World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise is in full swing at Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas and saw the WSOP’s first partnership with Triton with Event #2: $1,000,000 Triton Million, a unique event pairing VIPs with the world’s best high-stakes poker pros. The day wrapped up with 67 players remaining and two fan-favorites among them in Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu.
Both Poker Hall of Famers are after their second bracelets of the year after Ivey won his 11th this summer in the $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship and Negreanu won his seventh in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.
They were hardly the only heavy hitters in the Day 1 field, with Fedor Holz, Isaac Haxton, Justin Bonomo, Michael Addamo, Adrian Mateos, Jason Koon, Ben Heath, Chance Kornuth, Alex Foxen and Nick Petrangelo all being among those who advanced to Day 2.
Two-time bracelet winner Michael “Texas Mike” Moncek bagged the chip lead with 3,815,000 ahead of big stack’s like Triton founder Paul Phua (Ivey’s partner), Sosia Jiang and recent Poker Hall of Fame inductee Patrik Antonius.
Triton Million Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Moncek | 3,815,000 | 191 |
| 2 | Sinan Unlu | 3,200,000 | 160 |
| 3 | Paul Phua | 2,750,000 | 138 |
| 4 | Sosia Jiang | 2,665,000 | 133 |
| 5 | Fedor Holz | 2,625,000 | 131 |
| 6 | Patrik Antonius | 2,570,000 | 129 |
| 7 | Jared Bleznick | 2,535,000 | 127 |
| 8 | Konstantin Maslak | 2,150,000 | 108 |
| 9 | Chance Kornuth | 2,140,000 | 107 |
| 10 | Taylor von Kriegenbergh | 2,140,000 | 107 |
Day 1a of the $500,000 buy-in event drew 95 runners, nearly two dozen of those being entries. A few players were playing the biggest buy-in of their careers, including Jessica Teusl and Monika Zukowicz and Shaun Deeb, who spoke to PokerNews about the exciting moment.
Despite the half-million price tag for each player in the invitational, it took all but one hand for one of them to lose all their chips. That player was David Einhorn, who ran ace-king into the aces of Jared Bleznick to be sent to the re-buy counter.
The big pots continued as Haxton put Addamo to the test during Level 2. On a double-paired board, Haxton check-jammed on Addamo before the Australian crusher folded to be left with half a starting stack. Addamo had no problem running his stack back up and making it to the end of the day.
Einhorn wasn’t the only early casualty. Aleksejs Ponakovs fell early as his queens were crushed by Taylor von Kriegenbergh’s set of kings. Andrew Pantling fell to pocket kings later in the evening but, unlike Ponakovs, decided to cut his losses and didn’t buy back in.
The most notable elimination of the day was Ivey, who lost a big pot to Heath before buying back in and sitting at a table that included Alex Foxen, Sam Greenwood and Nick Schulman.
Day 2 will start at noon on Level 11 with blinds of 10,000/25,000/25,000 and 50-minute levels. The plan is to play down to a final table, meaning the bubble will burst on Day 2.
Stay tuned as the PokerNews live reporting team is on-site at Atlantis and will be ready for more coverage of an exciting start to WSOP Paradise. Check out the live reporting hub in the meantime.