The third tournament of the Triton Jeju series has already seen its winner. He was looking for the $25,000 NLH 8-Handed Silver Maine with 298 entries and a prize pool of up to $7,450,000. There was $1,455,000 waiting for the winner here, and 63 players battled it out for that amount in the final table.
The top nine players made it to the final table. They were led by Paulius Vaitiekunas with a stack of up to 16,075,000. At the final table, we could also watch Czech player Roman Hrabec, who started here with 16 blinds.
Jason Koon did not add another title
Jason Koon was the first to fall from the final table, taking home $149,000. He was followed by Chen Gunagcheng, who took home $182,000. He was replaced on the cashier's table by Dan Smith, who had $248,000 waiting for him. Sixth place went to Maksim Vaskresenski with a prize of $337,000.
Playing in the last five players, the shortstack was Czech player Roman Hrabec. He had only 7 blinds already in 8-player play. However, he gradually fell to the last 2 blinds. That's when he found A-Q under his hand, but it didn't hold. He finished in fifth place in the tournament and added a nice sum of $441,000 to his account.
Talk about the deal
After Joseph Cheong was eliminated in fourth place ($560,000), the last three players reached a point where they had nearly identical stacks. So it was the turn of the deal debate, which was successful. However, the first deal debate came in four-handed play when Vaitiekunas refused to deal.
Now, however, Vaitiekunas had the smallest stack and so he had already agreed to the deal. After the deal, the players took such rewards, there was still $100,000 left to play for the winner. For all three players, these were lifetime-high payouts.
- Alex Tkatschew - $1,002,000
- Aram Oganyan - $989,501
- Paulius Vaitiekunas - $977,499
In the end, Paulius Vaitiekunas was the best player to finish the event, defeating German player Alex Tkatschew in the final heads-up match. Paulius Vaitiekunas thus won the trophy and a total of $1,077,499 to go with it.
| # | NAME | COUNTRY | PRIZE |
| 1. | Paulius Vaitiekunas | EN | 1.077.499$ |
| 2. | Alex Tkatschew | GER | 1.002.000$ |
| 3. | Aram Oganyan | USA | 989.501$ |
| 4. | Joseph Cheong | USA | 560.000$ |
| 5. | Roman Hrabec | CZE | 441.000$ |
| 6. | Maksim Vaskresenski | BLR | 337.000$ |
| 7. | Dan Smith | USA | 248.000$ |
| 8. | Chen Gunagcheng | CN | 182.000$ |
| 9. | Jason Koon | USA | 149.000$ |
Fourth tournament number 5
The fourth tournament, which is numbered 5, will see its winner today. Missing from the list of tournaments are tournament 4 and tournament 14, as the number 4 is said to be bad luck. Thus, tournament 5 is the $30,000 NLH 8-Handed with 185 entries and a prizepool of $5,550,000.
Only 31 players could make it to the ITM here, with a min cash of $49,000 and $1,175,000 awaiting the winner. The runner-up will take home $790,000.
Phil Ivey among the top finishers
There are 24 players through to the final table and all of them have already pocketed at least $54,500. Ako chipleader tu začne Jesse Lonis so stackom 2.915.000, za ktorým nasledujú Seth Gottlieb (2.725.000) a legendárny Phil Ivey (2.500.000). Okrem nich je stále v hre aj napr.: Joao Vieira (2.300.000), Fedor Holz (2.205.2,005,000), Phil Nagy (2,005,000), Patrik Antonius (1,875,000), Adrian Mateos (1,295,000), David Peters (1,195,000) and Michael Addamo (345,000), who finished just outside the final table in the previous tournament in 10th place ($125,000).
The final day will kick off again at 1pm local time, which is 4am our time, when the blinds will start at 30k/60k/60k and players will run through 30 minute levels.
Source - Triton Series, Joe Giron - poker photo archive
