Get ready for some more nosebleed action in South Korea. Jeju Island is the location of the latest stop on the swanky Triton Poker tour. The first installment of 2025 featured a return to Korea. The Landing Casino will host the 2025 Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Jeju with an action-packed festival that includes 18 tournaments in 18 days. The three primary formats are No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, and the insanely popular Short Deck. As expected, mega bucks will change hands and records have already been broken at Jeju.
2025 Triton SHR Jeju Event #1 $15,000 NLH attracted 266 unique players and 113 additional entries for 379 total entrants. The organizers were thrilled that they set an attendance record with the kick-off event. The previous record occurred one year ago at the 2024 Triton Jeju with 305 entries. This year’s new record included 266 unique players and 113 additional entries for 379 in total.
“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. We are extremely proud of the events we arrange, which we know are the best on offer in world poker. The number of players we continue to attract proves it, and it gives the whole team so much pleasure to see so many people enjoying the Triton experience. We know they will all be back.”
Event #1 had a prize pool of over $5.68 million and the top 63 places paid out. Several Americans cashed, but missed the final table, including Jason Koon, Steve O’Dwyer, David Peters, Ebony Kenney, and Jonathan Jaffe. Other noteworthy pros also cashed including Dietrich Fast, Adrian Mateos, Thomas Muhlocker, Kahle Bruns, Espen Jorstad, Michael Addamo, Joao Vieia, and Artur Martirosian. The final eight included five players from China and one American, Mike Jozoff. The final table featured
Players from China finished in the Top 3. Zhen Chen busted in third place, which set up a heads-up battle between Yuzhu Wang and Zhao Hongjun. They agreed on a heads-up deal in which Wang earned $975,000. When the dust settled, Hongjun defeated Wang for the title and banked $818,000 based on their deal.
Event #2 $20,000 NLH attracted 348 entries and a prize pool of $6.96 million. The final table was a nice mix of international players with eight countries represented. Amatuer Tuck Wai Foo from Malaysia outlasted a touch final table that included Tuck Wai Foo, Mario Mosbock, Igor Yaroshevskyy, Michael Gathy, Ren Lin, Andrei Kotelnikov, Jon Ander Vallinas, and Calvin Lee. It was Austria and Malaysia heads-up for the title. Mario Mosbock from Austria settled on second place, while Foo banked $1.35 million for his victory.
Among the noteworthy players who cashed in Event #2 included Chris Park, Ben Heath, Matas Cimbolas, Chris Brewer, Adam Hendrix, Sam Greenwood, David Coleman, Cal Anderson, Aram Oganyan, Thomas Santerne, Bn Tollerene, Justin Saliba, and Dan Smith.
It took a couple of days in Jeju before Triton Poker set another new attendance record. Event #3 $25,000 NLH attracted 391 total entries including 163 re-entries. The record-breaking field surpassed Event #1’s previous record of 379 runners.
The prize pool for Event #3 swelled to $9.775 million and the top 63 places paid out. American pro Jeremy Ausmus showed while the six-time WSOP bracelet winner is one of the premier tournament players in the world. Ausmus prefers to stay stateside and does not play too many international events, so his appearance was a rare treat. He averted disaster with 23 players to go, and spun up stack. He was second in chips when the final table began.
The final nine also included Zhou Quan, Sim Kok Wai, Alexander Seibt, Maksim Vaskresenski, Paulius Vaitiekunas, Shunjiro Kita, Matthias Eibinger, and Aliaksandr Shylko.
In a heads-up joust between China and USA, it was the American who was the last player standing. Ausmus secured another seven-figure score to his impressive resume with a first-place prize worth $1,892,000. Zhou Quan won $1.19 million for a runner-up finish. Not too shabby, eh?
Among those who went deep and cashed in Event #3 included Phil Ivey, Thomas Boivin, Fedor Holz, Juan Pardo, Kahle Burns, Martin Zamani, Stephen Song, Patrik Antonius, Adrian Mateos, Ebony Kenney, Brock Wilson, Dietrich Fast, Steve O’Dwyer, Poseidon Ho, Dan Smith, Diogo Coelho, Tom Vogelsang, Chance Kornuth, Justin Saliba, Danny Tang, Kristen Foxen, Punnat Punsri, Zhen Chen, Luc Greenwood, Stephen Chidwick, David Coleman, and Ben Tollerene.
Event #5 $30,000 NLH attracted 252 runners and a prize pool worth $7.56 million. The top 39 places paid out with the top two winning at least seven figures including more than $1.5 million set aside to the winner. Event #5’s final table included Ramin Hajiyev, Viacheslav Balaev, Renji Mao, Winfred Yu, Manuel Fritz, Sam Greenwood, Brandon Wilson, and Kahle Burns.
It was a classic confrontation between Russia and Azerbaijan for the title, but Russian newcomer Viacheslav Balaev could not thwart Azerbaijan’s Ramin Hajiyev. Hajiyev knocked out Balaev in second place, which paid out a smidge over $1 million. Hajiyev won $1.517 million for being the last one standing in the $30K event. Hajiyev secured his second Triton title. He previously won the 2023 Luxon Invitational in Cyprus.
David Peters missed the final eight when he busted in ninth place. Other notables who went deep and cashed included Poseidon Ho, Artur Martirosian, Leon Sturm, Christoph Vogelsang, Emilien Pitavy, Matas Cimbolas, Rainer Kempe, Nacho Barbero, Anatoly Filatov, Alex Foxen, Aram Oganyan, Dietrich Fast, Isaac Haxton, Dylan Linde, Mikita Badziakouski, Ben Heath, Nick Petrangelo, and Michael Jozoff.