Category: 2024

This week at the Triton Super High Roller Series in Jeju had already been hugely profitable for the young Czech player Roman Hrabec. He had played seven tournaments, cashed in five of them, and had been playing the series of his life.

But today, Hrabec took the next huge step towards Triton greatness, riding the momentum to snag the $100K Main Event title against the biggest field ever assembled for a tournament of this buy-in. It came with a first prize of $4.33 million, plus an exclusive Jacob & Co timepiece that finds only a select few wrists.

Hrabec had clearly been playing superbly this trip, and today he was perfectly placed to make the absolute most from a great run of cards as well. Hrabec was relentless, and managed to consistently show up with the goods when his opponents played back.

He needed it. His final opponent, from a record-breaking field of 216 entries, was the incorrigible Jean Noel Thorel, a player who knows a thing or two about relentless aggression. But for the second time, Thorel had to make do with second place in a Triton Main Event, with a $2.875 million consolation prize this time.

Hrabec claimed in his winner’s interview that he hadn’t paid any attention to the money. “I just play my game,” he said. But he added, “I will say, it feels quite amazing,” before checking, “Is that real money? Yeah, that feels pretty good.”

Hrabec, who is 28 and now lives in Vienna, Austria, picked up poker in the dressing room of the professional ice hockey stadiums as he pursued life as an athlete. His hockey career stalled because of injury, but his poker took off.

He made his name as an online MTT beast, known as “gogac_sniper”. And the assassin duly blasted through this tournament to really help him emerge into the big leagues. Hrabec said he visited the temples of South Korea with his friends and girlfriend, fellow pro Monica Zukowicz, and prayed for some run good in the main event.

He also sported a bright orange hat and brought a local Jeju hallabong orange with him to the table, hoping his respect for the local culture brought him luck.

“I guess it worked out,” Hrabec said.

Make no mistake, this is a statement win in an enormous tournament. Hrabec, who will rise to second on the Czech money list with this victory, is clearly here to stay on the Triton Series.

RECORD BREAKING

For some very obvious reasons, all the talk in the room at the beginning of this three-day tournament was about just how big it could possibly get. With records being broken left and right here in Jeju, a new mark for the biggest $100K buy-in event was a genuine possibility — not just for the Triton Series, but for world poker as a whole.

With players continuing to sit down, and registration open throughout the whole of the first day, the field soon eclipsed Triton’s own record, set in London last summer. And by the time tournament organisers finally drew the shutters down on the reg desk, they had printed 216 tournament tickets — officially the biggest ever.

Yep, it’s worth underlining this: this week Triton set a new best for Super High Roller poker tournaments with 216 entries at the $100K price point. Who on earth would have thought that possible just a few years ago?

TOURNAMENT ACTION

As soon as registration had closed, the focus of course shifted to the money places. Thirty nine spots were due to be paid, with a min-cash worth $151,000. As the field contracted, it grew tense.

There were close battles right across the field as the player numbers ticked down. With only a couple of eliminations to go until the money, David Coleman tried to push out Webster Lim with a shove from the small blind. Lim, however, found and although it was a decision worth burning through a few time banks, he made the call.

Lim’s hand stayed good against Coleman’s and it left the American in peril.

Over on another table, Stephen Chidwick and Chris Brewer got their middling stacks in the middle pre-flop, but chopped it up after both showing ace-king. Santhosh Suvarna was not fortunate enough to even secure a chop. He had a decent stack until back-to-back losses against Andrew Pantling and then Elton Tsang.

Suvarna’s nosedive was completed by Pantling, who took the last blind with to Suvarna’s . Paulius Plausinaitis was now the micro-stack on that table, with only two big blinds, but he would have known that Coleman was also in for his final blind elsewhere in the room.

Coleman, similarly, couldn’t find something miraculous when he was forced all-in. He had only against Alex Theologis’ and an ace on the flop made it very hard for Coleman.

He picked up a straight draw but missed it, and instead hit the rail in an agonising 40th spot. Everyone else was now the right side of the cruel line.

HEADING TO THE FINAL

As ever, the tournament was weighted heavily to the top spots and the target now was the final table. Actually, the first aim was to get through to the end of Day 2, which was scheduled to finish when 16 players were left.

This was a task beyond such Triton luminaries as Henrik Hecklen, Tim Adams, Mike Watson, and Webster Lim. Jean Noel Thorel was thrilling viewers on the TV stage, playing his customary all-action game. Seth Davies and Andrew Pantling were among those who simply couldn’t cope with JNT, as the Frenchman opened a near two-to-one lead over his nearest competition.

When Theologis and Shyngis Satubayev went out in quick succession, the bags came out for the night.

Fifteen players returned for Day 3, all looking up to Thorel, but quickly Mario Mosboeck, Ramin Hajiyev and Wiktor Malinowski hit the rail. It then took a big pot, and a big outdraw, to bust Chidwick in 10th and bring the rest of the players round a final table of nine.

Chidwick had never had a huge stack, but had been holding firm with the final in sight. And just when he thought he might finally get the chips to do some damage, with against Hrabec’s , he had to watch the dealer put three hearts out there to sent Hrabec to the top and Chidwick out.

Hrabec’s tear had edged him over Thorel, but there was still a lot of play to go. The final nine lined up as follows:

Roman Hrabec – 14,325,000 (72 BBs)
Jean Noel Thorel – 13,375,000 (67 BBs)
Alex Kulev – 5,825,000 (29 BBs)
Fahredin Mustafov – 4,600,000 (23 BBs)
Chris Brewer – 4,200,000 (21 BBs)
Elton Tsang – 4,150,000 (21 BBs)
Matthias Eibinger – 3,800,000 (19 BBs)
Igor Yaroshevskiy – 2,125,000 (11 BBs)
Patrik Antonius – 1,600,000 (8 BBs)

FINAL TABLE ACTION

There was something very familiar about the line-up, not least the presence of two Bulgarians there. This has been another fine showing during a brilliant couple of weeks for players from the eastern European country, and their flag again found itself draped over the bleechers.

However, Alex Kulev — who had been leading this tournament in its early stages — was the first man out of the final. He lost a classic race. He found pocket queens and got involved in a pre-flop raising battle with Hrabec, sitting with .

All the chips eventually went in, and Hrabec found an ace on the flop. Kulev was at his third final of the trip, which included a sixth-place finish in the $150K buy-in event. And he added $451,000 to his ledger for ninth.

Hrabec was on fire and he then found pocket queens to account for Chris Brewer. After Hrabeck opened his button, Brewer ripped in his 10 big blinds from the big blind seat and Hrabec made the call.

Brewer had one over-card with his , but it was not enough. Although he hit a king on the turn, Hrabec flopped a set and stayed best. Brewer, a two time Triton champion, was out in eighth this time for $543,000.

Ukraine’s Igor Yaroshevskiy has a strong reputation at the tournament tables of Europe, but his best results on the Triton Series have previously come in $25K and $50K turbo events, i.e., at the lower end of the Triton buy-in scale.

But this event, with its $100K buy-in, also seemed to feel comfortable for Yaroshevskiy and he sailed into the deep stages. But he couldn’t seem to get anything going at this final, steadily slipping down the counts. He then doubled up Elton Tsang when both players had short stacks — > — and Fahredin Mustafov was there to snatch the last crumbs.

Yaroshevskiy’s $739,000 is a new best for him.

Although Mustafov officially eliminated Yaroshevskiy, it wasn’t a huge pot and Mustafov himself was on the short side. He had previously lost a big flip to Patrik Antonius and was scrapping to keep himself afloat.

Mustafov’s position was such that he needed to raise/call all-in for big blinds with and hope to get it to beat Matthias Eibinger’s . That, however, was not to be.

A king rivered, but Eibinger’s hand was still bigger. Mustafov landed his first seven-figure payday — $1,008,000 to be precise — but his Main Event was over in sixth.

Hrabec’s non-stop aggression had the desired result of getting his opponents to pay him off when he managed to find a hand. The next time it happened, it accounted for Eibinger.

Eibinger was proudly wearing his Main Event winner’s timepiece, given to him by tournament sponsors Jacob & Co after his win in the equivalent tournament in Monte Carlo last year. But Eibinger’s timing was off when he three-bet shoved pocket threes and ran them into Hrabec’s pocket tens.

Hrabec flopped another ten and rivered a fourth. Quads. That was the end of Eibinger, who took $1,330,000 for fifth.

Hrabec’s sun run continued, and this time it made toast of Antonius. Hrabec picked up pocket jacks and went to battle pre-flop with Antonius. But while the Finnish great had a shorter stack, he had a bigger pocket pair, queens, and was only too happy to get it all in.

Even that didn’t stop Hrabec, however. A jack appeared on the flop, sending Hrabec into the lead in this pot, and even further ahead in the overall standings. Antonius, meanwhile, landed $1,697,000 for his fourth place.

By his tempestuous standards, Thorel had been comparatively quiet at this final, allowing Hrabec to do all the damage. But with the equally thrilling Elton Tsang at in the final three as well, we had all the ingredients for more fireworks.

So it proved fairly quickly. Thorel picked up to Tsang’s and the two smaller stacks got them in pre-flop. There was nothing for Tsang to celebrate through a dry board, and he headed over to his rail.

Tsang won his first title just a couple of days ago and said he had his eyes now fixed on a second. It was a pretty solid effort, running all the way to third and a $2.105 payday.

Hrabec had a big chip lead heads up, and there was certainly no certainty that this one would end quickly. With an average of more than 60 big blinds, most Triton Series heads-up battles could play long, long into the night.

However, that’s not accounting for Thorel, who has never seen a flop he didn’t like. Hrabec likely figured that if he could find a big hand and lay a trap, Thorel could be coaxed into it. And so it proved.

Hrabec picked up pocket kings and saw Thorel open pre-flop. Hrabec three-bet, Thorel called and they saw the flop. Hrabec bet, Thorel called.

The on the turn was obviously a huge card for Hrabec and he checked it over. Thorel took the bait and, with only needed to bluff to win.

He shoved, Hrabec called, and when no 10 appeared, that was the end of that.

“I just play a little bit different style,” Hrabec said. “Some people say I’m a punter…Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Paying tribute again to the local culture, his orange hat and the girlfriend who bought it for him, Hrabec said, “It has turned out to be a very lucky experience.”

Event #11 – $100K – NLH Main Event
Dates: March 14-16, 2024
Entries: 216 (inc. 77 re-entries)
Prize pool: $21,600,000

1 – Roman Hrabec, Czech Republic – $4,330,000
2 – Jean Noel Thorel, France – $2,875,000
3 – Elton Tsang, Hong Kong – $2,105,000
4 – Patrik Antonius, Finland – $1,697,000
5 – Matthias Eibinger, Austria – $1,330,000
6 – Fahredin Mustafov, Bulgaria – $1,008,000
7 – Igor Yaroshevskiy, Ukraine – $739,000
8 – Chris Brewer, USA – $543,000
9 – Alex Kulev, Bulgaria – $451,000

10 – Stephen Chidwick, UK – $378,000
11 – Kevin Rabichow, USA – $378,000
12 – Justin Saliba, USA – $330,000
13 – Wiktor Malinowski, Poland – $330,000
14 – Ramin Hajiyev, Azerbaijan – $298,000
15 – Mario Mosboeck, Austria – $298,000
16 – Shyngis Satubayev, Kazakhstan – $266,000
17 – Alex Theologis, Greece – $266,000
18 – Mauricio Salazar, Colombia – $234,000
19 – Seth Davies, USA – $234,000
20 – Andrew Pantling, Canada – $234,000
21 – Sean Winter, USA – $212,000
22 – Webster Lim, Malaysia – $212,000
23 – Luc Greenwood, Canada – $212,000
24 – Joey Weissman, USA – $190,000
25 – Esti Wang, China – $190,000
26 – Leon Sturm, Germany – $190,000
27 – Paulius Vaitiekunas, Lithuania – $190,000
28 – Ken Tong, Hong Kong – $168,000
29 – Wai Leong Chan, Malaysia – $168,000
30 – Lewis Spencer, UK – $168,000
31 – Wang Yang, China – $168,000
32 – Konstantin Maslak, Russia – $151,000
33 – Mike Watson, Canada – $151,000
34 – Ren Lin, China – $151,000
35 – Tim Adams, Canada – $151,000
36 – Biao Ding, China – $151,000
37 – Oleg Ustinovich, Russia – $151,000
38 – Henrik Hecklen, Denmark – $151,000
39 – Paulius Plausinaitis, Lithuania – $151,000

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive

The final Saturday of the Triton Super High Roller Series festival in Jeju, South Korea, started with the search for Quan Zhou. It ended with the Chinese player in the most prominent place of all: holding aloft his first Triton winner’s trophy.

Zhou was the overnight chip leader of the $25K Pot Limit Omaha event here at the Jeju Shinhwa World Landing Resort, but was late to arrive to the tournament room for the 1pm restart of the event. It meant Zhou was missing from the customary pre-final table line-up photo.

But no matter. Zhou set about his task today with customary focus and ensured that he was present for the most important photos of the day. Those were the ones featuring Zhou alone, alongside his winner’s cap, winning hand, winning chips and that trophy. The $530,000 first prize is also now into his Triton account.

This 39-year-old has come close to a Triton victory before, most notably when he was beaten heads-up in a PLO event in Monte Carlo last year. But this time he was not to be denied and blazed through the final day in a little more than four hours.

He despatched his final challenger, Canada’s Matthew Wood, on the first hand of head-up play. It ensured his first cash in Jeju came with a “1st place” notice beside it. He has staked a real claim as the man to beat in these PLO events, and confirmed that he’s here to stay.

“I’m very happy with the win,” Zhou said, through an interpreter, as he began his celebrations. “I have been looking forward to this title because there are a lot of strong competitors on the Triton Series.”

He added: “I played a lot of the no limit events and didn’t cash, so there was a bit of pressure on me. But fortunately I have a lot of support from friends that keeps me going. Some of my friends came here to support me. Winning this title has helped me to relieve the pressure. It’s a confidence boost.”

TOURNAMENT ACTION

When this tournament returned for its second day, the bubble was burst and only seven players remained. From 80 entries, the top 13 earned a payday, but Kosei Ichinose’s elimination in 15th came one spot too soon for him.

It was a steady decline for the Japanese pro, dwindling gradually to the bubble rather than collapsing dramatically in a heap. Ichinose had only about four big blinds at the end and got his chips in with . It was not good enough to beat Matthew Wood’s , which made a straight.

The tournament played on long enough for six more players to bust, including Fedor Holz, who was knocked out in eighth. It left us with a final table of seven on the last day, which lined up as follows:

Quan Zhou – 2,995,000 (60 BBs)
Joao Vieira – 2,855,000 (57 BBs)
Matthew Wood – 2,805,000 (56 BBs)
Laszlo Bujtas – 2,780,000 (56 BBs)
Nacho Barbero – 2,580,000 (52 BBs)
Klemens Roiter – 1,220,000 (24 BBs)
Ole Schemion – 770,000 (15 BBs)

Resplendent in the chip lead, Zhou was late to the start and resultantly missed the group shot. But he quickly settled down to his game as the action kicked off.

As can often be the case with PLO, there were no immediate, life-changing skirmishes. Chips shifted positions for a couple of hours before any player was forced out the door. When the time did eventually come for the cashier’s desk to snap into action, they were looking for $95,000 to hand to Ole Schemion.

The German star — as accomplished in mixed games as he is in hold’em — couldn’t spin up his short stack on the last day. His war of attrition ended essentially in two hands: one in which he defended his big blind to Zhou’s open, before having to fold after the flop. And then Matthew Wood managed to make a straight with to beat Schemion’s .

At that point, Wood had also been a short stack but he essentially doubled up in eliminating Schemion and he doubled again soon after through Joao Vieira. That left Nacho Barbero and Laszlo Bujtas in most danger, and it was Bujtas who next took the walk.

Although his lone Triton title came in hold’em, Bujtas forged his reputation as the online beast “omaha4rollz”, and the four-card game is his true speciality. This tournament, however, ended in sixth.

In a pot against Zhou, Bujtas shoved the flop of , after Zhou’s bet. Bujtas had , but Zhou’s ended with a flush after the turn and river.

Bujtas won $120,000.

Zhou was back in the ascendancy and Barbero was next in his sights. By the Argentinian’s previous standards at the Triton Poker Series, this trip to Jeju has been fallow. But here he was again at another final table, the eighth of his career–even if the run would come to a halt in fifth place.

Barbero three-bet jammed for about five big blinds with . Zhou called with and once again made a flush when the board ran .

Barbero’s first cash in Jeju earned him $154,000.

With only four players left, the average stack was 20 big blinds and the chip leader had only 28. That was Zhou, but nobody was more than a single double up away from being in the top two.

It was in the search of one of those double ups that Klemens Roiter ended on the rail. The Austrian was very well equipped to vault into the lead when he put in a pre-flop three-bet holding . Zhou called.

Zhou called. The flop came and Roiter shoved it in. However, Zhou had and filled up by the time the turn and river was on the table.

Roiter has cashed the last two events he has played on his first trip to the Triton Series. This fourth place came with a $191,000 prize.

Zhou now had a comfortable lead over his remaining two opponents, and it was simply a case of which of Vieira or Wood who could peg him back. Wood was the shorter stack but ended up doubling it through Vieira, which left Portugal’s finest on the ropes.

Zhou was of course waiting in the wings to apply the finishing touch. Vieira opened, Zhou three-bet, Vieira four-bet jammed and Zhou called, with Vieira tabling . Zhou had and it ended up being his raggy low cards that most connected with the board.

That was a boat for Zhou and Vieira was eliminated, taking $244,000 for third.

Wood now faced an extraordinary uphill task. Zhou had a seven-to-one chip lead, with 35 big blinds playing 5. The tournament officials went through the motions of resetting the table in preparation for the duel, even though the chances of a one-hand wonder were high.

And that’s what we got. Wood got his chips in with and Zhou called with . As usual, Zhou flopped very well — — and the left Wood drawing dead.

Wood has only played three events on the Triton Series and has cashed all of them. This was his best yet, worth $370,000. But even he could do nothing to halt this typhoon. It was Zhou’s day.

Event #12 – $25K POT LIMIT OMAHA
Dates: March 15-16, 2024
Entries: 89 (inc. 34 re-entries)
Prize pool: $2,000,000

1 – Quan Zhou, China – $530,000
2 – Matthew Wood, Canada – $370,000
3 – Joao Vieira, Portugal – $244,000
4 – Klemens Roiter, Austria – $191,000
5 – Nacho Barbero, Argentina – $154,000
6 – Laszlo Bujtas, Hungary – $120,000
7 – Ole Schemion, Germany – $95,000
8 – Fedor Holz, Germany – $74,000
9 – Sergio Martinez, Spain – $56,000
10 – Henrik Hecklen, Denmark – $43,000
11 – Jared Bleznick, USA – $43,000
12 – Isaac Haxton, USA – $40,000
13 – Joao Estanislau, Portugal – $40,000

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive

One of Triton Poker Series most exhilarating talents tonight earned the first tournament title of his career — grabbing the winner’s trophy in the $150K NLH 8-Handed event and leaping around the stage in unbridled joy.

This was Elton Tsang, a player whose fearless brilliance has illuminated the cash game tables for many years, playing some of the most spectacular pots in televised poker history. But here he was dominating the highest buy-in tournament of this Triton Series visit to Jeju, South Korea, and his joyous explosion at the conclusion demonstrated just what this meant.

For Tsang, even the $4.21 million first prize probably isn’t the most important part. It’s the thrill of grabbing a trophy after accumulating every chip in the room. Tsang was truly ecstatic, finishing the job against Biao Ding heads up after the rest of this 117-entry field had been vanquished.

There won’t be a more popular winner. Tsang travels to the Triton Series with a huge entourage of poker fans, who make the most of the luxury afforded them on this most prestigious series. And now their man has a title — one of a significance appropriate to Tsang’s influence on the game.

“It’s very sweet,” Tsang told Marianela Pereyra in his post-game interview, thanking first his daughter, with whom he immediately shared the wonderful news, and then his loyal rail. “Thank you, I love you…Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you.”

This victory came in Tsang’s 71st tournament and from his 11th final table — a record that had him describing himself as a “tournament fish” and prompting him to hire a coach to help him get over the line.

But Tsang loves the Triton Series. “Triton…it’s the best poker brand right now. I’m very happy to be involved.”

Triton is lucky to have him.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The $150K buy-in was the highest of this tour’s stop in Jeju, and the tournament played out over three days. The first was all about watching how many players would get involved; the second and third would determine where all the money went.

The 117 entries included 44 re-entries and built a prize pool of $17.55 million. It was comfortably the biggest of the trip so far, and promised those lavish riches to its winner.

The start of Day 2 focused on the bubble. With 21 players left and only 20 due to be paid, there was a bubble of $228,000 to be navigated. The list of short-stacked players included some absolute world beaters, with Stephen Chidwick, Biao Ding, Patrik Antonius, Sean Winter and Danny Tang hovering around 10 big blinds.

The finger of fate pointed to Chidwick as the man who was going to burst this one. He found and got his chips in, but the subsequent three-bet Mario Mosboeck backed up his bet with pocket jacks.

Chidwick couldn’t find an ace and was out in 21st, hot-footing it across the tournament room to join the $50K turbo, which had about 1 minute of registration left. Everyone else settled in for a battle to the final.

Remarkably, two of those aforementioned short-stacks made it: Ding and Winter navigated the post-bubble stages to take their seats at the final. It wasn’t the case for several well-decorated Triton players: all of Fedor Holz, Mikita Badziakouski, Mario Mosboeck, Matthias Eibinger, Danny Tang and Michael Addamo perished short of the final.

That left us with an uncharacteristic dynamic at the final, at least as far as this stop in Jeju is concerned. Europeans and North Americans were firmly in the minority. The top five spots were all occupied by Asian players.

They lined up like this:

FINAL TABLE CHIP COUNTS

Wang Ye – 69 BBs
Liang Xu – 43 BBs
James Chen – 32 BBs
Elton Tsang – 24 BBs
Biao Ding – 17 BBs
Sam Grafton – 16 BBs
Alex Kulev – 16 BBs
Mike Watson – 13 BBs
Sean Winter – 4 BBs

The stated intention was for Day 2 to play until 1am or six players, whichever came soonest. But action was strangely muted and they pushed on past the curfew to make sure only six remained.

This was a passage of play that accounted for Sam Grafton, Sean Winter and Wang Ye — the former two unable to spin their short stacks into contention; the latter seeing a chip lead evaporate and landing him on the rail in seventh.

Grafton was first out. He three-bet shoved over an open from Elton Tsang. But Tsang, although known as one of the most unpredictable players on the tour, can sometimes have it too. On this occasion, he certainly did: Tsang’s pocket aces stayed good to down Grafton.

It’s been a relatively lean period for Grafton, especially since that startling victory in Cyprus a couple of years ago. But $422,000 for ninth is a decent return.

Winter’s final table was the story of two hands. He first doubled up his short stack through Alex Kulev, with beating . But on the very next deal, Kulev took revenge — and the rest of Winter’s chips.

Kulev open-shoved from the small blind with and Winter found in the big blind to make the call. They both flopped a five, but the on the turn and river was another sickener for Winter.

These two have tangled frequently during this trip to Jeju, including in a massive aces vs. kings cooler in which Kulev’s kings made a flush during the Mystery Bounty event. Winter landed on the wrong side of another sickener here, but added another $544,000 to his ledger for eighth.

Wang Ye had been an unknown quantity before arriving on the Triton Poker Series here in Jeju, but he cashed in four of his first six tournaments, and then blazed to the final in his seventh. He held the chip lead for almost all of Day 2 as well, perhaps set to cap this spectacular debut with a win. Until, that is, it all started going awry.

Liang Xu doubled up through Ye with against . That lost him the chip lead, and then Tsang forced him out the door. Ye got his last chips in with and Tsang called with .

A jack on the flop gave Tsang the come-from-behind victory and sent Ye packing in seventh. He collected $737,000, and the day came to its close.

Tsang led the field as they paused for the night. Ding and Xu were closest behind, with Kulev, Mike Watson and James Chen comparatively short. But tomorrow was another day…

For Kulev, it was another short day. This Triton stop in Jeju has been the one on which Bulgarian players really came to the fore, with numerous final table appearances and a victory for Dimitar Danchev. Kulev himself blazed the trail for Bulgarians on the Triton Series, and here he was again in the deep stages.

Having laid down a couple of bad beats himself, Kulev didn’t complain when he suffered one of his own to bust this tournament in sixth. He raise/called all-in with but lost to Watson’s when the latter rivered a straight.

Kulev’s third cash of the trip was his biggest yet. He took $983,000 for sixth.

James Chen made his Triton debut all the way back at its first event in 2017, and he has been an off-and-on visitor ever since. Here in Jeju this $150K tournament was only his second of the trip, and he had now recorded his second cash too. This was a order of magnitude bigger than his 43rd place in the GGMillion$, however, and even though he became Watson’s next victim, his $1.254 million score was also his largest.

Chen lost a flip. He moved in with and Watson called from the big blind with . For the second time, that ace-ten was good for Watson. He flopped an ace to end Chen’s participation. They were down to four.

It had been a while since Biao Ding had been involved in one of these big pots, but when he picked up the biggest hand in the game, he extracted the maximum from it. He also managed to eliminate his countryman Xu in the process.

Ding looked down at black pocket aces and made an opening raise. Xu called from the big blind with . The flop came king high, which Xu may have thought was perfect, but actually only played into Ding’s hands.

Xu checked. Ding bet and Xu check-raised all-in. Ding made the call and the aces held, leaving Xu heading to the payouts desk. His $1,563,000 prize was the first seven-figure score of his career, but the way he’s playing, it won’t be the last.

After plotting a steady course for the early stages of this tournament, Watson’s Day 3 had been turbulent. He was back to a short stack when three-handed play began, but managed a double up with against Tsang’s when he flopped a full house.

However, his final lasted only a few hands more until he picked up and three-bet shoved the small blind after Tsang opened the button. But Tsang had the goods — — made the call and knocked Watson out.

A two-time champion already, Watson has come mighty close to adding a third twice on this trip to Jeju. But this tournament ended in a third place and another $1,895,000 in the bankroll.

Two formidable Asian talents therefore now squared off for the title. Tsang had 34 big blinds. Ding had 25. They were guaranteed a minimum $2,870,000, but first place was $1.4 million more. But did that prompt talk of a deal? Of course not. These poker purists were going to play it out.

Ding drew level with a couple of small pots. Then Tsang powered ahead again. Then, on the first hand that might have ended it, Ding doubled with against Tsang’s .

Tsang was not to be denied, however. He won a massive pot with , rivering an ace. But Ding made a hero call with king high, quickly learning he was wrong. Soon after, Ding was forced all in from the big blind with , with Tsang forced to call with .

There was the on the flop, and it held. Cue: jubilation.

Ding took $2.87 million for his second place, which will no doubt keep him returning to the Triton Series as he goes hunting for another title. Tsang himself said he may have to forgo celebrating his big win as he jumps in the $100K Main Event.

“Might as well try to get two,” Tsang said.

Event #9 – $150K NLH 8-Handed
Dates: March 12-14, 2024
Entries: 117 (inc. 44 re-entries)
Prize pool: $17,550,000

1 – Elton Tsang, Hong Kong – $4,210,000
2 – Biao Ding, China – $2,870,000
3 – Mike Watson, Canada – $1,895,000
4 – Liang Xu, China – $1,563,000
5 – James Chen, Taiwan – $1,254,000
6 – Alex Kulev, Bulgaria – $983,000
7 – Wang Ye, China – $737,000
8 – Sean Winter, USA – $544,000
9 – Sam Grafton, UK – $422,000

10 – Michael Addamo, Australia – $351,000
11 – Danny Tang, Hong Kong – $351,000
12 – Matthias Eibinger, Austria – $307,500
13 – Christoph Vogelsang, Germany – $307,500
14 – Mario Mosboeck, Austria – $281,000
15 – Santhosh Suvarna, India – $281,000
16 – Mikita Badziakouski, Belarus – $254,500
17 – Fedor Holz, Germany – $254,500
18 – Richard Yong, Malaysia – $228,000
19 – Patrik Antonius, Finland – $228,000
20 – David Peters, USA – $228,000

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive

Dan Smith is the latest two-time champion on the Triton Poker Series, destined to see his face on one of the grand electronic banners that circle the most prestigious tournament arenas in the game.

Smith bested a field of 108 entries in the first single-day turbo event of the trip to Jeju, picking up four scalps along the way that earned him $60,000 apiece (and also keeping his own). That $300,000 adds to his $951,000 first place prize for another seven-figure score for this American great.

He became the first American to win a title on this trip to Jeju, from a tournament in which the stars and stripes flew over the last four remaining players. It takes Triton earnings close to $20 million and was his 20th Triton cash.

Smith was the epitome of calm in a tournament of enormous volatility, picking spots beautifully to progress to the title. he eventually picked off his countrymen Seth Davies in third and then David Coleman heads-up to finish top of the pile.

“Pretty great!” Smith said, when asked how he felt. He acknowledged the nature of the game and a huge four-handed set-up against Tom Dwan that catapulted him to the title.

“It was a turbo, so it wasn’t like the spots were super intricate,” Smith said. “Me and Tom were one and two in chips, in small and big blind and we both had flushes. And unless you’re super deep, there’s no getting away from it.”

Smith won the huge invitational tournament at Triton’s trip to Monte Carlo last year, and said he’d played some tournaments in Las Vegas but had mainly been travelling and relaxing in the mountains since then.

“This one was in my calendar,” he added. “I was always excited to play Tritons.”

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The new Bounty Quattro format debuted here in Jeju put $15,000 of each $50K buy-in in the bounty pool, but only started paying out bounties when 25 percent of the field remained. (Quattro meaning “quarter” in Italian, the native language of the format pioneer Luca Vivaldi.)

That meant that there was two kind of bubbles: the first, when the 27th-placed finisher departed, meant all remaining knockouts now earned a $60,000 bounty. The second was the more conventional bubble, when 18 were left and the next man out left the remaining 17 in the money.

Both the landmarks passed quickly, in keeping with the turbo format.

Ognyan Dimov hit the rail in 27th, losing with to Shyngis Satubayev’s when the latter flopped an eight. Dimov’s departure meant the rest of the players were given a bounty token to be handed over when they were knocked out.

Not long later, the stone bubble burst with Dominykas Mikolaitis perishing at the hands of a familiar bubble burster: Punnat Punsri. Punsri, who knocked out Henrik Hecklen in a sickener yesterday in the $50K, before going on to win the title, found to Mikolaitis’ when they got it all in pre-flop.

Punsri flopped a king to eliminate Mikolaitis, but was also mock-aggrieved that Ken Tong folded ace-queen face up, losing him the chance of a double elimination.

With the bounty chips in play, there was a greater incentive to go for the knockouts and, as expected, the momentum ticked along nicely until we reached a final table. Punsri was there again, but he was marginally behind Dan Smith who had profited most during the pre-final table passage of play.

Tom Dwan was also a major draw for poker fans, even if his 15 big blind stack would need some spinning up if he was to earn a third Triton title.

The final nine looked like this:

Dan Smith – 45 BBs
Punnat Punsri – 41 BBs
David Coleman – 28 BBs
Tom Heung – 28 BBs
Sirzat Hissou – 21 BBs
Tom Dwan – 15 BBs
Damir Zhugralin – 14 BBs
Seth Davies – 13 BBs
Webster Lim – 13 BBs

All of those players at the bottom of the counts knew they would need something special to survive. The blinds race up in these turbos and there’s no place to hide.

Damir Zhugralin became the first to perish. he got his chips in with against Webster Lim’s pocket sevens. Lim hit a third seven on the river, but was ahead already. Zhugralin picked up $94,500 for ninth.

Next up for the chop: Tom Heung. He too got all his chips in pre-flop and entered a race. But his couldn’t catch up with David Coleman’s , especially when a third ten flopped.

Heung won $126,000 for eighth.

As if to underline the unforgiving nature of this game, Lim ended up next out. It was only a few orbits before that he was consigning Zhugralin to the scrapheap, and Lim looked down at pocket aces and had reason to believe it might be his day.

That was especially so when Coleman three-bet shoved over Lim’s opening raise. Lim called and saw that his opponent had pocket twos. But deuces never loses, etc., and a third two landed on the flop.

It was a massive pot to double Coleman and leave Lim on fumes. Sirzat Hissou took the final crumbs soon after. Lim, a three-time Triton champipon, was out in seventh from this one, for $168,000 (plus bounties).

Punsri, of course, was looking for a spectacular back-to-back success, something that hasn’t yet been pulled off on the Triton Series. That achievement is still waiting out there too as even Punsri’s run-good had to end somewhere. Punsri perished in sixth from this one, three-bet jamming but losing to Coleman’s .

Punsri added $220,000 (and bounties) to his monster win from yesterday and headed back to his room to prepare for tomorrow’s Main Event.

Dwan doubled. And then he shoved repeatedly to rise up the counts. Sirzat Hissou became the shortest stack, and he was unable to replicate Dwan’s trick. Hissou’s elimination came at the hands of Smith, when Smith’s made a flush to beat Hissou’s .

Hissou has been on good form this week in Jeju, with three cashes and two final tables. This time he won $279,000 for fifth.

The last four players left were all Americans. It presented, finally, the certainty that someone from North America would be landing a title from Triton Jeju having seen Europe and Asia dominate to date. But which would it be?

Dwan’s resurgence lasted a good long while, but just at the point he was looking to take a stranglehold, he hit the skids. He played a massive pot against Dan Smith where the pair were in the blinds with suited cards.

It just so happened that they were in the same suit, diamonds, and that three diamonds appeared on the board. Smith’s was one pip higher than Dwan’s and that sent a massive double up Smith’s way.

Dwan was pegged back to two big blinds, and even he couldn’t do much with that. His bounty ended up in the possession of Coleman, whose flopped better than Dwan’s pocket threes.

Dwan’s run this time earned him $346,000 and a fourth-place finish.

Smith was now way ahead, but the format meant that no one was safe. Seth Davies had done very well to dodge most of the big confrontations and keep himself alive until only three were left.

But with only five big blinds and two opponents in the groove, he was forced all in with and couldn’t outdraw Smith’s . Smith collected another bounty as Davies banked $418,000 for third.

Smith and Coleman now squared off for an all-American battle. Smith had 37 big blinds to Coleman’s 17. But this battle didn’t last long.

On the first significant pot, they got their stacks in with Smith holding to Coleman’s . There was nothing to excite Coleman on the board and that was that for Smith. Coleman took $642,900 for second, plus bounties.

Henrik Hecklen and Luc Greenwood celebrated with Smith, shoving a whisky in his hand and offering as much mockery as cheer from the sidelines. Smith retorted: “Henrik, any time you can win $1 million in a day, that’s a reasonable thing to do.”

And that’s a fairly reasonable assessment.

Event #10 – $50K NLH TURBO $15K BOUNTY QUATTRO
Dates: March 13, 2024
Entries: 108 (inc. 26 re-entries)
Prize pool: $3,780,000

1 – Dan Smith, USA – $951,000 (+$300,000 in bounties)
2 – David Coleman, USA – $642,900 (+$300,000 in bounties)
3 – Seth Davies, USA – $418,000
4 – Tom Dwan, USA – $346,000 (+$60,000 in bounties)
5 – Sirzat Hissou, Germany – $279,000 (+$120,000 in bounties)
6 – Punnat Punsri, Thailand – $220,000 (+$240,000 in bounties)
7 – Webster Lim, Malaysia – $168,000 (+$120,000 in bounties)
8 – Tom Heung, China – $126,000 (+$60,000 in bounties)
9 – Damir Zhugralin, Kazakhstan – $94,500 (+$120,000 in bounties)
10 – Konstantin Maslak, Russia – $77,500
11 – Alex Wice, Thailand – $77,500
12 – Luc Greenwood, Canada – $68,000
13 – Mauricio Salazar, Colombia – $68,000
14 – Klemens Roiter, Austria – $62,300 (+$60,000 in bounties)
15 – Shyngis Satubayev, Kazakhstan – $62,300 (+$180,000 in bounties)
16 – Ramin Hajiyev, Azerbaijan – $59,500
17 – Ken Tong, Hong Kong – $59,500

Orpen Kisacikoglu won $60,000 in bounties.

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive

The fireworks flew on the Triton Series in Jeju, South Korea, tonight where a daredevil performance from the Thailand No 1 Punnat Punsri landed him a second Triton trophy and a tremendous $2.01 million payday.

With his family watching from the rail, Punsri, 31, was involved in two of the most spectacular pots ever seen on the Triton Poker Series — one to burst the bubble in a clash of the two chip-leaders and the second in which he put one of the world’s greats Phil Ivey in an entirely uncharacteristic jam.

Punsri won the maximum in both of those pots, propelling him to a victory after a brief heads-up battle with Sergio Aido. Punsri cracked pocket aces on the final hand for good measure. When it’s your day, it’s simply your day.

“I honestly ran so good,” Punsri said as he began to reflect on the success. “I’ve run good not just this event, but ever since I’ve played Triton.”

That’s the humble explanation, but this was no fluke. Punsri already has a Triton title, earned in Cyprus in 2022, and he has five seven-figure scores on this tour. He was also one of few players at the final for whom the $2 million prize was not a career highest.

But most significantly, he underpinned fearless aggression with some spectacular timing, ensuring that he his bamboozled opponents paid him off time and again.

From a tournament with a $40K buy-in, and a characteristic field boasting the game’s very best, Punsri once again demonstrated that he should always be in the conversation.

“I’m just super grateful for everything,” Punsri said.

Aido too deserves special recognition. He has now achieved back-to-back runner-up finishes in Triton tournaments, banking more than $1 million each time. This event earned him $1,353,000 and consolidated his place behind only Adrian Mateos on the Spain all time money list. Mateos appeared on the rail to watch his friend land another seven-figure score.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

For all the money invariably involved in tournaments on the Triton Poker Series, bubbles can sometimes pass without much drama, or without much reaction from these elite players who have seen everything before.

But today’s bubble in the $50K was one of the best — for the neutral, at least. For the players involved, it was a heart-breaker.

There were a handful of short stacks as hand-for-hand play commenced. Thirty-two players remained; 31 would be paid. Axel Hallay had three big blinds. A couple of others had sub 10 big-blind stacks. At the other end of the counts, Punnat Punsri and Henrik Hecklen had 75 big blinds apiece and were the two tournament chip leaders.

But, well, who do you think suddenly got all their chips in pre-flop? Yep, Hecklen and Punsri went to war, with Punsri four-bet shoving for the lot. Hecklen took a long while before opting to go with it, stating belatedly, “I was always going to call” but intimating that he still needed to think it over.

After play finished on the other tables, they turned over their cards. Punsri had while Hecklen had . Their stacks were almost equal, meaning whomever won would be a runaway chip leader. The loser would be the bubble boy.

In most circumstances, this was looking bleak for Punsri. But then load gasps greeted the flop of . And then the turn and river completed the job for Punsri.

Hecklen put his head in his hands, then got up to walk away, shellshocked. Meanwhile Hallay, who had been staring at near certain elimination allowed himself a wry smile. He had locked up $84,000, while Hecklen got nothing except one of the all-time bad beat stories.

“I thought we had the same hand,” Punsri said later. “Obviously, looking back at it is was a big punt. Wrong, but the right time.”

POST BUBBLE MOVES

Punsri had an enormous chip lead with 31 players left and he kept it for pretty much all of the next four or five hours. During that period, many of those short stacks perished (including Hallay, who went out the first hand after the bubble burst), but some other players also asserted their dominance.

The likes of Phil Ivey and Steve O’Dwyer ticked steadily upward. But it was Spain’s Sergio Aido who went on a characteristic tear. By the time Anson Ewe was knocked out in ninth, Aido had eclipsed even Punsri at the top of the leader board. He thus entered a final table as chip leader for the second time in three days.

The last eight stacks looked like this:

Sergio Aido – 8,425,000 (56 BBs)
Punnat Punsri – 7,425,000 (50 BBs)
Mike Watson – 5,750,000 (38 BBs)
Brian Kim – 4,425,000 (30 BBs)
Ren Lin – 3,500,000 (23 BBs)
Steve O’Dwyer – 3,350,000 (22 BBs)
Phil Ivey – 2,725,000 (18 BBs)
Michael Soyza – 2,650,000 (18 BBs)

It didn’t take long for the fireworks to ignite. On the first hand, Ren Lin opened from under the gun and O’Dwyer made the call from the big blind. O’Dwyer had and probably liked the flop. But he didn’t know at this point that Lin was sitting with pocket aces.

O’Dwyer checked. Lin continued. O’Dwyer called. The pattern repeated after the turn. Then after the river, O’Dwyer checked for a third time, Lin jammed with the marginally bigger stack, and O’Dwyer called for it all.

Lin showed the aces and O’Dwyer was dust. The eighth place earned him $248,000.

To the delight of the watching poker fans on the stream (except those watching in Thailand), Ivey then doubled up through Punsri. It was blind vs blind, pocket fours vs pocket jacks with Ivey’s jacks holding. For the first time since that bubble hand, Punsri was no longer in the top two.

Ivey was up there instead. But then suddenly the roles were reversed again and it all went wrong for Ivey.

In another startling hand against Punsri, Ivey used up 15 time banks to come to a decision on the river. And if Phil Ivey thinks that long about something, he almost always finds the right decision. But not this time.

It was small blind (Punsri) against big blind (Ivey) and by the time they got to the river, the board read . Punsri checked it. Ivey put in a third-pot bet. Punsri then check-raised to 17 big blinds and Ivey went deep into the tank.

After a long, long time he called. With , ie, the flopped straight, that’s probably fair enough. But Punsri showed for the winning flush and Ivey was deep in trouble.

He lost almost all of his remaining blinds by doubling up Michael Soyza soon after ( > . And even when Ivey found aces with less than one big blind, he lost to Aido’s , which flopped two pair and turned a boat.

Ivey — mortal, after all — took $339,000 for seventh.

Slowly and surely, the levels ticked by and the stacks grew more shallow. Mike Watson steadily inched up the counts to be top of the leader board, with Brian Kim and Lin heading in the opposite direction. However, time ran out for Soyza first.

Despite the double up through Ivey, Soyza hadn’t been able to make much more stick at this final table and three-bet jammed his over the top of yet another Punsri open.

The problem for Soyza was that Punsri had a genuine hand — — and made the call. They then saw a board with nothing at all of interest in it, which meant Punsri’s ace remained good. Soyza was out in sixth for $465,000.

Punsri had 40 big blinds. Others could only dream of those dizzy heights.

Lin doubled his six big blind stack through Watson, allowing him to fight another day. But it was a brief reprieve. The next time he found a genuine hand — pocket fives — Aido was sitting with pocket nines. There was no drama to this one and Lin was out.

Lin earned $611,000 for fifth. These prizes were getting big.

Watson had plotted his usual steady course through the tournament, demonstrating once again his consummate skills as a tournament pro. But having lost that pot to Lin, he was obliged to shove his own small pocket pair not long afterwards. But Punsri found and, more importantly, a jack on the flop to beat Watson’s pocket sixes.

Watson picked up $773,000 for fourth.

Eliminations were now coming thick and fast, a symptom of the speedily increasing levels. Brian Kim had done very well to stay alive with a tiny stack, but the grim reaper was now waiting for him.

Kim shoved the button with but Punsri somehow found to make a very easy call. The third ace on the river was overkill.

Still, Kim took nearly $1 million — $954,000 to be precise — so he found some consolation on his way out.

Here they were then: Punsri vs. Aido, with 56 and 20 big blinds, respectively. Aido was returning to the feature table stage only one day after sitting there for the GG Million$ final table, from which he took the most money (even if he officially finished in second place).

The duo briefly looked at the possibility of a deal again tonight, but Punsri turned it down after looking at the numbers and making a quick call. He retook his seat and shoved the first hand, forcing a fold from Aido.

Punsri had laid down a marker, and it didn’t take too long for it to pay dividends. On what turned out to be the final hand, it was Aido who found the pocket aces. But it didn’t matter. Punsri’s connected rather well with the board.

That’s how to make a two-time Triton champion.

Event #8 – $50K NLH 7-Handed
Dates: March 11-12, 2024
Entries: 190 (inc. 71 re-entries)
Prize pool: $9,500,000

1 – Punat Punsri, Thailand – $2,010,000
2 – Sergio Aido, Spain – $1,353,000
3 – Brian Kim, USA – $954,000
4 – Mike Watson, Canada – $773,000
5 – Ren Lin, China – $611,000
6 – Michael Soyza, Malaysia – $465,000
7 – Phil Ivey, USA – $339,000
8 – Steve O’Dwyer, Ireland – $248,000

9 – Anson Ewe, Malaysia – $205,000
10 – Pieter Aerts, Belgium – $175,000
11 – Brandon Wittmeyer, USA – $175,000
12 – Thomas Boivin, Belgium – $155,000
13 – Seth Davies, USA – $155,000
14 – Dan Smith, USA – $140,000
15 – Johnny Du, Hong Kong – $140,000
16 – Ilya Nikiforov, Estonia – $126,000
17 – Kiat Lee, Malaysia – $126,000
18 – Alex Wice, Thailand – $112,000
19 – Matthias Eibinger, Austria – $112,000
20 – Sam Greenwood, Canada – $112,000
21 – Yauheni Tsaireshchanka, Belarus – $102,000
22 – Thomas Santerne, France – $102,000
23 – Wang Ye, China – $102,000
24 – Lun Loon, Malaysia – $93,000
25 – David Yan, New Zealand – $93,000
26 – Calvin Lee, USA – $93,000
27 – Lucas Greenwood, Canada – $93,000
28 – Tobias Schwecht, Germany – $84,000
29 – Vladas Tamasauskas, Lithuania – $84,000
30 – Artur Martirosian, Russia – $84,000
31 – Axel Hallay, France – $84,000

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive

In a week in which players from Vienna and Spain have stolen all the headlines, tonight in Jeju belonged to Bulgaria. From a field of 190 entries in the $40K Mystery Bounty event on the Triton Series, three seats at the eight-handed final table were occupied by Bulgarians. And at just after midnight, one of them — Dimitar Danchev — wrapped the Bulgarian flag around his shoulders and celebrated the victory.

With it, Danchev returned to the summit of the all time Bulgarian money list, leapfrogging one of his countrymen who was also at the final today. And while Danchev immediately locked up $804,000, his six bounty tokens, cashed in the following day, earned him a further $540K. That’s a total of $1,344,000 for Danchev’s day.

But, for Dimov, the silverware is equally important.

“Actually, it’s a little bit about this,” Danchev said, pointing to the trophy in his hand. “This is very special for me. The bounties, of course, are very important, but I’m kind of more excited to win the trophy.”

As a former runner up on the Triton Series, he could have been forgiven for feeling the extra pressure at the final. But Dimov said that the short-stacked nature of much of the play made many decisions quite routine, and then he made the most of his run of cards. “I was just waiting for good spots for me,” he said. “I think I also ran pretty well…so it wasn’t that hard when you run that well.”

Danchev can now head to the player party as a Triton champion, joining his fellow Bulgarian Ognjan Dimov, a winner in Monte Carlo, as a trophy holder on this prestigious series.

Dimov was in the crowd as Danchev beat off the challenge of Jonathan Jaffe, himself a former Triton winner, to claim the spoils. Danchev led at the start of the final, but Jaffe soared into pole position as the tournament neared its conclusion.

But Danchev managed to overhaul Jaffe’s heads up lead and leave the American pro with $541,000 for second. His five bounty tokens bagged him another $340,000 at the Mystery Bounty ceremony.

Danchev was reaping the profits from a decision to head to the Triton Series.

“I was thinking about it for a while,” Danchev said, adding that he would have been playing Triton sooner if Covid hadn’t intervened. “But then everyone told me that Triton is good for you, and I decided finally to come.”

Good decision.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

Of all the events that especially reward making it to Day 2, the Mystery Bounty is top of the list. At the start of play, every player is given their own bounty token. If they’re knocked out, it goes to their assassin, who will cash it in for a minimum of $40,000.

It raises the chances of picking up a call if you decide to shove and should, in most instances, result in even more fireworks than usual on the Triton Series.

In some ways, it made this tournament’s prolonged bubble period all the more unlikely. On the very first hand of hand-for-hand play, with 32 players remaining, Artur Martirosian and Justin Saliba were both all-in and called. Martirosian was actually called in three spots.

But both the at-threat players managed to win the hands and there followed at least an hour of stone bubble play, with some huge chip movements at the top of the counts, but the short-stacks sticking around.

One of those short stacks belonged to Fedor Holz, and he may have considered himself fortunate to being drawn randomly to change tables just at the point he was due to post the big blind. However, his first hand on his new table actually proved to be his undoing.

Pocket queens was a clear shove, but he picked up two callers. One of them was Alex Kulev with . And the ace on the flop ended it for Holz. Having already won one event here this week, Holz was probably less concerned than others would have been in his position — especially because it now freed him up to head to the rail of the final table and watch his friend Mario Mosböck win the GG Million$. (Holz later collected $180K from his two bounty tokens.)

The following period of play was when bounty hunting really kicked in — but also where reaching the final table became the priority. Sean Winter, who won an enormous pre-bubble pot to take the tournament chip lead from Stephen Chidwick, raced deep and made it to the last nine, but there were two standout stories.

The first was the presence of three Bulgarians in the last nine, topped by Dimitar Danchev. Then there was Adrian Mateos sitting in third place in the standings, heading to a final table for the second consecutive day. The last eight lined up as follows:

Dimitar Danchev – 7,300,000 (37 BBs)
Jonathan Jaffe – 6,500,000 (33 BBs)
Adrian Mateos – 6,075,000 (30 BBs)
Orpen Kisacikoglu – 5,875,000 (29 BBs)
Sean Winter – 4,700,000 (24 BBs)
Alex Kulev – 3,500,000 (18 BBs)
Chris Brewer – 2,650,000 (13 BBs)
Yulian Bogdanov – 1,400,000 (7 BBs)

The first significant hand of final table play was an belter. Kulev picked up pocket kings and Winter found aces. Predictably, all their stacks went in pre-flop, with Winter five-bet jamming.

Kulev was staring elimination in the face, but the dealer put four diamonds on the board, matching one in Kulev’s hand, and he flushed to the win and the chip lead. Winter was down to four big blinds.

He waited it out for an orbit or so, but then found himself all-in in the big blind. Unfortunately for him, his was never going to be in great shape — although when Yulian Bogdanov open-pushed from early position, he might have hoped to get some protection.

However, Kulev called Bogdanov and had the covering stack. Kulev tabled , with Bogdanov showing . But Kulev was running very well and hit an eight on the turn to send both of them out simultaneously.

Winter was eighth for $99,400 (he added another $320K from bounties). Bogdanov banked $135,800 (plus $160K from bounties).

That was one Bulgarian down, but the other two were still firing. It was now Danchev’s turn to boost his chances with the knockout of Chris Brewer. Brewer, a two-time Triton champion, open shoved from the small blind, but Danchev had behind him to make the call.

Danchev ended up with a wheel and Brewer’s bounty token. Brewer took $186,000 for sixth, to which he added $80K in bounties.

Danchev was now on a roll. He four-bet jammed over Kulev to assert his national dominance, and then he knocked out a second two-time champion in the form of Orpen Kisacikoglu. The Turkish player didn’t get involved in too much at the final table, but seized his moment to shove when action folded to him in the small blind.

Again, Danchev had a hand in the big blind that was way ahead of a shoving range. His spiked two pair on the flop. It was already beating Kisacikoglu’s anyway.

Kisacikoglu banked $244,800, plus $260K in bounties, but was out in fifth.

To this point, nobody had managed to show any resistance to the Bulgarian domination. But cometh the moment, cometh the Jonathan Jaffe.

Jaffe doubled up with against Danchev’s when he rivered a bigger two pair on a run out.

Jaffe then gave Kulev a taste of his own medicine, rivering a straight to beat Kulev’s top pair. This one played through the streets with Kulev’s flopping best against Jaffe’s on a flop.

The turn brought the and another pile of chips went into the middle. And the sealed it in Jaffe’s favour. Kulev’s fiery display ended in fourth for $310,000 and a pile of bounties. He cashed them in for another $300K.

Jaffe now had a large chip lead, but was facing off against two of Europe’s best. It was only 48 hours since Adrian Mateos won a debut Triton title and here he was again in the last three and looking to go back-to-back.

But Jaffe now had the bit between his teeth and even Mateos was powerless to stop him. After chipping away, Mateos was down to only seven big blinds and got them in after Jaffe shoved from the small blind.

Mateos had to Jaffe’s . The board missed everyone, which meant Jaffe’s high card stayed good. Mateos was out in third for $381,000. Bounties added another $160K.

It was Danchev vs. Jaffe for the title, with Jaffe holding a 70 BBs to 25 BBs chip lead. That meant there was still potentially a good deal of play in the tournament, especially with the final bounty on the line.

Danchev doubled. Twice. And with the second one, which was against Jaffe’s , he took over the chip lead.

One more of those and it was done. This time, Jaffe had to Danchev’s . An ace on the rainbow flop was good for Danchev. The second ace on the turn was the end of it.

Full tallies, including bounties, are below.

Event #7 – $40K Mystery Bounty NLH
Dates: March 10-11, 2024
Entries: 190 (inc. 66 re-entries)
Prize pool: $3,800,000

1 – Dimitar Danchev, Bulgaria – $1,344,000 (inc. $540K from six bounties)
2 – Jonathan Jaffe, USA – $881,000 (inc. $540K from five bounties)
3 – Adrian Mateos, Spain – $541,000 (inc. $160K from two bounties)
4 – Alex Kulev, Bulgaria – $610,000 (inc. $300K from six bounties)
5 – Orpen Kisacikoglu, Turkey – $504,800 (inc. $260K from four bounties)
6 – Chris Brewer, USA – $266,000 (inc. $80K from one bounty)
7 – Yulian Bogdanov, Bulgaria – $295,800 (inc. $160K from three bounties)
8 – Sean Winter, USA – $419,400 (inc. $320K from six bounties)

9 – Daniel Palsson, Iceland – $122,000 (inc. $40K from one bounty)
10 – Wang Le, China – $69,500
11 – Biao Ding, China – $149,500 (inc. $80K from two bounties)
12 – Dong Chen, China – $62,000
13 – Pieter Aerts, Belgium – $62,000
14 – Joao Vieira, Portugal – $96,000 (inc. $40K from one bounty)
15 – Laszlo Bujtas, Hungary – $56,000
16 – Vincent Huang, New Zealand – $650,500 (inc. $600K from two bounties)

17 – Roman Hrabec, Czech Republic – $90,500 (inc. $40K from one bounty)
18 – Joseph Cheong, USA – $45,000
19 – Victor Chong, Malaysia – $45,000
20 – Yu Lei, China – $45,000
21 – David Yan, New Zealand – $81,000 (inc. $40K from one bounty)
22 – Dylan Linde, USA – $41,000
23 – Isaac Haxton, USA – $41,000
24 – David Peters, USA – $37,000
25 – Justin Saliba, USA – $37,000
26 – Changjie Zhang, Singapore – $37,000
27 – Stephen Chidwick, UK – $357,000 (inc. $320K from three bounties)
28 – Alexandre Vuilleumier, Switzerland – $33,500
29 – Shyngis Satubayev, Kazakhstan – $233,500 (inc. $200K from one bounty)

30 – Artur Martirosian, Russia – $33,500
31 – Juan Pardo, Spain – $33,500

Additional bounty winners: Fedor Holz $180K from two bounties, Yulian Bogdanov $160K from three bounties, CJ Zhang $100K from one bounty.

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive

With titles already this week for Fedor Holz and Roland Rokita, the trip to the Triton Super High Roller Poker Series in Jeju for Vienna-based players was already a clear success.

But flights from Korea to the Austrian capital now have another Triton trophy crammed into the overhead locker as Mario Mosböck, a third member of the Vienna crew, took down the $25K GG Million$, picking up $1,191,196 along the way.

That payout came after Mosböck agreed a heads-up deal with Sergio Aido, where the Spanish player, chip-leading at the time, took $1,237,804. But Mosböck enjoyed the best of the late stages of this tournament, reaching the final table with only four big blinds, coming into a third day in sixth of six players remaining, then surging into the lead and to the title.

“It feels amazing,” Mosböck said. “I ran really good today…I was never really over 20 big blinds from around the bubble. I was always short. But there’s still a lot of room for manoeuvre.”

It’s Mosböck’s second Triton success, having won the $40K Mystery Bounty in Monte Carlo last year. That same tournament was taking place at the same time as the final table today and Holz, Mosböck’s friend and mentor, bubbled the event, allowing him to come to the rail for Mosböck’s win.

The new champion paid tribute to the Vienna crew, revealing that it’s only with their encouragement that he ever even decided to play the biggest buy-in events.

Mosböck said: “All the boys are really smart, really driven. They want to compete at the highest level…If it was me alone, I’m not sure I would be playing the Super High Rollers. But you can talk to people about how you feel, your concerns. They can give you feedback. It was a community decision. They said, come on, you’re good enough.”

This win certainly underlines that. It was another record-breaking tournament on the Triton Series, with attendance eclipsing 300 entries for the first time ever. That put more than $7.6 million in the prize pool and required a near-unprecedented third day of play. It also meant a tournament of incredible swings and outdraws, with players forced to endure a buffeting at the hands of fate.

But Mosböck’s victory was cheered every step of the way from his Germany and Austrian friends in the crowd, including his fiancee Amanda, who watched on too in Monte Carlo when Mosböck began his Triton career in style.

With a short break, they will no doubt he heading to the $50K event that just got started. And they will be dangerous in that too.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The bubble in this one played out across six tables, with a typically interesting dynamic. There were numerous players with stack sizes that would ordinarily be considered perilous, but the ICM knowledge of this player set is so high that no one was committing a chip unless the situation perfectly demanded it.

Unfortunately for Zheng Yu and then his namesake Winfred, they could afford to wait no longer. They were both all in and called on the same hand (albeit on different tables) and both were knocked out in 49th and 48th respectively.

Zheng’s lost to Jamil Wakill’s (Zheng was in the big blind and had three-quarters of his stack in mandatory bets). Soon after, Winfred’s lost to Tim Adams’ , with Winfred flopping a king but Adams hitting an ace on the river, for extra drama.

That put the last 47 players in the money and guaranteed maiden Triton cashes for, among others, commentator-turned-player Henry Kilbane, Katie Lindsay, Matas Cimbolas as well as the umpteenth for Jason Koon, Stephen Chidwick, Seth Davies, Steve O’Dwyer and David Yan.

None made the final, but all turned a profit on this event.

It had been touch and go right from the start of day whether the tournament would finish in two days or three. And the middle period of Day 2 was a tempestuous affair, with the chip lead changing hands on multiple occasions. It soon became apparent that that third day would be needed.

Dan Dvoress had been down to three blinds near the bubble, but rose to the top of the counts. Ehsan Amiri also led for long periods, as did Vincent Huang.

The former two made the final; the latter perished in 12th. And while Fedor Holz looked like he’d be carrying a major stack to another final, he was actually knocked out in 10th by Sergio Aido resulting in the Spaniard leading the last nine.

The final table lined up as follows:

Sergio Aido – 17,025,000 (57 BBs)
Adrian Chua – 16,525,000 (55 BBs)
Alex Theologis – 14,400,000 (48 BBs)
Jesse Lonis – 13,275,000 (44 BBs)
Tim Adams – 6,450,000 (22 BBs)
Kosei Ichinose – 3,175,000 (11 BBs)
Dan Dvoress – 2,300,000 (8 BBs)
Ehsan Amiri – 1,800,000 (6 BBs)
Mario Mosböck – 1,300,000 (4 BBs)

This was a lop-sided line up to start final-table proceedings, with four big stacks, four small and only Adams in the middle. But none of the shorties were giving up without a fight, and there were a handful of double-ups with only Amiri departing early.

Even he managed to double up once, through Aido, but he was still very short when he got his last chips in with and lost to the of Alex Theologis.

Amiri picked up his first Triton cash in his third event, banking $152,000 for eighth.

The revised target for Day 2 was to hit six players, which meant two more needed to bust before they bagged up. There were numerous more double-ups, though, which kept Mario Mosböck and Dan Dvoress alive, but put Kosei Ichinose and Jesse Lonis in trouble.

In relatively short order, those two eventually hit the rail in eighth and seventh, respectively. Ichinose three-bet over a Dvoress open but found Adrian Chua behind him with pocket queens to beat . Ichinose’s maiden Triton cash was $186,000.

Then Lonis, having managed to spike a three-outer to survive a couple of hands previously, couldn’t repeat the trick when he got his last chips in with against Aido’s .

Lonis was at his second final table of the week but this time had to make do with $253,000 for seventh.

All six were now also instructed to reach for bags and to put the chips away for the night. The tournament was heading into a third day, with all still to play for. Aido still held the lead, with 44 big blinds, ahead of Chua (31), Dvoress (18), Theologis (17), Adams (12) and Mosböck (5).

There was no escaping the fact that Day 3 would be brief and unpredictable. The stack sizes dictated it.

Mosböck was the first player at risk but he managed two double ups to keep battling. However, it wasn’t to be for Adams, who perished at the hands of Aido. Aido shoved his small blind and Adams called for his tournament life with pocket fives. Adams had over-cards, with but could not connect.

Adams has fond memories of Jeju, having won the Main Event here back in 2019 — a $3.5 million score that sent his career on to a new plane. This time, sixth place was worth $345,000 — but there are bigger buy-in events just round the corner.

Adams’ close friend and countryman Dvoress was next to hit the sidelines. Theologis opened his button with and Dvoress called from the big blind with . The pair saw a flop of , which brought encouragement for both.

After Dvoress checked, Theologis bet 800,000 (one big blind) and Dvoress moved in over the top for another seven bigs. Theologis called.

The turn and river bricked out, however, which meant Dvoress missed his flush draw and was sent packing. Fifth place paid $452,000.

It was right about now that things started to get a little silly. Stacks were obviously still short, but the poker gods now also decided to have their fun. It came at the cost of Chua and then Theologis, who were bounced in consecutive hands in unfortunate fashion.

The most significant hand came first, with Mosböck open-shoving the cutoff with pocket tens. Chua under-called all-in from the button with , and then Theologis looked down at pocket queens in the big blind and called, putting both opponents under threat.

The flop changed little, but the turn brought whoops from Mosböck’s rail. Both opponents had outs for the win on the river, but the missed both of them and earned Mosböck a huge one.

Chua, meanwhile, was out in fourth for $573,000.

Theologis was mortally wounded in the skirmish with queens, but he picked up a pocket pair on the next hand too. However, it lost again. This time his sixes were outdrawn by Aido’s , when an ace came on the river.

Theologis banked $707,000 for third.

Aido had a small chip lead heading into heads-up play, but the pair decided to chop it up. They had seen enough craziness for the day. Aido guaranteed himself $1,237,804, while Mosböck signed for $1,131,196. There was $60,000 left on the side to play for.

Could Spain go back-to-back? Or would the Vienna crew add a third title of the week? They settled down to find out.

First blood: Mosböck. In a hand that played through the streets, he three-bet shoved the river looking at a full board of . Aido folded. It put Mosböck marginally ahead. Two more small pots went in the Austrian’s favour, and then another big one: Mosböck’s flopped bottom pair but then turned into a flush through turn and river.

Aido was now on the ropes with only six big blinds, but managed one come-from-behind double, with against Mosböck’s . They then chopped one, before Aido doubled again with against .

This could only last so long, and when two big hands went up against one another, the shouts of “Hold!” from the sidelines got it over the line. Mosböck had pocket sixes and Aido . The flop brought a flush draw, but it never filled and the sixes held.

And with that, there was finally calm.

Event #6 – $25k – GG Million$ Live
Dates: March 9-11, 2024
Entries: 305 (inc. 118 re-entries)
Prize pool: $7,625,000

1 – Mario Mosböck, Austria – $1,191,196*
2 – Sergio Aido, Spain – $1,237,804*
3 – Alex Theologis, Greece – $707,000
4 – Adrian Chua, Singapore – $573,000
5 – Dan Dvoress, Canada – $452,000
6 – Tim Adams, Canada – $345,000
7 – Jesse Lonis, USA – $253,000
8 – Kosei Ichinose, Japan – $186,000
9 – Ehsan Amiri, Australia – $152,000

10 – Fedor Holz, Germany – $128,000
11 – Dominykas Mikolaitis, Lithuania – $128,000
12 – Vincent Huang, New Zealand – $113,000
13 – Ana Marquez, Spain – $113,000
14 – Matas Cimbolas, Lithuania – $101,000
15 – David Yan, New Zealand – $101,000
16 – Changlie Zhang, Singapore – $90,000
17 – Nikita Kuznetsov, Russia – $90,000
18 – Aleksandr Shevliakov, Russia – $79,000
19 – Kiat Lee, Malaysia – $79,000
20 – Jamil Wakill, Canada – $79,000
21 – Steve O’Dwyer, Ireland – $71,000
22 – Jason Koon, USA – $71,000
23 – Brandon Wittmeyer, USA – $65,666
24 – Roman Hrabec, Czech Republic – $65,666
25 – Weiran Pu, China – $65,666
26 – Calvin Lee, USA – $63,000
27 – Seth Davies, USA – $63,000
28 – Thomas Boivin, Belgium – $55,500
29 – Justin Saliba, USA – $55,500
30 – Mike Watson, Canada – $55,500
31 – Tobias Schwecht, Germany – $55,500
32 – Frederik Thiemer, Germany – $49,000
33 – Christoph Vogelsang, Germany – $49,000
34 – Stanley Choi, Singapore – $49,000
35 – Stephen Chidwick, UK – $49,000
36 – Samuel Muller, Austria – $49,000
37 – Shyngis Satubaev, Kazakhstan – $49,000
38 – Yake Wu, China – $49,000
39 – Monika Zukowicz, Poland – $49,000
40 – Danilo Velasevic, Serbia – $43,500
41 – Daniel Smiljkovic, Germany – $43,500
42 – Roland Rokita, Austria – $43,500
43 – James Chen, Taiwan – $43,500
44 – Michael Jozoff, USA – $43,500
45 – Katie Lindsay, USA – $43,500
46 – Henry Kilbane, UK – $43,500
47 – Daniel Palson, Iceland – $43,500

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive

With nearly $40 million in live tournament earnings, four World Series bracelets and victories across all events on the European Poker Tour, you might have assumed Adrian Mateos had at least one victory on the Triton Super High Roller Poker Series to his name.

But it’s only after tonight’s performance in Jeju that that assumption is true.

Mateos blitzed through the final day of the $30,000 buy-in Event 5 here in South Korea, surviving the inherent turbulence of a short-stacked final table to down David Peters heads up and win $1,175,000.

Mateos had 10 previous cashes on the Triton Series, including a $3.1 million score when he chopped the Main Event in Monte Carlo last year. But he ended up yielding that title to Matthias Eibinger.

The Spanish No 1 was not to be denied in this return to the top table, however, and finally got his hands on a Triton trophy at around 8.30pm local time. By that point, the rest of the 185-entry field had departed, and even Peters had now been vanquished.

Having been his country’s pioneer in so many poker pursuits, Mateos became the first Spaniard to lift a Triton Series trophy too.

“Thank you to everyone supporting me,” Mateos said in victory. “Especially the Spanish poker community.”

Many of them ran on stage to celebrate with him at the end.

“I feel amazing,” Mateos said. “I’ve had a really good day.” He referenced the Monte Carlo Main Event where he came so close but fell at the final hurdle, and added too that he had bubbled five or six times on the Triton Series. “But that’s part of the game.”

His father came to watch his final table in Monte Carlo, but was viewing from afar this time around. “They’re supporting me,” Mateos said. “My dad, my mum, all my family…We will have some celebration.”

For Peters, who took $790,000 for second, it represented a welcome return to the Trion Series after a near year-long absence. Peters had had a relatively barren time of it on his most recent visits to this tour, and he opted to skip the previous three stops.

But he came back here in Jeju with renewed purpose, and showed incredible guile to survive for long periods with a micro-stack. He doubled it up at critical moments and managed to get heads-up with Mateos. But the Spaniard’s momentum was just too much.

They survived a final that also featured Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Mateos’ friend Joao Vieira. And Mateos said the presence of those other greats helped him bring his A-game.

“I wasn’t nervous, but super focused,” Mateos said. “It was a tough final table. I respect them a lot but I just try to beat them.”

And beat them he did.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

With another huge field, it meant another long Day 1 — and a late night race to the bubble. Soft hand-for-hand took a while, but hard hand-for-hand was relatively quick. That’s because a cooler ended up ousting an unfortunate Aleks Boika in 32nd place.

Boika had 14 big blinds when he looked down at and raised. Yulian Bogdanov three-bet with pocket jacks and Boika called. The dealer put the flop of on the table and, with top pair and backdoor possibilities, Boika committed the last of his chips.

Bogdanov called and was rewarded instantly with the on the turn. Boika still had outs but the river turned Bogdanov’s set into full house and turned Boika’s hopes to ruin.

The remaining field was now guaranteed a minimum $49,000 apiece — and a good sleep for the 24 players who made it to the end of the day.

INTO DAY 2

The returning field was a who’s who of Triton — and, by extension, global poker — greats, topped by one of the game’s form talents Jesse Lonis. But Lonis followed previous overnight chip leaders here in Jeju by hitting the rail before the final table was set.

Lonis perished in 13th, shortly before Event 1 champion Fedor Holz. Even so, the final table still found room for Phil Ivey, David Peters, Adrian Mateos, Joao Vieira and Patrik Antonius, giving poker fans an absolute treat on the live stream.

The full final nine lined up as follows:

Patrik Antonius – 7,700,000 (39 BBs)
Seth Gottlieb – 6,000,000 (30 BBs)
Joao Vieira – 5,200,000 (26 BBs)
Ramin Hajiyev – 5,100,000 (24 BBs)
Yulian Bogdanov – 3,775,000 (19 BBs)
Adrian Mateos – 3,375,000 (17 BBs)
Lun Loon – 3,150,000 (16 BBs)
David Peters – 1,450,000 (7 BBs)
Phil Ivey – 1,275,000 (6 BBs)

For Ivey and Peters, the mission was simple: find a spot to get the chips in and hope to double up. Ivey managed it quickly, taking up against Antonius’ and winning. Peters shoved a few times and picked up blinds and antes, which kept him afloat with rapidly shallowing stacks all round.

How shallow? Well, after a few orbits of final table play and no players knocked out, the average stack was 16 big blinds and the chip leader had 28. Those ICM handcuffs were locked around all nine pairs of wrists, as even Antonius, Mateos and Hajiyev, who were exchanging the chip lead, couldn’t really afford to put a foot wrong.

Eventually, the dam broke. And it was Ivey who took the long walk from the final table first. Ivey’s pocket tens lost a flip to Mateos’ and sent the US great out in ninth. He banked $119,000 for this one, but still seeks a sixth Triton title.

Malaysian businessman Lun Loon soon followed in Ivey’s footsteps. Already at his second final table of the trip to Jeju, Loon continues to improve event by event and it’s easy to forget he’s only been playing this game for around three years.

This time, his run was halted by Yulian Bogdanov. With action folded to Loon in the small blind, he pushed his last six blinds in with . Bogdanov found in the big blind, snap-called and won.

Loon was out, earning $145,000 for eighth.

Pretty much any pot now could mean the difference between elimination and a top half stack, and Gottlieb’s double through Hajiyev put the former back near the top and put the latter into the danger zone. Meanwhile David Peters dwindled to two big blinds but managed back-to-back double ups to stick around.

As if to underline the enormous volatility, the next player to hit the rail was the previously imperious Antonius. He too was undone was Mateos, who opened with and called when Antonius shoved with .

Antonius endured a rough trip to Triton Monte Carlo last year, but has bounced back with a final table appearance early in this festival. However, his $198,000 for seventh was probably less than he was hoping for when they got down to the final.

Mateos now had close to 60 big blinds, which was the biggest stack anybody had seen for a good few hours. Bogdanov was his closest challenger; everyone else had fewer than 15.

The next set-up sent Hajiyev out. Bogdanov this time found the ace-king, specifically , and Hajiyev picked up pocket fives in the small blind. He pushed for eight big blinds and Bogdanov called. The king on the flop won him the race.

Hajiyev, the champion of the Invitational event in Cyprus last year, had to make do with sixth place in this tournament. It came with a $271,500 consolation prize.

Peters had watched all this carnage from behind a tiny stack, but he managed to double it up again through Gottlieb and rise to the dizzy heights of third overall. Naturally, Mateos kept up the pressure on everyone else with continued pre-flop raises, knowing that if anyone wanted to tangle, they were risking the end of the line.

So it proved for Vieira, who had largely kept away from most of the danger until he could hold on no more. The Portuguese No 1 has started his trip to Jeju strongly, with cashes in three out of four tournaments played so far. But his first serious skirmish with Mateos proved to be his last, with Mateos pairing his jack with and beating Vieira’s .

Vieira’s $358,000 for fifth was his biggest Triton cash to date.

Peters doubled up again. But then he lost an enormous pot to double up Gottlieb. This was gross in any circumstances — Gottlieb’s pocket kings outdrawing Peters’ pocket aces — but Peters must have felt that he was freerolling anyway, having nursed so few chips for so long.

He was soon back down to three big blinds and looking to rebuild again. And rebuild he did. He doubled through Bogdanov, Mateos and Mateos again, which left Bogdanov in trouble. But then Bogdanov doubled through Mateos twice and then Gottlieb and he was able to tread water some more.

Not so Gottlieb. It’s important to note here that none of the four remaining players ever really put a foot wrong, each of them finding the correct spots to get their chips in but learning that winning flips is very important. Gottlieb’s money went in with when he ran into Bogdanov’s aces, then with when he saw Mateos’ river a straight.

Had he have won the pot, Gottlieb would have been chip leader. As it was, he was out in fourth for $452,000. Having already finished runner up in another event, Gottlieb continues to amass plenty of Player of the Year points.

Mateos might have run away with it again, but Peters doubled with against the Spanish player’s to put them neck-and-neck.

Mateos pulled away again, however, with the elimination of Bogdanov. For such a short-handed passage of play, there were numerous premium hands, and Mateos found another one — pocket queens — to finally end Bogdanov’s resistance.

Bogdanov had and three-bet shoved. He couldn’t hit.

There seems to be a Bulgarian at every Triton final table these days, and it was Bogdanov’s turn to return in this event. A third place for $557,000 is a very good result.

The heads-up battle began with only 62 big blinds between the two of them. Mateos had 40; Peters had 22. After last night’s battle between comparative unknowns, tonight’s duel saw two of the world’s best known — 10th and 15th on global poker’s all time money list — squaring off.

Mateos won most of the small pots, with Peters forced to three-bet shove to keep himself alive. However, when Peters pushed for 13 big blinds holding , Mateos did the math and made the call with .

It stayed good and Mateos finally got his name, and his country, on the Triton board.

Event #5 – $30k – NLH 8-Handed
Dates: March 8-9, 2024
Entries: 185 (inc. 59 re-entries)
Prize pool: $5,550,000

1 – Adrian Mateos, Spain – $1,175,000
2 – David Peters, USA – $790,000
3 – Yulian Bogdanov, Bulgaria – $557,000
4 – Seth Gottlieb, USA – $452,000
5 – Joao Vieira, Portugal – $358,000
6 – Ramin Hajiyev, Azerbaijan – $271,500
7 – Patrik Antonius, Finland – $198,000
8 – Lun Loon, Malaysia – $145,000
9 – Phil Ivey, USA – $119,000
10 – Igor Yaroshevskyy, Ukraine – $101,000
11 – Vincent Huang, New Zealand – $101,000
12 – Fedor Holz, Germany – $90,500
13 – Jesse Lonis, USA – $90,500
14 – Samuel Ju, Germany – $82,000
15 – Brian Kim, USA – $82,000
16 – Weiran Pu, China – $73,500
17 – Brandon Wittmeyer, USA – $73,500
18 – Phil Nagy, USA – $65,500
19 – Dimitar Danchev, Bulgaria – $65,500
20 – David Yan, New Zealand – $65,500
21 – Sirzat Hissou, Germany – $60,000
22 – Tony Truong, China – $60,000
23 – Wang Yang, China – $60,000
24 – Michael Addamo, Australia – $54,500
25 – Kannapong Thanarattrakul, Thailand – $54,500
26 – Alex Theologis, Greece – $54,500
27 – Kiat Lee, Malaysia – $54,500
28 – Dylan Linde, USA – $49,000
29 – Changjie Zhang, Singapore – $49,000
30 – Mikita Badziakouski, Belarus – $49,000
31 – Roland Rokita, Austria – $49,000

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive

Even poker’s best know superstars had to start somewhere, and during the third tournament of the Triton Poker Series trip to Jeju, South Korea, it quickly became clear that we would be finding a new breakout star.

This was another record-setting field. There were 298 entries of $25,000 each in the tournament billed as the Silver Main Event. But by the time the tournament reached its business end, in the early hours of Saturday morning, three relative newcomers were the only ones left.

Paulius Vaitiekunas, of Lithuania, laid down a marker on the Triton Series, carrying a huge chip lead for most of the day, and then recovering to close out the tournament even after that lead turned to dust. He eventually denied Germany’s Alex Tkatschew a maiden title, with that pair having been two thirds of a deal that also included Aram Oganyan, of the United States.

All three won close to $1 million, with Vaitiekunas nosing ahead thanks to the $100,000 the three of them left to play for after the deal. Tkatschew banked $1,002,000 and Oganyan $989,501.

For each, it was the biggest win of their career.

It might be tempting to call out Vaitiekunas for having turned down an ICM chop four handed, when he was clear chip leader, that would have netted him more than his eventual prize. But he should be celebrated really for regrouping after surrendering that lead. He managed to regain focus and take down the dogged Tkatschew in a short-stacked heads-up blitz.

“I rejected a deal four-handed, not because I had an advantage in skill, but because of the chips,” Vaitiekunas said. He added clearly that he knew all of his opponents at the final were very good players, but knew that they were “hand-cuffed by ICM”.

Vaitiekunas fired numerous bullets at Triton’s last stop in Monte Carlo and came up short, but said it only inspired him to perform here. “I did everything I could to come to Jeju, and somehow I won,” he said.

“Poker is a game of doing as less mistakes as possible,” the new champion said. “I learnt a lot in Monte Carlo and I learnt a lot here and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.”

It was far from easy, despite the massive stack he held for long periods. Triton Ambassador Jason Koon was at another final table. So was Koon’s countrymen Dan Smith and Joseph Cheong. But this one turned out to be the tournament for the newbies. Or should we say the future stars.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The new record-setting field meant 47 players were due to be paid, a new high for a Triton tournament too. Seven tables were still in play as the bubble approached, with a system of soft hand-for-hand helping to smooth the process.

It was plenty smooth for everyone bar Biao Ding, who was seated at the fastest-playing table and who was knocked out in 48th place before some rivals at other tables had even played as many hands.

Ding got his last chips in with and lost when Steve O’Dwyer’s rivered a queen. Even though there were still catch-up hands to be played across the rest of the field, and anybody busting would have meant a chop of the 47th-place prize money for Ding, the short stacks all wisely folded.

It meant Ding left the tournament floor alone in 48th, while 47 others were in the money.

At the beginning of this tournament, as players arrived in their dozens, tournament organisers briefly feared this was an event that might need an additional day to complete. But it soon became apparent today that stacks were shallowing rapidly, and players were knocked out about as quickly as they arrived.

Overnight chip leader Steve O’Dwyer was among those to be cast aside long before a final table. And even Benjamin Chalot, who took over the lead after a few levels of Day 2, was knocked out before they got close to a winner.

As the field condensed even further towards a final, luminaries including Ike Haxton, Jonathan Jaffe and Juan Pardo departed. And when two-time Triton champion Michael Addamo hit the rail in 10th, we could finally convene for the last stages.

The two men who had played wrecking ball most effectively to this point, Lithuania’s Paulius Vaitiekunas and Germany’s Alexander Tkatschew duly found themselves at the top of the counts. But Vaitiekunas had 80 big blinds to Tkatschew’s 42, with everyone else even less than that. This one seemed to be Vaitiekunas’ to lose.

FINAL TABLE CHIP COUNTS

Paulius Vaitiekunas – 16,075,000 (80 BBs)
Alexander Tkatschew – 8,325,000 (42 BBs)
Joseph Cheong – 7,825,000 (39 BBs)
Dan Smith – 7,325,000 (37 BBs)
Maksim Vaskresenski – 6,725,000 (34 BBs)
Aram Oganyan – 6,725,000 (34 BBs)
Roman Hrabec – 3,150,000 (16 BBs)
Jason Koon – 2,200,000 (11 BBs)
Chen Guangcheng 1,200,000 (6 BBs)

It’s usually about this point that Jason Koon starts rising through the ranks. If Koon gets to a final, he has the most enviable habit of going on to win. But not this time. Twelve big blinds was too few even for a player of Koon’s extraordinary abilities, and it didn’t help running into Dan Smith’s pocket aces either.

Koon opened from under the gun, Smith shoved the big blind and Koon called. Koon ended up pairing his queen, but it was not enough. He was agonisingly slightly too late to register for Event 5 too, but took $149,000 for this one and a night off.

Without question, the player who will have been most delighted by Koon’s demise was Chen Guangcheng. The Chinese Triton debutant had an even smaller stack coming into the final but had now laddered up.

He managed to pinch a couple of blinds with uncontested pre-flop shoves, but ended up on the rail when he got it all in good against the bullying chip leader. In what proved to be Guangcheng’s final pot, action folded to Vaitiekunas in the small blind. He had such a huge lead that he could shove with any two cards, and was indeed any two.

Guangcheng woke up with in the big blind and put his last chips in. However, the nine on the flop ended up being the killer. Guangcheng was out in eighth, landing a first cash on the series of $182,000.

There were still a lot of medium-sized stacks out there, including the one in front of Smith. He had given some of the chips he won earlier to Joseph Cheong after the latter’s pocket sixes became a straight. And then another set-up earned Cheong another big pot, this time ending Smith’s participation.

Cheong picked up red pocket jacks and opened from the cutoff. Smith saw pocket eights in the big blind and moved all-in for 21 blinds. Cheong called. Smith flopped an eight to give him hope, but the turn brought a jack to swing it back to Cheong.

Smith won the big invitational in Monte Carlo last year and is clearly still in good form. But his run in this one came to a halt in seventh, for $248,000.

Cheong’s profitable run at the final temporarily reduced the gap at the top of the counts. But nobody else could seem to mount a challenge — and even Cheong got pegged back when he lost a flip to double Aram Oganyan.

Similarly, Maksim Vaskresenski lost half his stack to double up Roman Hrabec, and he could not recover. Vaitiekunas was waiting in the wings to finish the job.

Vaitiekunas pushed again from the small blind with his mighty stack and . Vaskrensenski called for his last chips with . There was a king on the flop to all but end it, and Vaskrensenski departed in seventh.

Vaskrensenski, from Belarus, was another player making his debut on the Triton Poker Series here in Jeju and he scored his first cash with this performance. It earned him $337,000.

The last five went on a 15-minute break and returned with an average stack of 24 big blinds. Vaitiekunas had more than double that and Hrabec had only a sixth of it, which meant the new significant pot was crueller than most.

Hrabec got the last of his chips in with and, after Cheong called from the small blind, Vaitiekunas ripped it in from the big. It persuaded Cheong to let it go.

Vaitiekunas only had but the board ran to mean the played. That was a flush for Vaitiekunas and another knockout.

Hrabec has cashed all three tournaments so far here in Jeju, finishing 18th, 25th and now fifth. The $441,000 was his biggest on the Triton Series since his first ever appearance in Vietnam.

With only three big blinds now separating the “other” three players (i.e., not the chip leader Vaitiekunas), they paused the clock to look at a potential deal. Negotiations didn’t last long but they were not fruitful. It looked as though Vaitiekunas’s demands were to steep for Tkatschew, so they played on.

As can sometimes be the case, Vaitiekunas may have ended up regretting the failure of the deal. In quick order, Oganyan doubled up through the chip leader, winning with pocket jacks against Vaitiekunas’ . All of a sudden, the lead no longer seemed unassailable.

Vaitiekunas looked to steady the ship with the elimination of Cheong, his erstwhile closest challenger. Cheong moved in from under the gun with pocket sevens and Vaitiekunas found pocket tens in the big blind. That was a snap call and Cheong quickly learned from one of his opponents that he was drawing to one out. Another seven was already in the discard pile.

The board was blank and that was the end of Cheong’s tournament. The American player, with a whole string of enormous cashes from across the poker world, is taking a stab at the Triton Series for the first time in Jeju. He is $560,000 richer as a result.

Vaitiekunas was only an observer as it became Tkatschew’s turn to double, winning a flip through Oganyan. This one was pocket fours against , resulting in a switcheroo between third and second place. When Tkatschew then doubled again, this time through Vaitiekunas, followed by Oganyan doing the same, the last three had 26, 25 and 24 big blinds, respectively.

It was now officially anyone’s game.

The combined Triton earnings of these three players before this event came in at only around $60,000. All of them were set to beat that by large multiples. But they belatedly tried again to take some of the variance out of things by discussing another deal. This time they agreed on the following.

Alex Tkatschew, who was now marginally in the lead, locked up $1,002,000. Aram Oganyan guaranteed himself $989,501. And Paulius Vaitiekunas now made $977,499 certain. There was $100,000 left on the side for the ultimate winner.

Short-handed deal-making doesn’t always speed things up. In fact, sometimes the contrary can be true. With everyone now knowing their main payout, they settled in for what was essentially a short-stacked winner-take-all tournament for $100,000, the likes of which many of these players play hundreds of times a week online.

They played a few small pots. And they played a few more. The level went up and blinds got steeper, and Oganyan’s stack became the smallest.

He then had to get it in as an open-shove from the button with . Tkatschew reshoved from the small blind with .

Oganyan picked up a straight draw on the turn, but by that point his opponent had two pair. Tkatschew filled a boat on the river and that spelled the end for the last American in the tournament. Oganyan settled for the $989,501 he had negotiated for himself earlier.

Tkatschew took a near three-to-one chip lead into heads up play, with 36 big blinds to Vaitiekunas’s 13. The German rail featured Leon Sturm and Tobias Schewcht; the Baltics were represented by Aleks Ponakovs and Dominykas Mikolaitis. After a brief repositioning, they got ready to settle it once and for all.

The first blow went to Vaitiekunas. He doubled up to even with flopping a king to beat Tkatschew’s . The second significant blow went in his direction too, and by this time he had moved back into a small chip lead.

Tkatschew got his chips in with and Vaitiekunas called with . “Hold!” bellowed the rail. It held.

RESULTS

Event #3 – $25k Silver Main – NLH 8-Handed
Dates: March 7-8, 2024
Entries: 298 (inc. 124 re-entries)
Prize pool: $7,450,000

1 – Paulius Vaitiekunas, Lithuania – $1,077,499*
2 – Alex Tkatschew, Germany – $1,002,000*
3 – Aram Oganyan, USA – $989,501*
4 – Joseph Cheong, USA – $560,000
5 – Roman Hrabec, Czech Republic – $441,000
6 – Maksim Vaskresenski, Belarus – $337,000
7 – Dan Smith, USA – $248,000
8 – Chen Guangcheng, China – $182,000
9 – Jason Koon, USA – $149,000

10 – Michael Addamo, Australia – $125,000
11 – Juan Pardo, Spain – $125,000
12 – Danilo Velasevic, Serbia – $110,000
13 – Vladimir Troyanovsky, Russia – $110,000
14 – Jonathan Jaffe, USA – $99,000
15 – Isaac Haxton, USA – $99,000
16 – Benjamin Chalot, France – $88,000
17 – Dong Chen, Hong Kong – $88,000
18 – Kayhan Mokri, Norway – $77,000
19 – Valeriy Pak, Uzbekistan – $77,000
20 – Steve O’Dwyer, Ireland – $77,000
21 – David Coleman, USA – $69,000
22 – Li Yuan, China – $69,000
23 – Yauheni Tsaireshchanka, Belarus – $69,000
24 – Chuck Chu, Vietnam – $61,500
25 – Punnat Punsri, Thailand – $61,500
26 – Adrian Chua, Singapore – $61,500
27 – Dan Dvoress, Canada – $61,500
28 – Dimitar Danchev, Bulgaria – $54,000
29 – Pieter Aerts, Belgium – $54,000
30 – Fazel Dawood, South Africa – $54,000
31 – Orpen Kisacikoglu, Turkey – $54,000
32 – Liang Xu, China – $48,000
33 – Dao Minh Phu, Vietnam – $48,000
34 – Jean Noel Thorel, France – $48,000
35 – Sergio Aido, Spain – $48,000
36 – Wang Ye, China – $48,000
37 – Ole Schemion, Germany – $48,000
38 – Thomas Boivin, Belgium – $48,000
39 – Keith Lehr, USA – $48,000
40 – Joao Vieira, Portugal – $42,000
41 – Ren Lin, China – $42,000
42 – Phil Ivey, USA – $42,000
43 – Romain Retiere, France – $42,000
44 – Vladas Tamasauskas, Lithuania – $42,000
45 – Paul Phua, Malaysia – $42,000
46 – Aleksandr Shevliakov, Russia – $42,000
47 – Winfred Yu, Hong Kong – $42,000

*denotes three-way deal

Photography by Joe Giron/Poker Photo Archive