Big stack to bubble boy: Sun implodes before Triton Invitational payday

Posted on: September 13, 2026 14:54 PDT

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.

The Triton Invitational money bubble burst in spectacular fashion as Semi Sun's ill-timed bluff saw him go from big stack to bubble boy.

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.