HK$500k Triton Hold'em Champion to Walk Away With Over $1 Million
Nick Schulman entered his first ever short deck event and topped the HK$100k edition yesterday for over $270,000. The stakes are now getting higher with the HK$500k Triton Hold'em (Short Deck Ante-Only) coming to the final day with $2.8 million in prize money. Created by 44 entries, the juicy prize pool will be shared among the top five finishers. A mammoth prize of more than $1 million awaits the champion (HK$8,470,000) so the Landing Casino is now only hours from crowning the first millionaire at Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju.
As Schulman showed yesterday, anything can happen in short deck when the cards sync with the boards."It's never over in this game," Ben Lamb said.
Lamb himself won't be among those competing on the final day. He was the last casualty of Day 1, falling in 10th place in the final level of the day. The remaining nine players finished the round of 10,000/20,000 ante and then bagged their respective belongings.
Payout structure:
| Place | Prize (HKD) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 8,470,000 | 1,079,586 |
| 2nd | 5,280,000 | 672,989 |
| 3rd | 3,630,000 | 462,680 |
| 4th | 2,640,000 | 336,494 |
| 5th | 1,980,000 | 252,371 |
It's a vintage lineup highlighted by none other than Tom Dwan, one of the most iconic players of all times. Dwan shook the poker world back in the day, hopping to the high stakes cash game scene as a fearless youngster who wasn't scared of playing gigantic pots with his trademark aggression. Dwan then stepped away from the spotlight for a few years but the Triton Series brought him back to the streamed felt. Dwan will turn 32 in a few days and surely would like to get himself an early present. He's closing on his first cash from a short deck event after making the final day fourth in chips.
While Dwan symbolizes mostly the previous era of high stakes superstars, the final day will also feature one of the most successful players of recent months: Jason Koon. Unlike Dwan, Koon has always been showcasing his talent in tournament fields. And he's now playing the best poker of his career, having crossed $20 million in lifetime earnings mainly thanks to his fantastic run in 2018. Koon notched three seven-figure results in May alone. That run included his personal-best score; a $3.5 million payday for a first place in the Triton Montenegro HK$1 million Short Deck.
So Koon already has an experience with closing out short deck events and there are some good arguments for him being the first man to do it again. He sits third in chips, trailing only Ivan Leow and Devan Tang. Leow min-cashed the first short deck event here in Jeju and he's in possession of 3,645,000, more than one-fourth of all chips in play. That puts him way ahead of his nearest competition.
However, the increasing limits can bring a lot of swings and Leow can be assured of one thing: it won't be a cakewalk. His fellow countryman Wai Kin Yong brought a similarly dominant chip-stack to the final day of the HK$100k event and Yong's beholdings ended up pulverized before the final table was set.
That gives a solid chance to anybody in the remaining field, including no-limit expert Mikita Badziakouski who will return to the shortest stack of 555,000. It will be good for more than 18 button-antes when the play resumes at 2 p.m. local time as the tournament continues in level 11 (15,000/30,000). PokerNews live reporting team will be on the ground once again to provide live updates from the final encounter so tune back to see who will take home the seven-figure top-prize.
Day 2 seating chart and chip counts:
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Tom Dwan | United States | 1,275,000 |
| 1 | 2 | Chan Wai Leong | Malaysia | 635,000 |
| 1 | 3 | Alan Sass | Montenegro | 800,000 |
| 1 | 4 | Gabe Patgorski | United States | 795,000 |
| 1 | 5 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 555,000 |
| 2 | 1 | Ivan Leow | Malaysia | 3,645,000 |
| 2 | 4 | Rui Cao | France | 1,245,000 |
| 2 | 5 | Devan Tang | Hong Kong | 2,430,000 |
| 2 | 6 | Jason Koon | United States | 1,720,000 |