On Wednesday, action kicked off at the Triton Super High Roller Series stop in Jeju, South Korea – the fourth time the tour has come to the island – as the elite players of the tournament world ponied up the $15,000 buy-in for entry into Event #1.
When the late registration period came to a close, the total number of entrants stood at 379 (266 unique, 113 re-entries) – making Event #1 the largest field in the tour's brief history. The record-setting field served to generate a prize pool of $5,685,000, with $1,100,000 going to the eventual winner.
"We are all enormously happy to see the Triton Poker Series break records yet again in Jeju," said Triton CEO Andy Wong. "It's always especially exciting to see so many new faces discovering Triton for the first time."
Wolfgang, Rampage, and Frankie C in the mix
For the first time in its existence, the tour was forced into using an alternate list as all the available table space was occupied. With the field reaching record-breaking new heights, a number of the competitors were newcomers to the Triton tour. Amongst them, a trio of poker's most entertaining content creators found themselves playing at the pinnacle of the tournament streets.
Towards the end of the day, Triton first-timer Frankie Cucchiara pulled off a sneaky play holding pocket kings to score a full double up and the added breathing room that came with it. Still, with the ever-increasing blinds, Cucchiara had to put his stack at risk several more times before reaching the end of the day.
Along the way, Cucchiara notched an elimination when his ace-king held up against Alex Kulev's ace-queen. The stress and effort was all worth it in the end, however, as Cucchiara bagged up a decent stack of 18BBs for Day 2.
Both Alexander 'Wolfgang' Seibt and Ethan 'Rampage' Yau nearly navigated their way to the end of Day 1, but with short stacks they had to take chances at a double and weren't able to come out on top.
Triton Jeju Event #1 Top 10 - End of Day 1
| Place | Player | Chips (BBs) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hongjun Zhao | 5,285,000 (132BBs) |
| 2 | Steve O'Dwyer | 2,810,000 (70BBs) |
| 3 | Yuzhu Wang | 2,360,000 (59BBs) |
| 4 | Nikita Kuznetcov | 2,280,000 (57BBs) |
| 5 | Danny Tang | 2,180,000 (55BBs) |
| 6 | Daniel Neilson | 2,135,000 (53BBs) |
| 7 | Wei Hsiang Yeu | 1,970,000 (49BBs) |
| 8 | Adrian Mateos | 1,775,000 (44BBs) |
| 9 | Dietrich Fast | 1,700,000 (43BBs) |
| 10 | Christoph Vogelsang | 1,695,000 (42BBs) |
Lead photo courtesy of Triton Poker
