Organisers made a late change to the structure for Event #2 at the Triton Series Special Edition here in Cyprus. The tournament was supposed to play 10 levels on its opening day, with registration closing before Day 2 began, but it actually concluded after nine levels instead, which meant one level with registration still open today.
That of course meant 40 minutes of re-entry mayhem, with players taking aggressive lines in the attempt to build a stack, knowing they can try again if it doesn’t work out. It also meant a sudden surge in the prize-pool, which is why everyone particularly enjoys these tournaments.
“Welcome back!” Elton Tsang said to Viacheslav Buldygin, as the Russian player sat down at an outer table early in the level.
“I busted the first hand,” Buldygin said. He had been the tournament short stack at the end of Day 1, late last night, returning with 11 big blinds. They went in and he went out.
Then he bought back in again for another bullet.
This time he fared slightly better, knocking out Johan Guilbert in a blind-versus-blind confrontation. Guilbert had a short stack and shoved over Buldygin’s open. Buldygin’s 
beat Guilbert’s 
and the French high roller went looking for another stack.
You might have thought that would be enough to see Buldygin into the freezeout stage, but no. His stack evaporated again soon after, prompting another buy-in.
Buldygin’s empty chair was left swinging in the breeze, alongside that occupied by Phil Ivey. Ivey also joined this $100K buy-in event today, after making the final of the $50K last night. To Ivey’s right is Tsang, with that pair revising their rivalry from yesterday. The two of them sat on the feature table stage as Andras Nemeth charged to the title.
On the subject of Nemeth, he of course is back in action, and the random seating assignment has put him back on the feature table — and back next to Laszlo Bujtas, the countryman who he beat to the crown.
In case you missed it, those two Hungarians were heads up at the end of Event 1, meaning the only two Hungarians ever to play on the Triton Series have a win and a runner-up place to their names.
The craziness continued on Ivey’s table, with a three-way all-in sending Lun Loon to the rail. It’s not clear how all the money made it in the middle, but the short-stacked Loon was under the gun with pocket fives, Ivan Leow was in the small blind with pocket nines, and Michael Soyza had aces in the big blind.
The flop brought nothing for anyone, meaning Soyza took the last of Loon’s stack and doubled through Leow for good measure.
Eventually, at around 1:50pm local time, registration finally closed. The carnage ended with a total 69 entries, including 31 re-entries, and a prize pool of $6.624 million.
Nine places will be paid, with the winner getting $1.94 million. It’s just another day on this rich and sometimes ridiculous series.
TRITON CYPRUS SPECIAL EDITION
EVENT 2: $100K EIGHT-HANDED NLHE
Dates: April 3-4, 2022
Entries: 69 (inc. 31 re-entries)
Prize pool: $6,624,000
1 – $1,940,000
2 – $1,390,000
3 – $903,000
4 – $683,300
5 – $529,000
6 – $410,500
7 – $324,500
8 – $251,700
9 – $192,000
Photography by Joe Giron/PokerPhotoArchive