The Triton Super High Roller Series in Jeju brought us a couple of weeks of thrilling poker action across 20 unique high-stakes events this month.
The Festival paid out in excess of $120,000,000 in prize money and crowned many new champions, while Triton regulars like Tan Xuan and Mario Mosbeck added to their impressive resumes with new trophies.
The Series broke quite a few records, as unprecedented numbers of players showed up to play for the highest stakes around, creating massive prize pools and an electric vibe throughout the festival.
Apart from record fields, the Triton Super High Roller Series also made quite a few headlines, as Jeremy Ausmus won his first Triton Poker trophy, Dan “Jungleman” Cates got denied the title in the $100k Main Event, and Bryn Kenney extended his lead in the top spot on the all-time money list with a trophy and a second-place finish.
The Triton Poker Series continues to shatter records and set itself up as the world’s only true super high-stakes tournament series, with the Jeju festival once again demonstrating the reach that Triton Poker has in the poker world.
Records Broken at the Triton Poker Series Jeju
The popularity of the Triton Poker Series is widely known, but the ultra-high buyins typically tend to make Triton events relatively small compared to some of the events across other tours around the world.
Yet, this seems to be changing, as an unprecedented number of players showed up to try their luck at the Triton Poker tables in South Korea this March.
The Series started with a banger, as Event #1 – $15k No Limit Hold’em saw a total of 379 entries from 266 unique players, setting a new Triton Poker attendance record.
Zhao Hongjun won this event over a stacked field that included the likes of Adrian Mateos and Jason Koon, and took home $818,000 for his efforts.
The attendance record was short-lived, however, as Event #3 – $25k No Limit Hold’em immediately shattered it. A grand total of 391 entries were made in this one, creating a prize pool of $9,775,000.
This time around, the trophy went to the USA, as poker legend Jeremy Ausmus continued his amazing run and won the event outright, beating Zhou Quan in a heads up battle for $1,892,000.
The remaining events of the Series continued to attract significant three-digit numbers, including the amazing 285 entries in the $100k Main Event, which was won by Huang Wenjie, who beat Jungleman for the title.
Successful poker vloggers and YouTubers like Rampage and Wolfgang also made their way out to Jeju this time around, bringing the thrill of high-stakes Triton Poker action to their significant fan bases via social media platforms.
Bryn Kenney Extends the Lead at the Top
Bryn Kenney has been a controversial figure in the world of poker ever since his former “horse” Martin Zamani brought up major accusations against him a couple of years back.
Yet, regardless of all the shenanigans, Kenney has remained an elite tournament poker player. Despite not playing as much poker these days as he used to, the champion has managed to extend his lead as number one on Hendon Mob’s All Time Money List with a new total of $75,778,346.
Bryn came up just short of his 5th Triton Poker trophy in Event #8 – $50k No Limit Hold’em, as he lost the heads up battle to Mario Mosbeck.
Yet, just days later, Kenney was able to close the deal in Event #7 – $50k Turbo Bounty Quattro, and solidify himself as the player with most tournament winnings at this point in time.
With over $75 million in winnings, Bryn now sits more than $10 million away from his closest competitor in Justin Bonomo, while the likes of Stephen Chidwick, Mikita Bodyakovsky, and Dan Smith all sit in the elite top-five.
With the Triton events getting bigger and bigger by the year, it will be interesting to see which of these players cracks the $100 million mark in tournament winnings first and just how long it takes for us to see the first player to reach the magical milestone.
Jungleman Falls Short of Main Event Glory
Daniel “Jungleman” Cates is a man who needs no introduction, as his status in the poker world is truly legendary.
Jungleman has been quite busy with building his “Jungleverse” in recent months, creating a community of poker players on the internet and helping newcomers to the game advance through the ranks quickly.
The two-time Triton Poker champion showed up in Jeju to play in the high-stakes cash games, and jumped into the $100k Main Event along the way.
That was a good decision for him, as he managed to not only make the final table, but come second for $3,528,000 in the only tournament he played in Jeju.
He was outlasted only by the Chinese player Huang Wenjie, who played his first Triton Poker Series and won the Main Event for $5,555,000.
Jungleman outlasted a final table that included the likes of Artur Martirosian, Santhosh Suvarna, and Sam Greenwood, a few of the players who survived among nearly three hundred runners in this epic tournament.
PLO Players Set Their Own Records
Triton Poker festivals are typically split into three parts, with PLO and Short Deck events coming on the tail end of each.
Jeju was no exception, as three events dedicated to PLO were hosted near the end of the festival, featuring $25k, $50k, and $100k buyins.
The $100k PLO Main Event saw 91 players register, the most of any $100k+ PLO event ever hosted.
The title eventually went to the Spaniard Sergio Martines, who took home just over $2.34 million in prize money, along with the valuable Jacob & Co timepiece.
Norwegian player Tom-Aksel Bedell and Hungarian Gergo Nagy won the other two PLO titles, with the likes of Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey, and Jeremy Ausmus all making final tables in the four-card poker variant in Jeju.
High Rollers Close It Out with Short Deck
To close out the most successful Triton Poker Series yet, the usual suspects took to the tables to play some Short Deck, a unique variation of poker made popular by the Series.
A trio of Short Deck events were played, with Kiat Lee clenching his first Triton Poker trophy, Tan Xuan defeating Esti Wang for his third, and Ukrainian Artem Kobliyanskyi winning a title on his Short Deck debut.
The likes of Phil Ivey, Isaac Haxton, and Paul Phua all made deep runs in the Short Deck portion of the festival, but were all eventually unable to add to their impressive Triton Poker portfolios this time around.
With Triton Poker getting bigger and better with each stop, it will be interesting to see just how many players the Series can attract in the coming years and whether its prestige as the top stop for high-stakes poker players can make it the world’s most popular poker series of them all.
