong Kong | 1,950,000 | 2-6 |
| Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 1,745,000 | 1-2 |
| Peter Jetten | Canada | 1,500,000 | 1-1 |
| Jason Koon | United States | 1,490,000 | 3-4 |
| Justin Bonomo | United States | 1,415,000 | 2-2 |
| Xuan Tan | China | 1,220,000 | 1-6 |
| Wei Seng Paul Phua | Malaysia | 1,110,000 | 3-5 |
| Bryn Kenney | United States | 1,000,000 | 2-4 |
| Johnson Juanda | Indonesia | 760,000 | 3-1 |
| Tong Siow Choon | Malaysia | 735,000 | 1-5 |
| Isaac Haxton | United States | 600,000 | 2-1 |
Full payout information:
Triton Jeju Event #2: Short-Deck Ante-Only
Buy-in: HK$500,000
Entries: 69 (inc. 24 re-entries)
Prize pool: HK$32.43 million
1 – HK$9,730,000
2 – HK$7,040,000
3 – HK$4,540,000
4 – HK$3,435,000
5 – HK$2,660,000
6 – HK$2,075,000
7 – HK$1,650,000
8 – HK$1,300,000