$25K Triton Monte Carlo: Alex Foxen crashes out in cooler, Xu Liang leads

It's time for another meeting of the poker-wizard minds as the Triton Super High Roller Series kicked off action at its stop in Monte Carlo on Friday. 

Over the course of the next two weeks, the best of the best will descend upon the Monte-Carlo Sporting, Salle des Etoiles venue to take part in the 16 trophy events on the schedule. Alongside them, qualifiers from the tour's new title sponsor, WPT Global – and other online operators – will take their shot battling it out against the poker world's elite MTT tournament players. 

The action started Friday in Event #1: NLH WPT Global Ultimate Slam. The $25,000 buy-in event drew a field of 170 entries, generating a prize pool of $4,250,000, with 27 places paid and $941,000 for the eventual winner. That field was cut down to just 34 players for Day 2.

Team Foxen draws blank in Monte Carlo

Kristen Foxen made her first Triton appearance since 2019, riding the wave of recent success in the World Series of Poker Online series. Foxen took her seat in the event alongside her husband, Alex Foxen, following a banner month in which both players added WSOP bracelets to their collections – bringing the family total to seven as Kristen notched her fifth and Alex his second. 

Kristen Foxen couldn't find a bag for Day 2 in Monte Carlo.

Unfortunately, both members of Team Foxen failed to find a bag for Day 2, despite Alex leading the way for a lot of Day 1. He lost a huge pot in a cooler late on, with Italian Enrico Camosci raking his chips in.

Alex Foxen:
Enrico Camosci:

Foxen raised UTG and was three-bet by Camosci. All the chips went in, and the flop looked safe for Foxen. The brought the sweat in, and the river delivered the straight for Camosci, sending Foxen to the rail. 

Camosci is playing his first Triton and looking to make a bang. The Italian has had an amazing 2024, winning $2.4M of his total career earnings of $3.9M. He finished 6th in the WSOPE Main Event and 2nd in the EPT Barcelona High Roller, and ended Day 1 in Monte Carlo with the second-biggest stack.

Xu Liang bagged the Day 1 chip lead, but there's a long way to go before the first Monte Carlo champion is crowned on Sunday. 

Xu Liang is the Day 1 chipleader in Monte Carlo.

Joe Giron

Familiar faces, new challengers

As expected, there were a number of notable names in the field, with many of Triton's top-performing players making the trip in search of added earnings. Stephen Chidwick came to play, sporting his soon-to-be trademark mustache and raking in the chips as he is wont to do. After winning his second title in the Short Deck event in Jeju earlier this year, Chidwick is on the hunt for more. He finished near the bottom of the pile in 33rd, but he's still in, and you never count out Chidwick.

Then, there's Isaac Haxton. Incredibly, Haxton has never won a Triton title. He's done everything but, with 41 cashes, five second-place finishes, and $12,330,978 in Triton winnings. Haxton finished Day 1 with just over 1 million chips, good for 35bbs on Day 2 and in 24th position. 

Former WSOP Main Event champ Espen Jorstad has one more Triton title than Haxton and will start Day 2 with one more big blind. 

Espen Jorstad made the trip to Monte Carlo in search of his second Triton title.

Matthew Berglund

And spare a thought for Tom Fuchs as well. We don't want to tempt fate, but he's surely going to break his Triton luck in Monte Carlo. His current record reads 'Played 10, Cashed 0', but he's in 4th spot and only seven of the remaining 34 players will go home with nothing. 

Action resumes on Saturday, and you can watch it all as it happens on the Triton Poker YouTube channel, where the first Monte Carlo champion will be crowned. You can watch the whole of the Day 1 stream at the top of this article.

Event #1: WPT Global Ultimate Slam Day 1 top 10 stacks

^{Images courtesy of Triton Poker/Joe Giron.}