After two hard-fought days, the Triton Invitational field in Jeju, South Korea has been whittled down to just 16 remaining contenders.
With a record 60 VIP-professional pairings taking part in the $200,000 buy-in, the event drew a total of 173 entries to generate a prize pool of $34,600,000 – with 31 places paid and $7,250,000 up top for the eventual winner.
When Day 2 kicked off, 112 players remained in the hunt. While tournament organizers planned to play down to a final table, the sheer number of players involved saw the battle rage on late into the night and the decision was made to pause play.
Adrian Mateos' dream of back-to-back Triton Invitational victories lives on as the Spaniard bagged up a Top 10 stack for Day 3 play – he'll start the final frame of play sixth in the chip counts with 3.5M.
China's Wang Yang ended Day 2 atop the chip counts with 7.3M in the bag and there's a significant gap between he and Hannes Jeschka in second.
Frenchman Emilien Pitavy rounds out the podium spots.
Yang's monster chip lead came, in part, thanks to an insane clash with the Philippine's Semi Sun on the stone bubble of the tournament.
Semi bluff gone wrong
In his Triton Invitational debut, Semi Sun made quite an impact.
With one of the biggest stacks in the room as the bubble approached, Sun was well-positioned to not only make the money, but also to make a deep run.
And then disaster struck.
Yang, having just doubled through Jesse Lonis when his pocket aces held up against the American's pocket jacks, raised to 140K from early position with 
.
Sun called from the button with 
and the two players went heads-up to a flop of 
. Yang's continuation bet of 225K was called by Sun and the turn came the 
. Yang fired again, this time for 450K.
Here's where things went off the rails.
Rather than send his cards into the muck to survive another hand and all but guarantee himself a payday, Sun opted to raise to 1.1M. Yang made the call with his full house and the 
river completed the board. With 3M chips in the middle already, Yang checked to his opponent and Sun wasted no time in moving all-in for his remaining 2.1M.
Yang wasted even less time in making the call.
In a matter of mere seconds, Sun's big stack had evaporated and the $305,000 minimum cash slipped through his fingers.
If you want to check out the full replay of Day 2 play, roll the tape below.
When play resumes on Monday, players will return to the 50K/125K (125K) blind level as they battle down to a winner.
Triton Jeju Invitational Day 3 Chip Counts
- Wang Yang (China): 7.3M
- Hannes Jeschka (Germany): 5.8M
- Emilien Pitavy (France): 4.1M
- Teun Mulder (Netherlands): 3.7M
- Thomas Boivin (Belgium): 3.5M
- Adrian Mateos (Spain): 3.5M
- Joao Simao (Brazil): 3.0M
- Ding Biao (China): 2.9M
- Winfred Yu (Hong Kong): 2.7M
- Jesse Lonis (USA): 2.7M
- Tsai Ting-Yi (Taiwan): 2.6M
- Matthias Eibinger (Austria): 2.3M
- Alex Wice (Thailand): 2.0M
- Seth Davies (USA): 1.9M
- Mehdi Chaoui (Morocco): 1.6M
- Eric Wasserson (USA): 1.3M
Images courtesy of Triton Poker Series
