Zhao Hongjun Victorious in Triton Jeju Event #1 – $15,000 NL

Zhao Hongjun has seized victory in the opening event at Jeju after topping a China-dominated final table to claim an $818,000 prize following a heads-up deal.

The Triton Super High Roller Series is always a pleasure to watch and it’s been great to see the circus get together again in South Korea. Jeju always promises fantastic action with the added influx of more Asian players who love to gamble.

The action kicked off with much fanfare at the Landing Casino on Wednesday as we saw a record field for the opening event. 379 entries were chalked up by 266 players, making a new best for the tour.

The prize pool was a whopping $5,685,000 to be divided between the top 63 finishers.

Zhao was delighted to have achieved a win up against some real top players, and the final table was a joy to witness with the three Chinese players who took the podium spots never having cashed in the series before. Two of them had never even played.

Zhao spoke to reporters after he was crowned champion and said:

“I’m very happy to have won this tournament. I actually came to Jeju Island mainly to play golf and joined the tournament on the side. My work keeps me quite busy, and although I’ve been playing poker for over a decade, I haven’t participated in many tournaments.

“I found this event relatively easy, even simpler than some tournaments in China. It was really fun. Moving forward, I’ll continue to compete in the 30K and 50K buy-in events and fully enjoy the experience of these legendary tournaments.”

Action Recap

There were 71 players remaining at the conclusion of Day, setting up a short run to the bubble when play reconvened. Players were also informed that an unscheduled Day 3 was likely to be needed due to the unexpected record field.

James Hopkins and Jonathan Jaffe both ended up all-in at the same time when hand-to-hand play was underway. Fortunately for both players they doubled and survived to grab a payday leaving Zewei Xu to head to the rail $15,000 lighter.

Zhao Hongjun really started to make his mark during Day 2, leading for all of it and holding double the chips of his nearest challenger for most of it.

By the time that the final nine had formed, Zhao’s lead had been cut, although it was still considerable.

Chen Dong only just limped onto the final table and was forced to jam J♦ 8♣ from under the gun, running into Damir Zhugralin’s J♠ 10♠. The Chinese player was the first of five from his home nation to leave the table, kicking off his series with a great result.

Zhugralin’s luck didn’t hold as within a few hands his aces got cracked by Zhao who flopped a third jack and sent home his rival with a $129,000 prize.

As Day 2 came to a close, Yuzhu Wang dispatched Nikita Kuznetcov with a standard A♥ Q♠ versus K♥ J♣ confrontation to leave six players returning this afternoon for the finale.

Zhao would begin play with 64bb with Wang his closest challenger sitting with 34bb.

Michael Jozoff was next to depart. Looking down at A♦ K♠ and seeing a raise and three-bet in front of him was no doubt exciting, and even more so when he shoved and got a call from Weiran Pu  with Q♥ 10♥.

But the flush came in on the river and the last American standing was out, leaving four players from China left to battle it out with Paulius Plausinaitis from Lithuania.

Pu was now close to the chip leaders but not for much longer. Seeing Zhao open raise as the runaway leader, Pu thought his jam with A♦ J♠ was likely to bear fruit. And it might have done if it weren’t for Wang waking up with A♥ K♦.

Pu was left with only 2bb and busted shortly after, even after picking up at least five double-ups.

The average stack was now only 24 big blinds and the aggression level seemed to be rising, especially from Zhao.

Plausinaitis ended his run when his K♣ Q♥ came up short against Wang’s pocket nines, banking $395,000 for his efforts..

Incredibly, the three Chinese players left fighting for the win now had equal stacks. The pressure must have been immense, though not that we could see because they all looked fearless.

Zhen Chen was unfortunate to run his A♦ Q♦ into Wang’s aces in a totally standard fashion, but a $497,000 prize for his first Triton cash must have felt special.

After dominating the event over three days, Zhao now only had 25bb to Wang’s 51bb. With this turnaround in mind, the players headed over the the tournament director and worked out a deal, leaving only $40,000 and the title to play for.

In only a few hands, Zhao turned things around again with his ace-nine beating Wang’s ace-four. Zhao then made his skill advantage apparent to seal the deal over his recreational player friend and become a Triton champion.

Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju Event #1 – $15,000 NLH 8-Handed Final Table Results

* – Denotes deal made