The million dollar entry short-deck event is under way at the Triton Series, Jeju, fulfilling the dream for many of the high rolling poker superstars in this region. This is the favoured variant of poker, played for stakes that makes the eyes water, and the field is growing into another beast.
It might “only” be Hong Kong Dollars, but this is hardly play money: one buy-in is approximately US$127,000. Through seven levels on the opening day, 35 players produced 59 entries between them. Registration is open for another hour tomorrow as well, so the prize pool is going to be huge.
At bagging time, Sergey Lebedev, who came third in Event #1, led the way with 1.6 million (the starting stack was 300,000) with a phenomenal chasing pack behind him. All of the short-deck elite, as well as some established full deck hold’em superstars, took a chair, and the likes of Tan Xuan (1.238 million), Jason Koon (1.1 million), Paul Phua (1.062 million), Dan Cates (1.044 million) and Stephen Chidwick (995,000) are close.
Both Tom Dwan and Timofey Kuznetzov fired bullets in this one, but only Kuznetzov bagged chips. Dwan can re-enter again for the first hour tomorrow if he wishes. We will only know the full size of the prize pool when registration is closed, but it seems certain to be the richest of the week so far.
That said, the HK$2 million main event begins at 2pm tomorrow, which is set to break records both for this venue and for the Triton Series as a whole. As ever, there will be full coverage of all Triton events on the live stream, with expert commentary from Lex Veldhuis and Randy “nanonoko” Lew.
OVERNIGHT CHIP COUNTS AND DAY 2 DRAW
| POS | NAME | COUNTRY | CHIPS | TABLE/SEAT |
| #1 | Sergey Lebedev | Russia | 1,600,000 | 5-2 |
| #2 | Xuan Tan | China | 1,238,000 | 3-6 |
| #3 | Jason Koon | United States | 1,100,000 | 5-5 |
| #4 | Paul Phua | Malaysia | 1,062,000 | 5-7 |
| #5 | Daniel Cates | United States | 1,044,000 | 2-6 |
| #6 | Stephen Chidwick | England | 995,000 | 6-3 |
| #7 | Peter Jetten | Canada | 990,000 | 5-3 |
| #8 | Zuo Wang | China | 790,000 | 1-8 |
| #9 | Furkurt Rakhimov | Russia | 755,000 | 1-5 |
| #10 | Richard Yong | Malaysia | 738,000 | 3-8 |
| #11 | Jun Wang | China | 719,000 | 3-1 |
| #12 | Gabe Patgorski | United States | 701,000 | 1-3 |
| #13 | Robert Flink | Sweden | 641,000 | 2-7 |
| #14 | Devan Tang | Hong Kong | 631,000 | 2-5 |
| #15 | Justin Bonomo | United States | 500,000 | 2-8 |
| #16 | Shu Nu Zang | China | 500,000 | 1-1 |
| #17 | Ivan Leow | Malaysia | 473,000 | 2-1 |
| #18 | Rui Cao | France | 425,000 | 6-7 |
| #19 | David Peters | United States | 400,000 | 2-3 |
| #20 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 385,000 | 5-6 |
| #21 | Daniel Dvoress | Canada | 385,000 | 3-5 |
| #22 | Isaac Haxton | United States | 354,000 | 6-2 |
| #23 | Bjorn Li | United States | 322,000 | 1-2 |
| #24 | Wai Kin Yong | Malaysia | 290,000 | 6-1 |
| #25 | Timofey Kuznetsov | Russia | 280,000 | 3-2 |
| #26 | Andrew Robl | United States | 239,000 | 1-7 |
| #27 | Michael Watson | Canada | 100,000 | 3-7 |