The $100,000 buy-in Triton High Roller Series Jeju Main Event drew a record-breaking 216 entrants, hitting such a large number, in fact, that the field was unable to reach a final table as scheduled for Saturday
Instead, 15 players return for Day 3 of the tournament, each of them looking to take home the most coveted title of a Triton series in Jeju that has broken records from the start. Through 11 days of action, more than a dozen players have banked seven-figure prizes through nine events – and the Main Event only continues that trend.
With a prize pool of $21.6 million, the champion will win $4.33 million and the top six spots are each guaranteed over $1 million each. Jean-Noel Thorel of France holds a considerable chip lead over the rest of the field as he chases a long-awaited first Triton title at what would be his fourth career Triton final table. A fair ways back, a pack of four players led by Patrik Antonius and recently crowned first-time Triton winner Elton Tsang.
Day 3 will be a chance for Stephen Chidwick to make a run at the No. 3 spot on poker’s All-Time Money List and close the gap separating Justin Bonomo and Bryn Kenney from everyone else. Among the shortest stacks looking to forge a comeback on Saturday, you’ll find Mario Mosboeck, who finished as the runner-up in the WPT Big One for One Drop at Wynn Las Vegas back in December, and Chris Brewer.
Play will resume at 1 p.m. local time at Jeju Shinhwa World (midnight EST) with live streaming coverage on all of Triton’s content channels. A champion is set to be crowned by the time the day’s action is done, and here’s what the remaining 15 participants are playing for:
1st: $4,330,000
2nd: $2,875,000
3rd: $2,105,000
4th: $1,697,000
5th: $1,330,000
6th: $1,008,000
7th: $739,000
8th: $543,000
9th: $451,000
10th-11th: $378,000
12th-13th: $330,000
14th-15th: $298,000
Ahead of the restart, let’s take a deeper look at the biggest stacks remaining in the tournament.
Jean-Noel Thorel | 11,025,000 (88 big blinds)
France
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $15,972,400
Biggest Live Cash: $2,830,000, 2nd, 2023 Triton Super High Roller Series London $132,500 Main Event
Jean-Noel Thorel has been in this spot before on a number of different occasions. He has High Roller results dating back to 2009, four seven-figure tournament cashes, and three career final tables at Triton Super High Roller Series events alone.
But there’s a common theme among Thorel’s biggest career results: second place. Of his 10 largest career tournament cashes, six of them are second-place finishes in high rollers, including the top three.
Thorel is as well-positioned as he’s ever been to break through in this event, with nearly twice as many chips as his nearest competitor heading into Saturday’s finale. With a victory, Thorel would clear $20 million in live career tournament earnings.
Patrik Antonius | 5,575,000 (45 big blinds)
Finland
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $17,632,341
Biggest Live Cash: $3,153,551, 2nd, 2018 Super High Roller Bowl Macau
Patrik Antonius’ breakout year in poker came all the way back in 2005. Bookended by a pair of big results on the World Poker Tour – 12th at the 2005 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and second for over $1 million in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Antonius also made back-to-back EPT Main Event final tables including his first major title EPT Baden.
For the better part of the last 20 years, Antonius has remained competitive at the very highest cash game and tournament stakes that poker has to offer. He’s won millions many times over, and found success on the Triton Super High Roller Series to the tune of $5,667,588 and one tournament title.
Elton Tsang | 5,425,000 (43 big blinds)
Hong Kong
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $22,050,599
Biggest Live Cash: $12,248,912, 1st, 2016 €1 Million Monte-Carlo One Drop Extravaganza
Elton Tsang popped up on the poker radar in 2016, when he won a €1 million buy-in event in Monte Carlo for a first-place prize of over $12 million – one of the biggest ever awarded in a tournament.
Since 2022, almost all of Tsang’s results have come in Triton events, where he became one of the winningest players in the tour’s history without a title. That changed earlier this week, when Tsang broke through to the tune of $4.21 million by winning the $150,000 event in Jeju. If things go Tsang’s way on Saturday, his performance in Korea over the course of a few days would be one for the record books.
Justin Saliba | 4,875,000 (39 big blinds)
Hong Kong
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $5,366,816
Biggest Live Cash: $690,000, 3rd, Triton Super High Roller Series London $60,000 7-Handed No Limit Hold’em
The three players above Justin Saliba in the chip counts after Day 2 of the Triton Jeju Main Event have a few things on their poker resumes that Saliba does not, most notably when it comes to seven-figure results. But Saliba has a few things Thorel, Antonius and Tsang don’t as well – namely two WSOP bracelets, and a PokerGO title.
Over the last year-and-a-half, Saliba has racked up his five biggest career live tournament cashes, including his first Triton final table in London back in July. Strangely enough, two of his five career-best results came in tournaments won by Bin Weng in 2023 – the $25,300 High Roller at the WPT World Championship in Wynn Las Vegas, and Borgata’s ‘The Return’.
A win on Saturday in Jeju would be a milestone and the culmination of a precipitous rise amongst poker’s elite.
Igor Yaroshevskyy | 4,775,000 (38 big blinds)
Ukraine
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $6,024,820
Biggest Live Cash: $357,105, 3rd, 2017 PokerStars Championship Barcelona €25,000 High Roller
Rounding out the lead pack is Igor Yaroshevskyy, another player who is looking for a signature live win on Saturday in Jeju. He’s been close before; Yaroshevskyy has a pair of WPT final tables, at the 2015 L.A. Poker Classic and 2016 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Yaroshevskyy also has two career WSOP final tables and three Triton final tables to his record.
But the Triton Jeju Main Event represents an opportunity to blow all of those results away. With a couple of pay jumps on Saturday he’d lock up a career-best result, and a win would immediately increase his career tournament earnings by over 40%.
Other Players to Keep an Eye On
- Stephen Chidwick will start Day 3 of the Triton Jeju Main Event right smack in the middle of the chip counts in eighth place. With the cash he’s locked up already, Chidwick will pass Jason Koon for third on poker’s all-time money list. If he doesn’t get a pay jump, Chidwick and Koon will be just $5,000 apart on that list, about as razor-thin a margin as you can get for two guys who’d have just shy of $56 million in live tournament cashes.
- At the bottom of the chip counts sit three players who could each be dangerous if a spin-up is in the cards for them on Saturday. Mario Mosboeck is just a few months removed from a career-best result after finishing second in the $1 million buy-in WPT Big One for One Drop in Las Vegas. The Austrian also added another $1.19 million by winning the $25,000 GGMillion$ event a week ago in Jeju. Two American round out the bottom two spots – Chris Brewer, whose last 12 months have featured a half-dozen staggering results, and Kevin Rabichow.
End of Day 2 Chip Counts
- Jean Noel Thorel – 11,025,000
- Patrik Antonius – 5,575,000
- Elton Tsang – 5,425,000
- Justin Saliba – 4,875,000
- Igor Yaroshevskyy – 4,775,000
- Fahredin Mustafov – 3,050,000
- Roman Hrabec – 2,700,000
- Stephen Chidwick – 2,700,000
- Ramin Hajiyev – 2,625,000
- Alex Kulev – 2,500,000
- Wiktor Malinowski – 2,400,000
- Matthias Eibinger – 2,075,000
- Mario Mosboeck – 1,450,000
- Chris Brewer – 1,450,000
- Kevin Rabichow – 1,425,000