Dan "Jungleman" Cates is in pole position as the Triton Super High Roller Series London $125k Main Event reaches a final table. Play resumes tomorrow at 1pm (live streamed from 2pm), when Cates will be battling a tough table including Doug Polk, Isaac Haxton and Stephen Chidwick for who gets to hoist the Triton trophy and take home the top prize (plus a very fancy watch).
The $125k Triton London Main Event started Day 2 with 79 players - 65 survivors from Day, plus 14 super-late overnight entries/re-entries brought the total field to 151 (including 56 re-entries), setting a new record for a Triton Main Event and dwarfing the previous record set in Vietnam earlier this year. The total prize pool generated came to $18,875,000, with 27 places paying out amounts ranging from $189,000 for a min-cash to $4,185,000 for the eventual winner.
Another cash for Bryn Kenney
Leading the field at the start of Day 2 was Pedro Garagnani, who already picked up a title this week in the $30k Turbo Event #8. A second Triton London trophy was not on the cards for Garagnani though. He doubled up Bryn Kenney, the former holding pocket tens but the latter rivering a straight with pocket nines, propelling Kenney - fresh from his $6,860,000 win in the $250,000 Luxon Invitational - into the chip lead. Garagnani couldn't recover and busted not long after, well short of the money.
Other players who failed to make it into the money included Phil Ivey, Talal Shakerchi and Steve O'Dwyer. Daniel Dvoress exited on the bubble with ace-ten against Stephen Chidwick's ace-king, although he seemed to take it fairly well, barely looking up from his phone as the board was dealt and leaving in silence.
Those who did make the money included Erik Seidel and Luxon Invitational bubble boy Wiktor Malinowski (both eliminated in a single hand by Jean-Noel Thorel, who then briefly held a massive chip lead), as well as 2022 WSOP champion Espen Jørstad. Bryn Kenney couldn't turn his early chip lead into a final table spot - after losing half his stack to James Chen, he dribbled away the rest, finally mistiming a shove with king-ten into Nick Schulman's pocket kings and Isaac Haxton's pocket aces to finish in 21st place.
The chip lead changed hands repeatedly during the last few levels, but it is Dan Cates who will be going into the final with the biggest stack. Cates, who played today dressed as Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović, complete with drawn-on fake beard, has 66BB, but there's not much in it between the top four stacks, and with the average stack at 34BB when they return, it's anyone's game.
Final table chip counts:
Ivey triumphs in $60k Turbo
Meanwhile, players who busted from the Main before around 8pm had the option of playing Event #12 instead, and many did just that. The one-day $60,000 Turbo event garnered 61 entries and generated a $3,660,000 prize pool, with 11 places paying out sums from $91,500 to $1,007,000.
Phil Ivey topped the chip counts going into the final table, but Cary Katz busted 9th place finisher Lucas Greenwood and then knocked out Wai Kin Yong and Tan Xuan 8th and 7th in a single hand to propel him to a massive chip lead - he had half the chips in play with six players left. Phil Ivey busted Biao Ding in 6th place and Nick Petrangelo took out Aleks Ponakovs in 5th, evening up the stacks a little when they went four-handed - and then Ivey proceeded to knock out all three remaining players in mere minutes, to take the $1,007,000 first prize and the title. Talk about turbo.
The Main Event plays to a conclusion tomorrow from 1pm (live streamed from 2pm), and the $60,000 NLH 8-Handed Event #13 begins at 3pm. We'll be back on the floor bringing you all the action on Poker.org Instant right from the shuffle-up-and-deal to the very last card.
