Roman Hrabec Wins Largest $100,000 Buy-In Tournament In Poker History

Tournament poker history was made at the 2024 Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju festival in South Korea. A total of 216 entries were made in the $100,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event at the Landing Casino Jeju, setting a new field-size record for a tournament with a six-figure buy-in. The massive turnout resulted in a $21,600,000 prize pool, with $4,330,000 going to eventual champion Roman Hrabec.

This was by far the largest tournament score yet for the 28-year-old Czech poker pro and former hockey player, blowing away the $915,000 he earned as the third-place finisher in the World Series of Poker Online $10,300 buy-in event last year. Hrabec now has more than $9.4 million in career earnings, the second-most of any player from his home country.

“I will say, it feels quite amazing,” he said to Triton reporters after closing out the win. “Is that real money? Yeah, that feels pretty good.”

This was the first title and fourth final table of the year for Hrabec, who also finished fifth in a $25,000 buy-in earlier at this festival. He earned 1,800 Card Player Player of the Year points for this latest victory. With 2,955 total points and nearly $5.1 million in to-date POY earnings, Hrabec has climbed to third place in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker.

The top 39 finishers made the money in this event, with big names like Tim Adams (35th), Michael Watson (33rd), Webster Lim (22nd), Sean Winter (21st), Seth Davies (19th), Mario Mosbock (15th), Wiktor Malinowski (13th), Justin Saliba (12th), Kevin Rabichow (11th), and Stephen Chidwick (10th) all running deep.

Bracelet winner Alex Kulev was the first to be eliminated. He lost a classic preflop race with pocket queens against the A-K of Hrabec, who flopped an ace and held from there. Kulev earned $451,000 as the ninth-place finisher.

Two-time bracelet winner Chris Brewer was the next to fall. The lone American at the final table got all-in with K-J trailing the pocket queens of Hrabec, who held to narrow the field to seven. Brewer, who also has two Triton titles, cashed for $543,000 to bring his career total to more than $22.8 million.

Elton Tsang, just a few days removed from a win in the $150,000 buy-in event for $4.2 million, won a crucial all-in against Igor Yaroshevskyy. The Ukrainian was left on fumes, and soon sent to the rail in seventh place with a career-best score of $739,000.

Fahredin Mustafov scored the knockout on Yaroshevskyy but soon found himself all-in and at risk with K-9 suited trailing the A-K suited of three-time Triton champion Matthias Eibinger. Both players improved to a pair of kings, but the kicker played to send Mustafov home with $1,008,000 for his sixth-place showing.

The next big showdown pitted Eibinger’s pocket threes against the pocket tens of Hrabec. The board brought two more tens to improve Hrabec to four of a kind. Eibinger earned $1,330,000 as the fifth-place finisher, the second-largest score of his career. He now has more than $20 million in lifetime earnings.

Patrik Antonius looked like he might check Hrabec’s momentum when the two got all-in with pocket queens against pocket hacks preflop. Hrabec flopped a set of jacks to take the lead and held through the river to eliminate Antonius in fourth place ($1,697,000). The Finnish poker star now has more than $19.1 million in career cashes to his name.

Tsang came incredibly close to winning the two largest buy-ins of the series, but eventually fell just a bit short in this event when his A-10 ran into the A-Q of Jean-Noel Thorel. Tsang was unable to come from behind and was sent packing in third place ($2,105,000). This score brought his total haul for the series to more than $6.4 million.

Heads-up play began with Hrabec holding roughly a 5:2 chip lead over Thorel. The power balance had not shifted much by the time the tournament’s final hand was dealt. With blinds of 250,000-500,000 and a big blind ante of 500,000, Thorel raised to 2,000,000 from the button with Q4. Hrabec three-bet to 6,500,000 with KK out of the big blind. Thorel called and the flop came down J93. Hrabec bet 3,500,000 and Thorel called. The K on the turn ave Hrabec top set. He checked and Thorel moved all-in for 6,700,000. Hrabec quickly called and the river brought a blank: the 8. With that, Hrabec secured the pot and the title. Thorel earned a career-best payout of $2,875,000 as the runnerup, just edging out the $2,830,000 he took home for a runner-up finish in a Triton London $125,000 event last year. The Frenchman now has nearly $18.9 million in lifetime earnings.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Photo credits: Triton Poker / Joe Giron.

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