The Triton Series’ first trip to Spain is happily now into its groove, crowning one champion on the festival’s second day, and playing through the first 15 levels of a second event — an event with another enormous prize pool, of course.
We have heard all about Michael Addamo already, so let’s focus here on that second tournament: a seven-handed no limit hold’em event with a €30,000 buy-in.
That entry fee was a slight increase on the series opener, and there were also a handful more players sneaking through the door on this one. When registration closed at the end of Level 10, the tournament closed with 93 entries, including 37 re-entries, and a prize pool of €2.79 million.
Thirteen players will be paid and the winner will get €740,400. Things are gradually growing as the series continues to gather momentum.
The tournament paused overnight with 21 players left, neatly arranged around three full seven-max tables, but still a way from the money. But the man who will sleep most soundly is the Triton regular Mike Watson, from Canada, who bagged 1.995 million, or 80 big blinds.
Actually, sleeping soundly is probably not something anyone can do when you look down the list of players who will be attempting to hunt Watson down tomorrow. Fedor Holz is only narrowly behind Watson, and he even found a way to defeat Addamo right at the death tonight. Holz knocked out Addamo with aces versus jacks, played slowly through three streets.
Below Holz is the former Master Classics of Poker champion, Kevin Paque, who is playing his first Triton event. And then, lo and behold, there’s Paul Phua. He was near the chip lead at the end of the first day of Event 1, and he is duly there again.
Phil Ivey also showed up today to play his first event of this festival. Patrik Antonius, who fired five bullets for no return in Event #1, is back and this time faring better. Then there are the other Triton stalwarts including Timothy Adams, Rui Cao, Daniel Dvoress, Ben Heath and Michael Soyza.
At one stage this evening, the television table featured Ivey, Erik Seidel and Holz, representing about 30 years of poker’s very best tournaments talents. (Nick Petrangelo, Max Silver and Pete Chen were there too, which is not bad as a support act.) That’s the kind of quality we have come to expect on the Triton Series, and many of them are still involved heading into Day 2.
Here are the stacks of the remaining 21 players. The payouts are below. This tournament concludes tomorrow, alongside the start of Event #3, which is a €20K short deck event.
CURRENT STANDINGS:
Michael Watson – 1,995,000
Fedor Holz – 1,970,000
Kevin Paque – 1,870,000
Paul Phua – 1,680,000
Tom Vogelsang – 1,275,000
Isaac Haxton – 885,000
Danny Tang – 865,000
Tim Adams – 860,000
Phil Ivey – 815,000
Erik Seidel – 765,000
Patrik Antonius – 760,000
Michael Soyza – 745,000
Rui Cao – 610,000
Ben Heath – 550,000
Danie Dvoress – 460,000
Bruno Volkmann – 460,000
Kannapong Thanarattrakul – 460,000
Ruida Lin – 420,000
Morten Klein – 420,000
Aleksejs Ponakovs – 405,000
Andras Nemeth – 340,000
Triton Madrid – Event 2
€30,000 NLHE 7-Handed
Dates: May 14-15, 2022
Entries: 93 (inc. 37 re-entries)
Prize pool: €2,790,000
1 – €740,400
2 – €514,800
3 – €340,300
4 – €266,500
5 – €214,800
6 – €167,400
7 – €132,500
8 – €103,200
9 – €78,100
10-11 – €60,000
12-13 – €56,000
Photography by Joe Giron/PokerPhotoArchive