Triton Jeju Smashes Several Tour Records

Just when it seems like Triton Poker’s high roller festivals couldn’t get any bigger, the tour manages to break new ground yet again. The latest stop ran from Feb. 26 – March 15 at Landing Casino Jeju in South Korea, with $148,730,000 in total prize money paid out across 18 nosebleed-stakes events spanning three poker disciplines.

Several new records were set along the way, including the largest field in Triton Poker history. The first $25,000 buy-in on the slate drew 391 entries, the highest turnout ever for the high-stakes tour.

Other notable records included the largest $100,000 main event field (285 entries) and the largest pot-limit Omaha tournament top prize ($2,340,000). The latter record transcends Triton events, as this massive payday became the biggest PLO payout for any event in tournament history.

“We are all enormously happy to see the Triton 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.”

All but one event on the schedule ended up with a prize pool worth more than $1 million, with four swelling into the eight-figure range. The largest of the series was the aforementioned $100,000 no-limit hold’em main event, which paid out $28,500,000. As a result of the huge turnout for the stakes, the top six finishers in that tournament all walked away with seven-figure paydays, with more than $5.5 million for the champion.

Kicking Things Off With A Bang

Coming into this series, the largest turnout for a Triton event was a 305-entry field at this same venue in 2024. That target was decimated right out of the gate, with the $15,000 buy-in kickoff event attracting a new record of 379 entries, which resulted in a prize pool of $5,685,000. (This record would turn out to be short-lived.)

After three days of high-roller action, 43-year-old Zhao Hongjun emerged victorious, earning $818,000. This was the first recorded live tournament title for the Chinese player, who told Triton reporters that poker hadn’t even been the driving force of his decision to attend this festival. He had made the trip largely to play golf, with a bit of cards on the side.

The stakes went up a bit for the next event, which also blew past the previous record field with 348 entries. Malaysia’s Tuck Wai Foo came out on top in the $20,000 buy-in, earning $1,350,000 for the win. This was the second of 11 no-limit hold’em events held at the festival, and the final tournament that cost less than $25,000 to enter.

Jeremy Ausmus topped the still-standing record of 391 entries in the $25,000 eight-max event to earn his first trident trophy and the top prize of $1,892,000. This was the third-largest career score for Ausmus, a six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner.

The 45-year-old Las Vegas resident went on to make three more cashes including two final tables at the festival, adding another $528,000 with those scores. He now has more than $27.1 million in recorded earnings to his name.

This huge triumph also came with 2,100 Card Player Player of the Year points for Ausmus, who also took down the $1 million PGT Championship invitational to cap off his PokerGO Tour season-long points race win for 2024. He has made a total of five POY-qualified final tables already this year. With 3,546 POY points, Ausmus now sits in first place in the 2025 race standing presented by Global Poker.

This event also made headlines thanks to a deep run from Alexander ‘Wolfgang’ Seibt, a popular poker vlogger with nearly 1.6 million YouTube subscribers. Seibt finished fourth for $680,000, his largest tournament score by far to date.

Nearly two years after taking down the 2023 Triton Cyprus $200,000 invitational event for a staggering $4.1 million, Azerbaijan’s Ramin Hajiyev once again found himself posing for a winner’s photo. This time around, Hajiyev overcame a field of 252 entries in the $30,000 eight-max event, earning $1,517,000. These two massive Triton victories account for nearly half of Hajiyev’s overall career earnings of $11.5 million.

The WPT Global Slam $25,000 event attracted 389 entries, falling just a few buy-ins short of topping the record field size for the tour set earlier this series. The prize pool swelled to $9,725,000, with seven-figure paydays for the top two finishers. The largest chunk of that money was ultimately awarded to Russia’s Anatoly Filatov, who earned $1,882,000 as the champion.

This was a new high score for Filatov, topping the $1,007,104 he earned with a third-place finish in the 2019 WSOP Europe €100,000 high roller. The 2018 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Russia main event champion now has more than $8.7 million in recorded scores to his name. Filatov was also awarded 2,100 POY points, enough to put him just outside the top 10 in the current standings.

Upping The Ante

The final half-dozen no-limit hold’em events on the schedule all featured buy-ins of at least $40,000. The $40,000 mystery bounty event drew 223 entries, with Sean Winter finally breaking through for his first Triton trophy after 12 in-the-money finishes without a title. The 34-year-old Florida native earned $935,000 from the main prize pool as the champion. Prior to his victory in South Korea, Winter’s last title came in January 2023, when he took down the kickoff event of that year’s PokerGO Cup.

“This feels particularly good because it’s 3x as long as it’s been since I won a poker tournament,” Winter told Triton reporters after closing out the event. “It’s been bothering me. I’ve had a lot of seconds and thirds. It’s a monkey off my back.”

Next up was a $50,000 buy-in affair that drew 215 entries to create the first eight-figure prize pool of the series with $10,750,000 up for grabs. The event was ultimately won by a player who has asked to remain anonymous. Bryn Kenney struck a heads-up deal that actually saw him walk away with the largest payout of the event, pocketing $1,897,430.

This was not the first time Kenney has earned the biggest figure despite ultimately finishing second. He locked up the largest tournament score in poker history via a deal in the 2019 Triton Million Charity Invitational, taking home $20,606,421 as the chip leader when the agreement was struck. Aaron Zang went on to close out the victory in that event, picking up $16,810,979 and the trophy.

While Kenney didn’t take down the trophy in that event, he didn’t have to wait long to add to his collection, taking down the $50,000 bounty turbo event for $839,000. The victory grew his career tournament haul to nearly $76.8 million.

It extends his lead on poker’s all-time money list, putting more than $7.3 million between him and Justin Bonomo in second place. Kenney also sits on top of Triton’s all-time earnings list. (pg. 33)

In addition to the money, Kenney collected his fifth Triton trophy, putting him in a four-way tie for second on the prestigious high-stakes tour’s all-time title leaderboard. He joins the elite company of Phil Ivey, Mikita Badziakouski, and Danny Tang. All four players are five wins, however, behind all-time Triton titles leader Jason Koon with 10.

Kenney now sits in eighth place in the POY standings thanks to his two huge scores in Jeju. Brandon Wilson, who finished fifth in this event for his third final table of the festival, climbed to second in the POY rankings. He has already accumulated 3,000 points through seven final-table finishes with two titles won.

The largest buy-in of the entire series cost $150,000 to enter. That sum was paid 128 times, resulting in a massive $19,200,000 prize pool. In the end, the largest share of that money went to Portuguese tournament crusher Joao Vieira, who secured $4,610,000 and his first trident trophy.

That was a new top score for the three-time bracelet winner, topping the $2.6 million he earned as the runner-up in the $100,000 Triton main event at last year’s WSOP Paradise. A few days after this win, the former professional basketball player also finished fifth in the $125,000 buy-in event for another $878,000. All told, he has cashed for nearly $20.7 million on the tour.

Huang Wenjie wrote his name in the history books as the champion of the largest Triton $100,000 main event yet held when he topped 285 entries for $5,555,000. The Chinese player now has more than $6.9 million in career earnings under his belt, including a win in the 2024 WSOP Online $10,000 heads-up championship.

Before this incredible field was assembled, the previous record at this price point was 216 entries. The surge in attendance resulted in a huge $28,500,000 prize pool, with multi-million-dollar scores for the top four finishers. Among them was a trio of two-time bracelet winners in Santhose Suvarna (4th – $2,140,000), Artur Martirosian (3rd – $2,644,000), and Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates (2nd – $3,528,000). Cates, a back-to-back champion in the WSOP $50,000 Poker Players Championship, earned a career-high tournament score for his runner-up showing.

Thai tournament superstar Punnat Punsri won the final no-limit hold’em event on the agenda. Punsri won the $125,000-buy-in event for nearly $2.6 million. Punsri topped a field of 93 entries in this event to secure his third trident trophy. More than $19.9 million of his lifetime haul is in Triton tournaments. He has cashed for more than $23.6 million dollars on the tournament circuit, with this latest score being one of his largest.

The Bangkok native is now so far ahead on Thailand’s all-time money list that even if you combined the earnings of the other 99 players that comprise the top 100 it would still be several million dollars short of his career earnings.

PLO Boom Continues

The four pot-limit Omaha tournaments held at this festival awarded more than $20.6 million in prize money between them, with an average attendance of 105 entries.

The first and most affordable four-card event was the $25,000 buy-in six-max, which drew 117 entries. 64-year-old Norwegian Tom-Aksel Bedell emerged victorious with his first Triton trophy and a career-best payday of $709,000.

This was the second major PLO title of the year for Bedell, who also took down a €10,300 event at the PLO Grand Slam Tirana in Albania back in January. Both scores came with 840 POY points, which is collectively enough to place Bedell just outside the top 30 in the rankings.

The stakes were doubled for the next event, but only five fewer entries were made. With 112 entries at $50,000, the prize pool grew to $5,600,000. Anonymous secured a career-best tournament score of $1,360,000 as the champion. This was the 42-year-old’s first victory in a Triton event.

The centerpiece of the PLO schedule was the $100,000 buy-in. With 91 entries, the prize pool wound up at $9.1 million, which resulted in a new PLO tournament record for the largest top prize ever awarded in the game with $2,340,000. That surpassed the $2,303,017 won by 2023 WSOP $50,000 PLO champion Jesse Lonis.

Spain’s Sergio Martinez Gonzalez walked away with the history-making sum. This was the second seven-figure PLO tournament score of Martinez Gonzalez’s career. In 2023 he finished runner-up to Ka Kwan Lau in a massive $25,000 buy-in event at that year’s WSOP for a $1.4 million payout. Martinez Gonzalez now has nearly $3.8 million in career earnings to his name.

Tom Vogelsang recorded his second fifth-place finish of the series in this event, earning $686,000 after cashing for $408,000 one day earlier. The Dutch pro has made four final tables overall this year, all in PLO events, including one win in a €5,200 tournament at the PLO Grand Slam Tirana. He now sits in 14th place in the standings.

The fourth and final PLO event was a $30,000 bounty affair. Another Spanish player also triumphed in this event, with Lautaro Guerra besting the field of 100 entries for his first Triton title and the top prize of $503,000. The PLO specialist now has more than $5.8 million in career cashes, with almost all of that coming from his success in four-card events.

Short Deck, Long Money

The final few events of the festival were all contested over short deck, a game that has long been a staple of the tour. While these events were some of the smallest of the series, there was still more than $4.7 million in prize money paid out across the trio of tournaments.

First up was the $30,000 buy-in which drew 56 entries. The largest payout was awarded to Ukraine’s Artem Kobylynskyi, who defeated a tough final table for his first Triton title and the $492,000 in prize money that came with it. This was the second-largest score yet for Kobylynskyi, trailing only the $651,977 he earned as the runner-up in the 2018 EPT Prague main event. He now has more than $1.3 million in recorded earnings.

The largest of the short deck events cost $50,000 to play. A total of 45 entries resulted in a $2,250,000 prize pool, with longtime short deck crusher Tan Xuan emerging victorious in the end. Tan successfully defended his title in this event, having won what was then referred to as the short deck main event in 2024.

Tan earned $708,000 this time around, the fifth-largest score of the 38-year-old’s career, and it brought his lifetime haul to more than $12.1 million. Tan now has three total Triton titles to his name, with almost all of his lifetime tournament earnings coming from his success on this high-stakes-centric tour.

The last-chance dance of the series was a one-day turbo affair that cost $25,000 to enter. Kiat Lee came out on top of the 31-entry field. The Malaysian player now has more than $13.8 million in career cashes, with more than $11.5 million of that coming from his 33 cashes in Triton events.

The next Triton stop will take place at the Maestral Resort & Casino in Sveti Stefan, Montenegro from May 13-27.