Russian Outlasts 389 Entries In Triton Poker Jeju $25,000 Tournament

The 2025 Triton Poker Jeju WPT Global Slam $25,000 no-limit hold’em event drew a huge turnout of 389 entries, falling just a few buy-ins short of topping the record field size for the tour set earlier this series in another $25,000 event that ended with 391 entries.

The near-record attendance resulted in a prize pool of $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 World Series of Poker 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 also secured 2,100 Card Player Player of the Year points for this win. This was his first POY-qualified score of 2025, but it alone was enough to catapult him into sixth place in the overall standings presented by Global Poker.

The top 63 finishers cashed in this event, earning at least $41,000 for their efforts. Plenty of big names made it down to the final few tables, including women’s all-time money leader Kristen Foxen (20th), Triton co-founder Paul Phua (16th), and two-time Triton champion Michael Soyza (11th).

Event #6 WPT Global Slam Final Table!

What started as 389 hopefuls is now down to just 9 contenders. After 2 days of battling on the Triton Poker SHRS Jeju 2025 stage, they are one step away from glory and the $1.882M top prize.

Final Table Lineup:
Calvin Lee … pic.twitter.com/8znusldLVn

— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) March 4, 2025

The third and final day of this event saw nine contenders return to the Landing Casino Jeju to play down to a champion, with Calvin Lee in the lead and Filatov in the middle of the pack. Lee scored the first two knockouts by winning both sides of a classic preflop coinflip. He first won with pocket tens against the A-Q of Jon Vallinas (9th – $176,000), then had his A-Q successfully outdraw the pocket tens of two-time Triton winner Orpen Kisacikoglu (8th – $221,000).

Lee continued his early dominance of the final table when he found pocket tens yet again and won another all-in, this time against the K-J of Canadian bracelet winner Pascal LeFrancois (7th – $312,000).

2024 POY race runner-up David Coleman was the next to fall. He ran pocket sixes into the pocket nines of two-time Triton champion Igor Yaroshevskyy. Coleman earned $416,000 for his first final-table finish of 2025 after recording 24 last year.

Four-time Triton winner Fedor Holz’s run in this event came to an end when his top pair of aces clashed with the flopped broadway straight of Filatov. Holz called all-in on the turn only to find out that he was drawing dead going into the river. The German crusher finished fifth for $529,000, taking his earnings up over $50 million in the process. He is just the 11th player in poker history to surpass that mark.

The next knockout resulted from a battle of the blinds. Filatov opened from the small blind with Q5 and Justin Saliba defended his big blind with QJ. Filatov flopped middle pair and led out. Saliba called and found a jack on the turn to regain the lead in the hand. Filatov checked-shoved over the half-pot bet of Saliba, who made the call. The river brought the 5 to give Filatov trips and the pot. Saliba hit the rail in fourth place, earning $675,000 for his performance. The two-time bracelet winner increased his career haul to $10,643,484.

A tornado of emotions can only end badly for one of these hopefuls seeking their first Triton title…@Justin_Saliba pic.twitter.com/ya1G5mFORp

— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) March 4, 2025

With that Filatov took the chip lead into three-handed play. Filatov took a big chunk of Yaroshevskyy’s stack before Lee came for the remaining eight or so big blinds. The Ukrainian’s final hand pitted K10 against A8. Yaroshevskyy failed to connect, while Lee made a pair of aces on the river to earn the elimination. Yaroshevskyy took home $850,000 for his second podium finish of the series. Earlier this week he placed third in a $20,000 buy-in event for $619,000. These two deep runs have moved him into third place in the 2025 POY standings with 2,360 total points.

Heads-up play began with Filatov holding 53,700,000 to Lee’s 43,500,000. That lead grew as the final two battled on. Filatov picked off a bluff with ace high to take nearly a 4:1 lead. Shortly after that, Lee flopped two pair only to have Filatov hit running clubs to make a flush. With four clubs on board, Lee was able to correctly fold after his blocker-bet was raised on the river, but the hand did further dent his already battered short stack.

The final hand saw Lee shove from the button for 14 big blinds with A4. Filatov called with KQ from the big blind and the board came down K9810Q to give him two pair and the title.

Lee earned a career-best score of $1,185,000 as the runner-up. Like Yaroshevskyy, this was already Lee’s second final table of the festival, having placed eighth in the $20,000 buy-in event. The Mercer Island, WA resident now has more than $2.7 million in recorded earnings.

Final Table Results

Photo credits: Triton Poker.