History was made at the 2024 Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju festival in South Korea. An impressive 216 entrants competed in the largest $100k buy-in no-limit hold’em main event at the Landing Casino Jeju, setting a new field-size record for the largest buy-in tournament in poker history. The massive turnout built a whopping $21,600,000 prize pool, with $4,330,000 going to eventual champion Roman Hrabec.
This was the largest tournament score for the Czech poker pro and former hockey player, surpassing the $915,000 he earned for his third-place finisher in the WSOP Online $10,300 buy-in event last year. Hrabec now has over $8.15 million in career earnings.
“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.”
The top 39 finishers made the money in this main event, with big names like Tim Adams (35th for $151,000), Webster Lim (22nd for $212,000), Sean Winter (21st for $212,000), Seth Davies (19th for $234,000), Mario Mosbock (15th for $298,000), Wiktor Malinowski (13th for $330,000), Justin Saliba (12th for $330,000), Kevin Rabichow (11th for $378,000), and Stephen Chidwick (10th for $378,000) all cashing but falling short of reaching the final table.
Bracelet winner Alex Kulev was the first to exit the final table. His pocket queens lost against the A-K of Hrabec, who flopped an ace and held from there to win the pot. He was followed by two-time bracelet winner Chris Brewer. The lone American at the final table got all-in with K-J trailing the pocket queens of Hrabec, who held to win the pot and narrow the field to seven. Later, Elton Tsang won a crucial all-in against Igor Yaroshevskyy. The Ukrainian was left with just a few big blinds and soon eliminated in seventh place.
Fahredin Mustafov, who had knocked out Yaroshevskyy, 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 hit a pair of kings, but the kicker played to bust Mustafov in sixth place for $1,008,000. Later, Eibinger’s pocket threes faced the pocket tens of Hrabec.The board brought two more tens, giving Hrabec four of a kind to bust Eibinger in fifth place.
The next to fall was Patrik Antonius who found himself all-in with pocket queens against Hrabec’s jacks. Hrabec flopped a set of jacks to take the lead and held through the river to eliminate Antonius in fourth place. Tsang fell just a bit short in this historic event when his A-10 ran into the A-Q of Jean-Noel Thorel. Tsang was unable to come from behind and was knocked out in third place ($2,105,000).
Heads-up play began with Hrabec holding a 5:2 chip lead over Thorel. The final duel was quick and brutal for Thorel who finally raised to 2,000,000 from the button with Qc 4c. Hrabec three-bet to 6,500,000 with Ks Kc. Thorel called and the flop opened Js 9d 3c. Hrabec bet 3,500,000 and Thorel called. The Kh on the turn gave Hrabec top set. He checked and Thorel moved all-in, which Hrabec called. The river brought the 8c. With that, Hrabec won the pot and the title. Thorel earned a career-best payout of $2,875,000 as the runner up finisher.
Final Table Payouts (USD)
- Roman Hrabec – $4,330,000
- Jean Noel Thorel – $2,875,000
- Elton Tsang – $2,105,000
- Patrik Antonius – $1,697,000
- Matthias Eibinger – $1,330,000
- Fahredin Mustafov – $1,008,000
- Igor Yaroshevskyy – $739,000
- Chris Brewer – $543,000
- Alex Kulev – $451,000
Keep following PokerproNews for the latest updates and results from live tournaments across the world
Image Credit: Triton Poker
