Vaitiekunas, Mateos, and Mosbock Latest Big Winners At Triton Poker Jeju Festival

Three massive high-stakes tournaments wrapped up in South Korea over the weekend as part of the 2024 Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju being held at Landing Casino Jeju. The tournaments, representing events 3-5 of the 17 on the schedule, drew 788 total entries between them. As a result, more than $20.6 million in total combined prize money was paid out in those events, with seven-figure top prizes for each of the three champions crowned. Below is a look at the results from each of those events.

Triton Jeju Event 3 – $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Eight Max

The third event of the series attracted 298 entries at $25,000 a piece, resulting in a final prize pool of $7,450,000. After two days of high-stakes action, Paulius Vaitiekunas came out on top with the title and the top prize of $1,077,499.

This was by far the largest recorded tournament score yet for the Lithuanian player, blowing away the $363,300 he earned as the 14th-place finisher in last year’s World Poker Tour World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. Vaitiekunas now has nearly $1.9 million in lifetime tournament earnings.

This was Vaitiekunas’ first final-table showing of the 2024, but the 1,596 Card Player Player of the Year points he earned as the champion were sufficient to launch him up the standings and into 19th place on the POY leaderboard presented by Global Poker.

The 47 finishers made the money in this event, with big names like bracelet winner Isaac Haxton (15th), all-time Triton Poker titles leader Jason Koon (9th), bracelet winner Dan Smith (7th), and 2010 World Series of Poker main event third-place finisher Joseph Cheong (4th) running deep.

A three-handed deal was made between Vaitiekunas, eventual runner-up Alexander Tkatschew, and Aram Oganyan. Vaitiekunas locked up the smallest payout but ended up with the largest of the three contenders when he came away with the title and the $100,000 in prize money set aside for the winner as part of the deal. Oganyan walked away with the $989,501 he negotiated for, while Tkatschew was awarded $1,002,000 as the runner-up.

Triton Jeju Event 4 – $30,000 No-Limit Hold’em Eight Max

The $30,000 event was the largest buy-in yet at Triton Jeju. A strong turnout of 185 entries built a prize pool of $5,550,000 that was paid out among the top 31 finishers. In the end, the lion’s share off that total was collected by Adrian Mateos. The four-time bracelet winner from Spain took home $1,175,000 for the win. This was his victory in a Triton event, and also the first for any Spanish player.

I feel amazing. I’ve had a really good day,” Mateos told Triton reporters. "Thank you to everyone supporting me, especially the Spanish poker community.”

This win increased Mateos’ career tournament earnings to $41,800,226, which is good for 12th place on poker’s all-time money list.

Mateos also secured 1,176 POY points as the champion. This was his first title and fourth final-table finish of the year. With 2,006 total points and nearly $1.7 million in to-date POY earnings, he is now the sixth-ranked player in the 2024 standings.

Plenty of notables joined Mateos at the business end of this event, including Fedor Holz (12th), Phil Ivey (9th), Patrik Antonius (7th), and Joao Vieira (5th). Four-time bracelet winner David Peters was paid out $790,000 as the eventual runner-up. This was already his fifth final-table finish of the year, with two titles won along the way. His 2,304 POY points are currently good for second on the leaderboard, trailing only Jesse Lonis and his 2,499 points. More on him later, though.

Triton Jeju Event 5 – $25,000 GG Million$ No-Limit Hold’em

The GG Million$ $25,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event drew the largest turnout yet at the festival, with 305 entries making for a $7,625,000 prize pool. Austria’s Mario Mosbock was the last player standing, earning $1,191,196 for the win after defeating Sergio Aido heads-up. The final two had struck a deal that redistributed the prize money a bit. As a result, Aido took home a larger payout, as he was ahead at the time the deal was made. He walked away with $1,237,804 for his efforts.

Mosbock now has nearly $10.9 million in career earnings after this latest victory. His largest score came when he finished second in the million-dollar buy-in WPT Big One For One Drop last December for more than $4.6 million.

Both Mosbock and Aido are now sitting inside the top 30 in the POY standings, with Mosbock in 13th and Aido in 27th. Mosbock earned 1,680 POY as the winner, while Aido was awarded 1,400 points as the runner-up.

Jesse Lonis earned $253,000 and 420 POY points as the seventh-place finisher. This was his fifth final-table of 2024, with one title and more than $2 million in POY earnings accrued so far. As a result, he has now moved into first place in the POy standings, with 2,499 total points to his name.

Plenty of other stars ran deep in this event, including Fedor Holz (10th), Timothy Adams (6th), and Daniel Dvoress (5th).

Photo credits: Triton Poker / Joe Giron.

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