Young Guns Emerge and Asian Wizards Shine at Triton Poker Series Jeju 2025

One year ago, the Triton Poker Series Jeju festival at the Landing Casino inside of Jeju Shinhwa World Resort obliterated previous attendance records for the high-stakes live poker tour. Yet, there were even bigger things to come as the recently concluded Triton Jeju 2025 festival from February 26 until March 15 was one for the record books.

Triton Poker Series Jeju Shatters Records

Known to attract some of the most well-known poker pros, aspiring newcomers and businesspeople with an affinity for the card game, the turnout on Jeju Island was still on another scale. Throughout the entire series with 18 trophy events and three different poker variants, a total of 3,350 entries were recorded for a gargantuan prize pool of $148,730,000. Yes, that is nearly one hundred fifty million US Dollars.

Perhaps, the final tally doesn’t quite sound as incredible when considering that the opening $15,000 NLHE 8-Handed Event obliterated the previous Triton Poker Series attendance record with 379 entries – beating the previous record by 74 compared to the 305 at the very same location in March 2024. In a news article, when the first event reached a whole new dimension, Triton CEO Andy Wong said,

We are all enormously happy to see the Triton Series break records yet again in Jeju. It’s always especially exciting to see so many new faces discovering Triton for the first time.

Record Breaking Newcomer Turnout

In the opening event, no fewer than 111 players of the 266 unique entries competed in their first ever live event and that figure represents nearly forty-two percent. That’s completely unheard of for such a high-stakes stage and showcases just how popular the festival has been. More than 50 of these new participants hailed from China, but there was also additional support with “Road to Triton” satellites in Taiwan and Japan.

Ka Fai Wong and Edward Yam made their debut thanks to securing a package at the Dream Room poker club in Taipei, while Toshikazu Ishii, Ryosuke Tomuro and Kazuki Dobashi did so from Japan. As far as popular vloggers are concerned, Frankie “NextGenPoker” Cucchiara, Alexander “Wolfgang Poker” Seibt and Ethan “Rampage” Yau all jumped into the action as well. Japan’s rising star, the 2024 WSOP Ladies Event gold bracelet winner Shiina Okamoto, also made her maiden appearance as well alongside two-time EPT Main Event finalist Rania Nasreddine.

They were joined by numerous up and coming European poker pros such as Manuel Fritz, Johan Schultz-Pedersen, Diogo Coelho, Jon Kyte, Andre Marques, Jon Ander Vallinas, Fabian Bernhauser, Aliaksandr Shylko and Andrei Kotelnikov. All of them already had some pretty impressive results on their live and online poker resume, but it was the first shot at glory in a Triton Poker live series. Aussies also made their way to South Korea such as Matthew Wakeman, Anton Lu, William Jia, and Yongjia “Gary” Lin.

Ultimately, the first Triton Trophy of the series was lifted by one of the many newcomers but perhaps a rather unexpected name. In fact, the top three all hailed from China and had never cashed in a Triton event before. Zhen Chen finished in third place for $497,000 before Yuzhu Wang and Hongjun Zhao cut a deal during heads-up play. Wang had to settle for the higher cash prize of $975,000 but Zhao won the trophy and $818,000 on a trip that was actually supposed to be about golfing on the popular tourist island.

Event #2 $20,000 NLH 8-Handed would have also broken the previous attendance record with 348 entries and the biggest slice of the pie went to Tuck Wai Foo from Malaysia in his second-ever Triton Event. Foo claimed a top prize of $1,350,000 after defeating Mario Mosböck in heads-up, but the Austrian would later on get his redemption in Event #8 $50,000 NLH 7-Handed. The former football striker has become one of the up and coming stars in live poker not only because of his elegant dressing style. Mosböck had to overcome Bryn Kenney on a star-studded final table out of a field of 215 entries to earn $1,836,570 while Kenney had the bigger share of an ICM deal with $1,897,430.

The madness didn’t stop right there, as the attendance record was boosted even further in the following days. Event #3 NLH 8-Handed came with a price tag of $25,000 and attracted an incredible field of 391 entries, warranting the high-stakes brand to use alternates. Eight figures were narrowly missed but the tournament paid out $9,775,000 of which six-time WSOP bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus earned $1,892,000 on a rare trip outside of the United States – he had opted to visit Jeju after last year’s strong turnout.

Chinese entrepreneur and high-stakes poker player Quan Zhou fell short in second place but recorded a new career-high score of $1,193,000 to now reach more than $12 million in cashes. Aforementioned vlogger “Wolfgang Poker” finished in a very respectable fourth place worth $680,000 while Shunjiro Kita (seventh for $314,000) and Aliaksandr Shylko (ninth for $178,000) were newcomer finalists. Belorussian Shylko shared on social media,

Words can’t describe how long I’ve been preparing and dreaming of participating in a Triton Poker Series event. Finally, at the end of this February, I made it happen in Jeju—and it met all my expectations! Plus, I was lucky enough to perform really well at the tables throughout those two weeks.

The 2023 PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC) cashed in four of the five events he played during the festival and once again showed why he is one of the newer guys on the international circuit to watch. In 2024, he visited Asia for live poker events for the first time during WPT Cambodia Championship and came back again this year with a notable third place in the $5,000 High Roller for $75,776. His four scores on Jeju Island were for nearly ten times as much, though.

Hong Kong’s business tycoon and Asia’s most highly revered poker pioneer Winfred Yu (fourth for $595,000) as well as WSOP bracelet winner Renji Mao (third for $737,000) from China reached the final table in Event #5 $30,000 but came up short against now two-time Triton champion Ramin Hajiyev from Azerbaijan ($1,517,000).

Also falling short of another major victory was German wizard Fedor Holz in Event #6 $25,000 NLH WPT Global Slam, which almost set another record. The 389 entries for a $9,725,000 prize pool nearly equaled the record of Event #3. Anatoly Filatov overcame Calvin Lee ($1,185,000) to score the top prize of $1,882,000.

Ye Wang from China has live results from Macau since 2017 but the biggest scores of his career all come from live poker events in South Korea. The new career-high came with a payday of $2,074,000 in Event #9 $150,000 NLH against international top stars such as Dan Smith, Aleksejs Ponakovs and Joao Vieira. It was the latter who claimed the huge $4,610,000 first-place payout.

There was only one larger prize paid out during the stop in Jeju and that one belonged to Wenjie Huang, who earned a trademark victory in the $100,000 NLH Main Event. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, as the 285-entry strong field is the biggest six-figure buy-in in poker history to date, obviously also setting a new brand record for Triton with an incredible $28.5 million in prize money awarded. Huang already had a WSOP Online gold bracelet to his name but the triumph against Dan “Jungleman” Cates came with $5,555,000 for the efforts.

Aforementioned young gun Shylko nearly reached his second final table of the series but bowed out in 15^th place for $379,000. Vincent Huang made the next pay jump to $422,000 but missed the final table, as did WPT Global Slam winner Filatov (eleventh for $480,000). Another Aussie had a strong showing in James Hopkins, who made it to ninth place for $570,000 and two-time WSOP bracelet winner Santhosh Suvarna extended his lead atop the all-time money list of India with another $2,140,000 score for fourth place.

Were there any other victories for well-known Asian crushers? Indeed, there were three!

Thailand’s number one Punnat Punsri cut a heads-up deal with Christoph Vogelsang in Event #12 $125,000 NLH 7-Handed and earned $2,594,555 for his third Triton title, while Vogelsang had to settle for $2,456,445 in a field of 93 entries.

The fearless wrecking ball also known as Tan Xuan earned his third Triton Short Deck title with a victory in Event #19 $50,000 Short Deck after defeating fellow countryman Esti Wang in heads-up play. His top prize of $708,000 is actually lower than the cash game pots he often plays in the Triton high-stakes sessions. Seven players in the 45-entry strong field cashed including reigning Player of the Year and Triton ambassador Danny Tang (fifth for $192,000) as well as Phil Ivey (fourth for $248,000).

Last but not least, the final trophy of the series went to Wai Kiat Lee at Event #20 $25,000 Short Deck Turbo where 31 entries emerged and six spots were paid a share of the $775,000 in prize money.

Lee had more than 30 Triton cashes to his name prior to this event and it was his 18^th final table appearance. Five times he reached the heads-up stage but came up the bridesmaid, though, this time it wasn’t the case. Michael Zhang came third in Event #19 and was the one to finish second for $182,000, while Lee was all smiles for the first Triton triumph and $264,000 top prize.

Up Next For Triton

Another two Triton stops have already been announced for the current year with Montenegro up next from May 13 to 27, 2025. And the Landing Casino will welcome back high-stakes enthusiasts from all over the world in September 2025 when the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series returns to Jeju Island. Perhaps, new records may be on the horizon then because the sky is the limit.