On Wednesday, the action from the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series stop in Jeju, South Korea continued as the remaining players in Event #8: $50,000 NLH returned to the tables to play down to a winner. Across Day 1, the event drew a total of 215 entries to generate a prize pool of $10,750,000 – the first eight-figure pot of the stop – with 34 players paid and $2,233,000 for the eventual winner.
Kenney surges into chip lead
From the Day 1 field, only 42 players managed to advance to Day 2 play. With eight eliminations needed to burst the money bubble, play remained tense until Matthias Lipp fell by the wayside as the unlucky bubble boy. Once in the money, the pace of play increased and eliminations came fast and furious as the shorter stacks battled to stay in it.
When the field whittled itself down to the final eight players, it was Dylan Linde who led the pack into the final table, but four-time Triton Champion Bryn Kenney wasn't far behind. Mario Mosbock, a two-time Triton Champion himself, rounded out the chip count podium to start the final table with a slight edge on Canada's Mike Watson. In the bottom half of the counts, Brandon Wilson, Steve O'Dwyer, Matas Cimbolas, and Juan Pardo were tightly clustered – each having roughly 20 big blinds to work with.
Cimbolas was the first casualty at the final table as his fell victim to Mosbock's
before both Watson and Wilson followed suit. While he had avoided confrontation for most of the final table to this point, Linde picked up
and, facing a raise from Kenney, put in a three-bet. When the action folded back around to him, Kenney moved all-in with his
and Linde called it off. On the
flop, Kenney surged into the lead with top pair and a flush draw. Neither the turn nor river improved Linde's holding and his day ended in a fifth-place finish.
Kenney notched another elimination soon after, taking out O'Dwyer and his with
. While he cashed for the third time this series, O'Dwyer was less than pleased with the noise from the rail during his all-in confrontation.
Mosbock turns the tables after ICM deal
With an overwhelming advantage to start three-handed play, Kenney looked to have the win locked up, but when Mosbock absorbed Pardo's stack and sent him to the rail in third place, the heads-up stacks evened out a tad. Kenney still held the lead – his roughly 50 big blinds to Mosbock's 32 – but with lots of cash left to play for, both players agreed to an ICM deal to split the remaining prize pool based on their stack sizes while setting aside $70,000 to play for, along with the trophy.
With the deal in place, Mosbock took control of the heads-up match – in no small part due to his favorable card distribution. Over the course of three big hands, Mosbock managed to first wrestle away the chip lead and then close out the victory to add a third Triton title to his resume.
2025 Triton Jeju Event #8 results
Place | Player | Prize (USD) |
---|---|---|
1 | Mario Mosbock | $1,836,570* |
2 | Bryn Kenney | $1,897,430* |
3 | Juan Pardo | $1,055,000 |
4 | Steve O'Dwyer | $854,000 |
5 | Dylan Linde | $676,000 |
6 | Brandon Wilson | $512,000 |
7 | Mike Watson | $377,000 |
8 | Matas Cimbolas | $276,000 |
*denotes ICM deal
Photos courtesy of Triton Poker