Triton Newcomer Denies Jungleman $5.5 Million Payday in $100K Main Event
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The Triton Poker Jeju Super High Roller Series has been full of surprises, with a string of first-time winners making their mark at the biggest Triton series in history. Players like Zhao Hongjun, Tuck Wai Foo, Jeremy Ausmus, Sean Winter, Anatoly Filatov, and Joao Vieira all grabbed their first-ever titles during the series, but the biggest story of all might be Huang Wenjie.
Huang, making his Triton debut at this festival, pulled off a stunning victory in the $100K Main Event, taking home $5.55 million. What makes this win even more incredible? It was his first-ever Triton stop. He cashed in his first event, struggled in the next four, but then came alive when it mattered most, winning the event that had a record-breaking 285 entries and a prize pool of $28.5 million.
Triton Jeju $100K Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huang Wenjie | China | $5,555,000 |
| 2 | Dan "Jungleman" Cates | United States | $3,528,000 |
| 3 | Artur Martirosian | Russia | $2,644,000 |
| 4 | Santhosh Suvarna | India | $2,140,000 |
| 5 | Sam Greenwood | Canada | $1,687,000 |
| 6 | Aliaksei Boika | Belarus | $1,288,000 |
| 7 | Nacho Barbero | Argentina | $946,000 |
| 8 | Clemen Deng | United States | $695,000 |
| 9 | James Hopkins | Australia | $570,000 |
Why is Triton Experiencing Record Super High Roller Fields?
Who is Huang Wenjie?
So, who is Huang Wenjie? The 35-year-old from Hangzhou, China, might be new to the spotlight, but he’s no stranger to high-stakes poker.
He’s a WSOP bracelet winner, as he bested the $10K Heads-Up Championship during the 2024 WSOP Online series for $366,893. In 2021, he also picked up a $720,679 online score from a third-place finish in the 2021 WSOP Online Super High Roller championship.
Officially working in tech back home, he’s a poker player with a low profile, but his performance in Jeju suggests we’ll likely see more of him on the biggest stages in the future.
Huang's Path to the Final Table
Huang Wenjie’s journey to the Triton Main Event title saw him end Day 1 with 475,000 chips (48 big blinds), but he surged ahead on Day 2, finishing as the chip leader with 9,875,000 (79 big blinds). Dan "Jungleman" Cates, who secured the second-largest stack at Day 1, finished Day 2 with 9,375,000 chips (75 big blinds), good enough again for second place in the chip leaderboard.
Day 2 also saw the money bubble burst, with poker legend Phil Ivey narrowly missing the cash and Gytis Lazauninkas exiting as the bubble boy after Alex Foxen’s Big Slick cracked his pocket kings.
On the final day, the eliminations of Rokas Asipauskas, Aliaksandr Shylko, Raul Manzanares, Murly Manokharan, Vincent Huang, Anatoly Filatov, and Ultimate Stack star Paulius Vaitiekunas set the stage for the nine-handed final table.
Final Table Action
2024 WSOP $250K Super High Roller champion Santhosh Suvarna entered the final table with 60 big blinds, but his lead was far from secure. Sam Greenwood, Artur Martirosian, Huang, and Cates all had at least 50 big blinds, while Clemen Deng remained in close contention with 45 big blinds. Aliaksei Boika trailed the leaders with 21 big blinds, sitting ahead of James Hopkins (14BBs) and the recently scandal-embroiled Nacho Barbero (4 BBs).
Barbero doubled up through Greenwood early on, but Hopkins became the first final-table casualty after losing a flip with ace-jack against Suvarna’s pocket tens. Barbero managed to ladder up again after Deng was eliminated. Cates cracked Deng’s pocket aces, leaving him short-stacked, and Huang collected the remainder of Deng’s chips just one orbit later.
Coincidentally, Cates picked up pocket aces and sent Barbero to the rail, who had shoved with suited ace-king. This secured each of the final six a payout of at least $1,288,000. Boika followed in fifth place, as his ace-jack was outflopped by Martirosian’s king-ten.
As the field was whittled down to five, the chip lead bounced between Cates and Huang. Ultimately, Huang regained control, using pocket kings to eliminate Greenwood, who shoved 26 big blinds with pocket jacks. Huang continued his dominant run into three-handed play, eliminating Suvarna before advancing to heads-up action. There, Huang secured his spot with a set of fives, getting three streets of value from Martirosian’s spaded jack-ten on a 10?5?3?3? board.
Huang entered heads-up play with a nearly 3:1 chip advantage over Cates, and the match lasted only four hands. Huang won the first pot, and the next two hands were uncontested shoves. In the final hand, Cates limped in with jack-nine, Huang shoved with king-queen, and Cates called off his stack.
Huang flopped trips with queens, while a jack also appeared on the flop. Another jack on the turn gave both players a full house, but Cates was eliminated in second after his one-outer failed to appear on the river.
Punsri Bags Third Triton Title
The final No Limit Hold'em event, #12: $125K NLH 7-Handed, wrapped up after the Main Event.
Punnat Punsri claimed his third Triton title after conquering a tough 93-entry field. He reached heads-up play against Christoph Vogelsang, and the two struck an ICM deal, leaving the trophy and an extra $90,000 to play for. Punsri secured $2,504,555, while Vogelsang locked up $2,456,445.
Heads-up didn’t last long. On the first hand, Punsri had Vogelsang down to less than a big blind after calling a river-bluff with two pair. Vogelsang, chasing both a flush and a wheel draw, bricked out, and his final chips belonged to Punsri the very next hand.
The $125K buy-in event generated a $11,625,000 prize pool, with the top 15 players making the money. Some of poker’s biggest names cashed, including Phil Ivey (15th - $198,000), Fedor Holz (14th - $198,000), and 2024 WSOP Final Tablist Brian Kim (12th - $215,000)—all falling just short of the final table.
$125K NLH 7-Handed Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Punnat Punsri | Thailand | $2,594,555 |
| 2 | Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | $2,456,445 |
| 3 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | $1,348,000 |
| 4 | Chris Brewer | United States | $1,093,000 |
| 5 | Joao Vieira | Portugal | $878,000 |
| 6 | Ben Tollerene | United States | $686,000 |
| 7 | Kiat Lee | Malaysia | $540,000 |
Triton Jeju Results
Images courtesy of Triton Poker
In this Series
- 1 Triton Poker Jeju's $25K Breaks Tour Record with 391 Entrants
- 2 Jeremy Ausmus Wins First Triton Title; Career Score for Wolfgang
- 3 Get Pieces of Joey Weissman & Chance Kornuth's Triton Jeju Action on StakeKings
- 4 The Best Poker Players Without a Triton Title (For Now!)
- 5 Triton Poker Player Pulls Over $1 Million in Mystery Bounties
- 6 All-Time Money List Leader Bryn Kenney Cracks $75M in Earnings w/ Triton Poker Win
- 7 Player in the Spotlight: Mario Mosb?ck Completes Triton Poker Hat Trick
- 8 Why is Triton Experiencing Record Super High Roller Fields?
- 9 Triton Newcomer Denies Jungleman $5.5 Million Payday in $100K Main Event
