Category: News

This is the second time in its short history that the Triton Series has visited Jeju island, and specifically the similarly young Landing Casino at the Shinhwa World Resort. Although various parts of this sprawling 2.5 million square foot property have been opening since April 2017, the official launch came only in March last year. The Triton Series was quick to move in.

Everything here is high-end and luxurious and it’s very easy to see the attraction for both tournament organisers and players. In contrast to numerous other poker rooms around the world, this one has a lot of space. Tables are set at least eight feet apart from one another on all sides, meaning plenty of room for food and massages, as well as just to stretch legs between hands. That’s helped, of course, by the comparatively small fields on this High Roller series, but the intention is that with high stakes comes exclusivity, and that’s what you get here.

There’s a sizeable casino floor only footsteps away, but the sounds don’t encroach into our surroundings. There’s also a dedicated poker room menu, which was discussed and designed with poker players in mind. (They need to be able to eat and play, so nothing too gloopy is usually the order of the day.) The kitchen of the casino’s Solitaire club, which caters specifically to high rollers, prepares the food 24 hours a day.

That kind of co-operation between Triton and host venues does not come by chance. Throughout years working in the industry, and in particular with high rollers, the Triton staff has built good relationships with players and offers significant add ons. For instance, players buying into the Main Event and one other side event get a complementary hotel room for the duration of the festival in the adjoining Marriott, plus a limousine transfer from the airport to the property.

Players are in constant contact with a concierge service, which means they can order in anything from Starbucks to headache tablets; golf course reservations to wake-up calls. Triton is especially proud of its player liaison, and player feedback is invariably positive.

And that’s not all. Also in contrast to numerous other poker rooms around the world, this one is only a short walk from a couple of theme parks. It’s true. Not content with filling the 2.5 million square metres of space with four luxury hotels, a shopping arcade, numerous restaurants and a conference facility, there is also fun here for all the family. 

Shinhwa Waterpark is the only large-scale waterpark in Jeju, while the drier theme park has 15 rides, spread through its three “zones”. We have Rotary Park, which is a steampunk-themed area, Oscar’s New World, which is a mysterious jungle, and Larva Adventure Village. If you didn’t already know about cartoon characters for Korean kids, you soon will. (We’re also not far from the Transformers Autobots Alliance Museum, while the Lionsgate Movie World is opening soon.)

The 2019 Triton season has five events scheduled, the full details of which will be announced very soon. There may not be roller coasters at each stop, but the tournament schedule will be very similar, and the liaison service will only get slicker and more comprehensive. Watch this space as further details emerge, and email info@triton-series.com to find out more.

People in poker don’t like making wild guesses, especially not when errors could result in embarrassing mistakes. Triton Tournament Director Luca Vivaldi thought he was setting himself up for a fall when he predicted an absolute maximum turnout for the HK$500,000 Six-Max tournament this week of 49. “That’s ten more than last year,” he said, explaining his cautious optimism.

It turns out that Vivaldi was indeed wrong. But only because he had under estimated. It’s true: players just continued to arrive and buy-in to this event at the Landing Casino, Shinhwa World Resort, Jeju, today. By the time registration closed, the 81 entries (including 32 re-entries) was more than double last year’s total.

These players are now involved in the richest Six-Max poker tournament in history, with a prize pool of HK$38.07 million (US$4.85 million approx). The winner will take home HK$11.15 million (US$1.42 million). No wonder the world’s best continue to flock to the Triton Series.

Today marked the first appearance in this year’s series of the WSOP champion John Cynn, the Hall of Famer Erik Seidel, as well as contemporary titans including Steve O’Dwyer, Patrik Antonius, Christoph Vogelsang and Nick Petrangelo. 

All of those players who had already played Events #1 and #2 also joined the field, including last year’s Six-Max champion David Peters and both Devan Tang and Justin Bonomo, who already have titles this year.

By the end of the day only 23 remained, which will make for a long and fiercely contested denouement tomorrow. With only nine players due to be paid, even Michael Soyza’s chip lead is not certain to be enough to guarantee a cash. These events are nothing if not volatile.

That said, Soyza finished in the strongest way possible, knocking out Justin Bonomo to consolidate his position at the top of the counts on the day’s penultimate hand. 

It started with a Bonomo raise to 28,000 in the cutoff and a three-bet on the button to 85,000 from Soyza. Both players then checked the flop. The turn brought a check from Bonomo and a bet of 110,000 from Soyza. Bonomo called for the river.

Bonomo checked again and Soyza moved all-in, covering the 280,000 Bonomo had in his stack. After going through about a minute of thinking time, Bonomo called and saw Soyza’s , which was better than Bonomo’s

That sent Bonomo out and gave Soyza, with 1.776 million, breathing space ahead of a stacked chasing pack. Timothy Adams is closest behind; Bryn Kenney is there or thereabouts; Jason Koon again has heaps; Sam Greenwood is packing nearly a million as well.

The full chips counts are as follows (with tomorrow’s seat assignment also alongside). The full payout schedule is at the bottom of this post.

DAY END CHIP COUNTS

PAYOUT SCHEDULE

Triton Jeju Event #3: Six-Max Hold’em
Buy-in: HK$500,000
Entries: 81 (inc. 32 re-entries)
Prize pool: HK$38.07 million

1 – 11,150,000
2 – 8,000,000
3 – 5,200,000
4 – 3,921,000
5 – 3,040,000
6 – 2,360,000
7 – 1,860,000
8 – 1,439,000
9 – 1,100,000

For the second time in two days at the Triton Poker Series, Jeju, the final stages of a multi-million dollar tournament came down to an east versus west heads-up duel between two elite poker talents. 

But unlike yesterday, when Justin Bonomo took first place for North America, this time Hong Kong’s Devan Tang bested the Canadian Peter Jetten to secure a HK$9.7 million (US$1.24 million) first prize and the second title in this six-event high roller series.

This was one of the most dominant final-day performances of any poker tournament, with Tang hitting an extraordinary run of cards to complement his tremendous talent. He found pocket aces over and over again to win enormous pots, and also hit miracle quads when he had only a four percent chance in a pivotal hand. That was a crucial moment: he could have been out in seventh, so it essentially earned him an extra US$1 million. It set his steam roller trundling over a table packed again with poker’s finest. 

“I’m very, very happy about it,” Tang said. “I got very lucky. I was lucky the whole way.” When asked how many times he found aces today, Tang held out his hand, fingers outstretched, and said: “At least this many times.” He also tried to add that he thought he had misplayed them once or twice, but quickly realised that as a champion it didn’t matter so much.

Even though short-deck hold-em means bigger hands with more frequency, this was exceptional. It made for a high octane end to a HK$500,000 buy-in tournament, in which eight players shared a HK$15.275 million prize pool. 

“It was a tough field, for sure,” Tang said. “When you’re playing this big and you make the final table, you have to play your best for sure.”

In actual fact, both of the last two players survived potentially tournament ending moments when they were both all in and in trouble against covering stacks, but hit miracle sixes on the river to survive. Tang’s turned his set of sixes into quads and beat Mikita Badziakouski’s set of queens, but Jetten too made a straight to survive against Isaac Haxton. This was a day full of thrills.

Though both Jetten and Tang might have thought they were blessed today, someone had to win it. And eventually Tang’s hit a straight to beat Jetten’s . It brings Tang’s career earnings from tournament poker to more than US$6 million and consolidates his position as No 2 on China’s all-time money list.

FINAL DAY BLOW-BY-BLOW

A starting field of 69 entries was trimmed to a final 14 on the first day of play. With only eight places paying, it meant that the opening stages of the final day were focused once again on an enormous bubble, this time HK$1.3 million (around US$166,000). 

Bonomo couldn’t repeat his showing and was one of the first players eliminated today, with other leading lights Bryn Kenney and John Juanda also falling short.

The unluckiest of them all today was Malaysia’s Chua Ying Lin, who had done everything right on his quest for back-to-back final tables, but then suffered a bad beat at the hands of Isaac Haxton to bust in ninth. Lin got the last of his chips in with and was ahead of Haxton’s . But Haxton managed to river a straight leaving Lin stunned and silent, before he eventually walked away.

Lin’s demise meant his countryman Paul Phua was in the money for the first time this week, but Phua too suffered an ugly elimination shortly after. This time it was Romain Arnaud up to his old tricks. The Frenchman took the tournament chip lead on day one by twice cracking pocket aces, and Arnaud’s did it again to Phua’s . Arnaud hit a flush. Phua laughed it off and took HK$1.3 million.

Phua’s elimination brought them down to the last seven, and that meant a final table with a much more cosmopolitan make-up than yesterday’s Malysia/USA dominated affair. Players from Canada, France and Belarus were also added to today’s mix–although Badziakouski, Belarus’s finest poker export, was next to be exiled from this event.

Badziakouski has made a new home in the high stakes arenas of Asia, and the cash-game regulars talk incredibly highly of the man also considered in the top five tournament regulars in the world. But for all his skills, Badziakouski was powerless to avoid a real sickener in the decisive hand when he queens lost to Tang’s quads. (He was out soon after with pocket eights against Jason Koon’s pocket kings.)

“That was a brutal hand,” Badziakouski said, referencing the quads vs. full house confrontation. “But that’s the beauty of short deck. You always have some chances, you are never dead.” He added that he intends to play all the remaining events on the schedule, seeking a third Triton title.

China’s Chan Wai Leong was a short stack for a long period today, and expressed his lack of surprise when he hit the rail in sixth. Tang found a pair of black aces as Leong had and the chips all went in. For once the aces held up and Leong walked. “I was pretty short the whole tournament, so there’s not much I can do,” Leong said. “The last hand, there’s nothing much I can do about that.”

The next really significant pot played out between Haxton and Jetten, with the latter all-in with and dominated by . However, the full board fell and the six on the end left Haxton in peril. He then became the next player to run into Tang’s pocket aces and Haxton was out in fifth. 

Haxton was one of relatively few established hold’em pros to play both short deck events here this week, and admitted to a deliberate strategy to profit while the going is good. “A couple of times in my career before this I’ve kind of missed the boat,” Haxton said, adding that he didn’t transition quickly enough from limit to no limit holdem, or to pick up PLO. “Each time I felt like I’ve done it two years, three years later than I should have. With short deck, I’m only getting to it one year later than I should have, so I’m feeling pretty good about it.” 

Tang was absolutely crushing at this stage, with nearly double the chips of his three opponents combined. But he took a temporary back seat to allow Jetten to pick up some chips, through the unfortunate Jason Koon.

Koon, who is playing his first major event since becoming a Triton Poker ambassador, has mastered short-deck hold’em more quickly than most and leads the nascent short-deck all-time money list. He won more than $3.5 million playing this variant at Triton Montenegro last year, and again proved that was no fluke.

But variance was on Jetten’s side at the end today, when Koon’s pocket queens lost to Jetten’s rivered straight. Koon had to settle for HK$3.435 million this time out, which is around US$440,000. “I play this game a lot, so I’m used to taking nasty beats like that,” Koon said. “It happens. It was nothing like the one Mikita took today.”

The huge hands going in favour of Tang and then Jetten meant that Arnaud was the short stack when three-handed play began. And it was a case of irresistible force meeting immovable object when he got all his chips in with pocket queens and Tang called with black pocket aces yet again. Although Arnaud had cracked aces with under-cards at least three times in this tournament, Tang had used those specific black bullets to wreak havoc in today’s field. And this time it was Tang who stayed strongest, sending Arnaud out of the tournament. “I don’t know how many aces I got,” Tang confessed.

Tang had a three-to-one chip lead when they went heads-up and although Jetten made him wait for the title through more than an hour of one-on-one play, Tang was not to be denied. Jetten’s second place was worth more than HK$7 million, but Tang–as was always the case today–just had slightly better than that.

Triton Jeju Event #2: Short-Deck Ante-Only
Buy-in: HK$500,000
Entries: 69 (inc. 24 re-entries)
Prize pool: HK$32.43 million

1 – Devan Tang, Hong Kong, HK$9,730,000
2 – Peter Jetten, Canada, HK$7,040,000
3 – Romain Arnaud, France, HK$4,540,000
4 – Jason Koon, USA, HK$3,435,000
5 – Isaac Haxton, USA, HK$2,660,000
6 – Leong Chan Wai, China, HK$2,075,000
7 – Mikita Badziakouski, Belarus, HK$1,650,000
8 – Paul Phua, Malaysia, HK$1,300,000

Yesterday in the poker room of the Landing Casino, Shinhwa World, Jeju, the organisers of the Triton Poker High Roller Series laid on a reception to welcome the elite of the world game to these luxurious surroundings. There was champagne and orange juice, and chocolate desserts fashioned into the Triton logo. There was a boozy kick at the bottom.

There was also a gathering of poker players so talented that we all earned 500 GPI rankings points just by standing in the same room. They mingled, flutes in hand, and listened to warm, welcoming speeches from Triton co-founder Richard Yong, and Tournament Director Luca Vivaldi, then either retook their seats in the $500K short-deck event, or vanished off into the resort in the hunt for food, entertainment or sleep.

It wasn’t until today that something fairly significant dawned on us. A lot of those poker players weren’t actually playing poker. While short-deck hold’em is clearly growing massively in popularity, plenty of the pros don’t yet want to get involved. All of Steve O’Dwyer, Timothy Adams, John Cynn, Christoph Vogelsang, Jimmy Guerrero, Nick Petrangelo and Henrik Hecklen have been in Jeju for more than 24 hours, and a lot of them came to the reception, but they didn’t register for a tournament on the festival’s opening two days. In other words, they skipped the events played with 36-card decks.

Matthias Eibinger, the Austrian sensation, might be one of the hottest properties in world poker at the moment, but he also admitted earlier today that short-deck wasn’t yet something he wanted to play. He said he had spent only about five minutes looking at the strategy and found it difficult to decipher. He made a shrewd move to sit out for now. However, Eibinger settled into one of the leather chairs alongside the feature table this afternoon and prepared for the start of Event #3 — Six-Max Hold’em, with a regular 52-card deck.

The tournament got under way a little after 4pm, and Eibinger was joined by all of O’Dwyer, Adams, Vogelsang, Petrangelo and Hecklen, and soon enough other tournament superstars including Dominik Nitsche, Dan Smith and Erik Seidel settled in. This is a HK$500,000 buy-in event (US$64,000 approx) and there’s now a shot-clock in play as well.

With 40-minute levels and unlimited re-entries until the start of Level 9, there’s every likelihood that this field will grow to match the size of previous events, which will mean another couple of million US dollars in the prize pool. All of that will be decided over the coming few hours.

Another day, another huge tournament here on the Triton Poker Series. And we’re not even talking about Justin Bonomo’s latest victory — although that did happen too, of course.

But while poker’s hottest talent was adding another US$500,000 and change to his ledger, another massive field was assembling at the at the Landing Casino, in the Shinhwa World Jeju Resort, for the second tournament of the week. This time is was a HK$500,000 buy-in short deck event, which attracted 69 entries (including 24 re-entries). That’s more even than the tournament with a buy-in half the size.

That’s the way things go here on the Triton series, where poker’s normal rules are turned on their head. Raise the buy-in, watch the fields swell. And that means the prize pool does as well. Some time tomorrow, one of the 14 remaining at the end of today’s 11 levels will win the HK$9.730 million first prize. That’s around $1.24 million in USD and the first seven-figure tournament prize of the 2019 Triton tournament series. It will not be the last.

At bagging time, France’s Romain Arnaud had snatched the chip lead, having increased his 300,000 starting stack to 3.030 million — the kind of stack someone would be happy to take to the final table. The man known online as “moirhums” is also a formidable live tournament player, who beat his countryman Rui Cao heads up here in Jeju in another Super High Roller tournament last December. “I got really lucky,” Arnaud admitted at the end of the day, with a bashful chuckle. “Against Rui again.”

Arnaud then described how he cracked Cao’s pocket aces twice, once by rivering a set of tens and another time by taking pocket kings up against the aces and winning that too. It’s how come Cao was on the rail by the end, while Arnaud is at the top of the leader board.

Almost everyone who played the first event came back for another shot today, but it a few of the new faces who got the photographers’ shutters clicking with most eagerness. Both Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Timofey “Trueteller” Kuznetsov played their first tournament of the week.

It was important that the photographers were so on their game, because neither Dwan nor Kuznetsov lasted the night. At least Dwan fired only one bullet, while Kuznetsov misfired with three. Gabe Patgorski hit the rail after five buy-ins, Mike Watson headed back to his room after four.

But they need not worry about missing the action. Tomorrow we have a HK$500,000 6-Max tournament starting (and they’ll be using all 52 cards in that one).

Here’s the full list of counts for the remaining players. Yes, that’s the same Bonomo in there with heaps of chips as the man who won Event #1. He hopped straight into this one and continued the fun. Full payout schedule is below. This tournament resumes at 2pm local time tomorrow and plays to a winner, while Event #3 starts at 4pm.

Event #2 Day 2 chip counts and seat assignment:

Full payout information:

Triton Jeju Event #2: Short-Deck Ante-Only
Buy-in: HK$500,000
Entries: 69 (inc. 24 re-entries)
Prize pool: HK$32.43 million

1 – HK$9,730,000
2 – HK$7,040,000
3 – HK$4,540,000
4 – HK$3,435,000
5 – HK$2,660,000
6 – HK$2,075,000
7 – HK$1,650,000
8 – HK$1,300,000

It’s the second day of eight at the Triton Series Jeju and already we’re entering the phase of this festival where you don’t know where to look. On the feature table stages, Event #1 is playing from three tables, down to one and then crowning a champion. Then in surrounding tournament room, Event #2 is getting under way, with another shimmering galaxy of stars taking their seats.

The best view of the feature table action is of course to be had via the live stream. But we’ll be keeping an eye on the outer tables too, and welcoming what seems likely to be a bigger field even than the opening event. That’s largely because the buy-in for this second tournament is double that of the first: they’re stumping up HK$500,000 (US$64,000 approx.) to play.

Once more, they’re playing short deck, which means it’s another day at school for almost all the players, dealers and reporters. We’re all still getting used to the new strategies of short deck play, and it’s a fascinating process. 

Yesterday, Triton co-founder Richard Yong told us about his passion for short-deck, and his particular pride at introducing the game to the world. Yong suggested there had been only about 10 short deck tournaments ever played, but he’ll probably be delighted to learn that he’s wrong about that. It is catching on more quickly than Yong possibly realises. 

I searched The Hendon Mob database for short-deck tournaments, and found that the go-to poker tournament results site now has a dedicated money list for short-deck events . There’s no surprise to see Jason Koon at the top — he has four in-the-money finishes in short-deck tournaments, including his spectacular US$3.5 million win at Triton Montenegro — but it’s much more interesting to look further down the list.

In total so far, 184 players have cashed in short-deck events, with a player named Pam Hawton currently 184th. Hawton, from Brisbane, Australia, has two recorded cashes to her name, the second of which came in October last year at Southport Sharks Casino, Southport, Australia. Whoever runs the poker room there spread a short-deck event that cost AU$35 to enter. That’s about US$25, or approximately 2,560 times smaller than the buy-in for today’s Triton short-deck event. There were 71 entries and 16 re-entries, but it’s indicative of a clear trend that this game is being played at all levels of the poker pyramid.

Similarly, there have been short-deck events at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham, Great Britain (that one cost £50 to enter, or about US$66), and also at the Amateur Poker Association (APAT) event in Newcastle, where the buy-in was £33 (or US$43). Perhaps most excitingly is the fact that short-deck has also made its debut on the Brazil Series of Poker (BSOP), specifically at an event in Sao Paulo in December.

Brazil is in the grip of what seems to be a never-ending poker boom, and 197 players duly paid the 1,150 Brazilian Real (USD$300) to play the event. That clearly demonstrates an appetite for short-deck in Latin America’s poker hot-bed too, which can only mean great things for the world game.

Although some commentators in the west are still yet to be convinced whether short deck is here to stay or is a passing fad, the evidence at present points to the former. The game that began among the super high rollers of Asia has spread all the way from top to bottom in the poker pyramid, and that is very encouraging indeed.

Registration is closed on the first event of the 2019 Triton Poker Series, and we’ve started as we surely mean to go on. Despite numerous poker players still jetting toward South Korea from all corners of the globe, those who have already made it to the Landing Casino at the Jeju Shinhwa World Resort have built a prize pool of HK$15.275 million.

That would be extraordinary on most normal poker tours, but it’s only to be expected among these high rollers. The buy-in for this curtain-raiser — a Short-Deck Ante-Only event — is HK$250,000 (US $30,000 approx), and there were 65 entries, including 28 re-entries. It means that the first champion of the festival, crowned tomorrow, will be taking HK$4.6 million (US$586,000 approx). Eight players will be paid.

Tournament organisers knew before any card was dealt that the strength of the field would be exceptionally high, and when the early arrivals included Justin Bonomo, Isaac Haxton, Stephen Chidwick, Jason Koon, David Peters and Sam and Luc Greenwood, the rest of the audience quickly twigged as well.

They were latterly joined by Mikita Badziakouski, Bryn Kenney and Daniel Cates, with Triton co-founder Richard Yong pulling up a chair to lead the glittering collection of local talent. Paul Phua, Ivan Leow and Wai Kin Yong, were all also among those firing bullets. Each player was allowed a maximum of three and seven took them all.

Here’s the full payout schedule for the tournament, with the complete player list below.

Triton Jeju Event #1: Short-Deck Ante-Only
Buy-in: HK$250,000
Entries: 65 (inc. 28 re-entries)
Prize pool: HK$15.275 million

1 – HK$4,600,000
2 – HK$3,300,000
3 – HK$2,140,000
4 – HK$1,620,000
5 – HK$1,250,000
6 – HK$975,000
7 – HK$780,000
8 – HK$610,000

Full player list