Mike “Texas Mike” Moncek boasts the perfect poker player nickname and now he is in pole position to lift the $12million top prize at the WSOP Paradise Triton Million event in the Bahamas, topping the chip counts going into the final day.
Day two of the $500,000 buy-in pro/rich rec invitational was a riotous affair, a clash of big names, huge stacks and monster hands as the players vied for a share of the $48,000,000 prizepool.
Fan favourites such as old-school legends Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius were in the mix, as were modern-day beasts Fedor Holz, Stephen Chidwick and Alex Foxen, while the rich recs group boasted ACR boss Phil Nagy, HCL founder Ryan Feldman and Triton Poker founder Paul Phua.
“Sometimes you gotta gamble!”
Legends at work! @RealKidPoker @philivey #wsopPARADISE #TritonMillion pic.twitter.com/bL8kZqj1X7
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) December 8, 2024
There was no shortage of action, but it was to be early bathtime for both Negreanu and Ivey…
Eleven-time WSOP bracelet winner Ivey went first, courtesy of the surprise star of the show so far…
Moncek: Q♠ Q♣
Ivey: Q♥ 4♠
Ivey, in the big blind, check-called both flop and turn…
Flop: 9♥ 6♠ 4♥
Turn: 3♦
River: 6♥
Moncek shoved on the river and Ivey faced the agonizing decision of whether to call off his last 225,000, about seven BBs. He eventually did and received the bad news.
Negreanu joined him on the rail shortly afterwards…
Negreanu: :ak: K♣
Mokri: K♠ K♦
Negreanu’s 3-bet from the big blind brought a 4-bet shove from Mokri. “Sometimes you gotta gamble!” was Negreanu’s retort before calling for his tournament life.
Flop: 4♠ 10♣ 5♦
Turn: 7♦
River: J♠
With 17 spots paid a min. cash of $755,000 there was no quarter asked nor given, Michael Addamo, Shaun Deeb, Jason Koon and Patrik Antonius all falling before dinner.
Bubble trouble!
Daniel Dvoress brought us to the stone-cold bubble with a double KO of Nick Petrangelo and Artur Martirosian but Ryan Feldman was completely unaware this had just happened…
Direct bubbled. Max pain. Sick to my stomach cuz I didn’t realize there were 18 left or I prob fold bb. 20 left a minute before that.
Defended bb and led shoved flop after flopping combo draw. 11 outs on flop, 14 outs on turn.
Gave it my all, really wanted this
— Ryan Feldman (@TheRyanFeldman) December 9, 2024
This is how the disastrous hand looked…
Ryan Feldman: 10♣ 7♣
Alejandro Lococo: K♣ Q♦
Flop: :ah; Q♣ J♣
Turn: 8♠
River: 5♠
That gave us our 17 players ITM and played stopped when they reached 14, losing Mikita Badziakouski, Punnat Punsri and ACR boss Phil Nagy along the way.
Play resumes today and will play down to a winner, with $12,040,000, the triton Million trophy and a WSOP gold bracelet going to the winner. The top nine will all take home a seven-figure payday.
Leading the way is “Texas Mike” Moncek, a two-time WSOP bracelet winner who hit the headlines this summer with a $2million+ loss in the Hustler Casino Live Million Dollar Game.
He has a huge chance to rectify that and more, but there’s plenty of poker still to play and some real crushers close behind. We’ll bring you the best of the action right here on VIP Grinders so be sure to check in regularly!
Triton Million Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chip Count |
| 1 | Michael Moncek | 12,500,000 |
| 2 | Daniel Dvoress | 12,350,000 |
| 3 | Alejandro Lococo | 10,775,000 |
| 4 | Adrian Mateos | 9,825,000 |
| 5 | Stephen Chidwick | 8,650,000 |
| 6 | Sosia Jiang | 7,925,000 |
| 7 | Sinan Unlu | 7,200,000 |
| 8 | Ben Heath | 5,450,000 |
| 9 | Elias Talvitie | 4,925,000 |
| 10 | Alex Foxen | 4,600,000 |
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