Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya is planning to start his own Triton:
– My friends and I are considering starting a new hi limit poker tournament circuit in the US. Millions in payouts per tournament (think Triton++) but some conditions:
1. There will be drug tests. You can’t be on any drugs including any performance enhancing drugs like Ritalin or Adderall.
2. No sunglasses, hoodies or masks. You play with your face uncovered and only prescription eye glasses are allowed.
3. There will be reasonable hours and formats so that it’s both not a turbo shove-fest nor an 11 day nit-fest.
Thoughts?
In general, what would make tournaments flourish in popularity and attract normies vs just degens and solver pros?
"Will you let autistic people in?" Michael Addamo asked.
Liv Boeree took a much more practical approach to the issues :
– What will the buyin be? That’s the main factor that will determine the normie ratio
Chamat clearly has his own ideas about ordinary players:
– Some small buyins ($5-25ks) and some satellites so $100 can get you in, but mostly $50ks-$1M+
Joey Ingram chimed in....
– 1. Edibles/Weed allowed – ADHD medicine banned. What types of stims would be allowed?
2. Sounds great – keep face uncovered. Also block anything converting real time information transmitting information elsewhere through the eyes
3. Reasonable hours sounds great – would personally prefer that to playing randomly late into the night
Tournaments would flourish with new people trying to start them and with a better marketing strategy than poker is used to which is something you and the people you know could do very well.
... but he was quickly rebuffed by Chamath's answer:
– No edibles, weed, mushrooms etc. no drugs of any kind.
GG Poker has been quite active lately.
In early March, the company reported that, together with GTOWizard, 31 accounts had been flagged and blocked for violating fair play rules.
"Are they banned from WSOP too?" Patrick Leonard asked. "That would be a BIG STATEMENT and put a lot of people off thinking about it."
“That’s the plan,” answered Fyodor Holz, “and that’s what will happen.”
A few days later , news broke that GG had bought a stake in Hustler Casino Live.
Nick Vertucci's share went under the hammer. In October last year, he stepped down from managing the company in a scandal, but remained its co-owner.
Hustler is hosting the Million Dollar Game from April 28 to May 2. Among the participants is Nick Airball, whose 12-month ban for “repeatedly selling/transferring chips” is just about to expire. Nick hasn’t streamed on Hustler since March 2024.
Check some of last year's highlights here:
PokerGo hosted its first ever Super High Roller Bowl mixed games event. The $100k buy-in tournament attracted 29 entries.
Nick Shulman became the bubble boy.
In the final hand, he got it all in razz on sixth street against Michael Monceck, who already had a 6-low. Nick was saved only by an ace, and as an experienced limit specialist, he began to draw his last card.
"This is a club. Did anyone have an ace?" he asked his neighbors.
“I had the ace of clubs,” Daniel Negreanu , who was very active that night even by his standards, repeated several times.
– For real? I lose. You've really outdone yourself today, Daniel.
Nick nodded discontentedly and quickly left.
“I saved you the sweat!” Negreanu shouted after him.
– After the elimination, I tilted not as much as it might have seemed on the stream. Much more, lol, – Nick wrote a little later . – Seriously, it was a great tournament. The world of mixed games is not that big, but at the same time huge. Thanks to everyone for the support.
The most popular poker YouTuber Wolfgang Poker went to his first Triton series and won $680,000 in the $25,000 tournament .
"How many shares did you sell?" he was asked in the comments.
“Although it might surprise most,” Wolfgang replied , “I've actually never sold action before (cash or tournament)
Anatoly Filatov and Ramin Khadzhiev won the series.
Anatoly won the $25,000 NLH WPT Global Slam tournament, which earned him $1,882,000.
Igor Yaroshevskyy took third place in this tournament ($850,000), and he received another $619,000 for third place in the $20k buy-in tournament.
After his victory, Anatoly said that in Korea the spirits of his ancestors must have helped him, since his mother is Korean by nationality, plus, he had a mask that his wife brought him from Venice.
Ramin Hadjiev won the $30,000 tournament ($1,517,000). He beat Vyacheslav Balaev ($1,008,000) heads-up.
This is Ramin's second title at Tritons.
Mikita Badziakouski took third place in the $125k ($1,348,000) tournament and a little earlier, he lost to Sean Winter in the $40k mystery heads-up.
The bounty record holder was Matas Cimbolas. He received $71,000 for 12th place, but with the help of his pregnant wife he pulled out more than $1 million in envelopes.
The most expensive tournament of the series with a buy-in of $150,000 was won by Joao Vieira ($4,610,000). Aleksejs Ponakovs took second place ($3,139,000).
The $100,000 Main Event was the largest six-figure buy-in tournament in offline history, with 285 entries. The winner was Chinese high roller Huang Wen Jie ($5,555,000), beating Daniel Cates heads-up ($3,528,000). Artur Martirosyan ($2,644,000) rounded out the top three , with Alexey Boyko ($1,288,000) finishing sixth.
View all results from the series
Daniel Cates has been inundated with sympathetic messages after his heads-up loss.
"What is this feeling sorry for me for winning 3.5 m instead of 5.55?" Jungle didn't understand . "Motherfuckers, this is one of the hottest I’ve run in my life. If I am unhappy here, having crushed the cash game and got 2nd of 285 entries for the ONE tournament I played, I am unhappy forever.
This forever seeing the negative side of things has to stop in poker and in first world."
Joseph Cheong came to Triton expecting good teams:
– Come to jeju for the soft asian fields i was told. Im the only soft Asian here.
Update: I finally found my soft Asian:
Bencb explained why he has no competition in poker:
You don't really have a competition in Poker ...
Most men these days:
– Impatient
– Lack of emotional control
– TikTok Brains who can't concentrate
– No financial responsibility
– Poor mental and physical shape
– Can't focus during longer sessions
– Blame variance instead of improving
– Have zero adaptability. They refuse to learn new thingsIt has never been easier to be in the top 10% to make money with Poker long-term.
Randy Lew recalled playing heads-up with Trueteller once:
“Throwback to when I was playing against Trueteller aka Timofey Kuznetsov when we were playing high stakes heads up poker and I was getting bluffed on and off the tables by him"
I’ve completely lost it reading this so many times over the years. The “how will i play?” just absolutely gets me every time still," wrote Henrik Hecklén.
Matt Berkey discovered that someone was playing under his name on ClubWPTGold and contacted the room :
– Hey ClubWPTGold can you either force this guy to change his name or double his VPIP?
WPT quickly spun things back on Berkey:
"Okay one sec.
...
Matt, have you considered playing more hands?"
Following the recent WSOP Circuit scandal, Adam Owen has a proposition for all poker journalists:
– Open offer for all poker media:
$1000 to save my winning hand from losing, tabled or otherwise
$1000 to stfu when my opponent is in this situation, provide proof privately
I don't see anything wrong with this
Long live free markets
Niall Farrell is busy raising his son:
– Taught my son Rock Paper Scissors and now it’s the deciding factor for him tidying up his toys or going to bed at bedtime.
He flat out refuses to ever through rock however.
Going to be some tough lessons learned about balanced ranges in the Farrell household over the next year.
Mike McDonald recalled how he once failed to recognize his teacher at the poker table:
– Was just reminded of this story. I turned 18 in Sep 2007, and knew I was taking at least a year off school to try the live circuit. I took 3 consecutive terms at school just so I didn't give up a full year.
I was playing tons online, but didn't want to be totally inexperienced live so would play every illegal poker game I could find.
One evening I'm chatting to a lady at the table and she asks if I'm a student.
"Yes"
"Which school?"
"UW"
"First year? What you studying?
"Ya. Math"
"You taking CS 137? Whose your professor?"
"Sandy Graham"
"Sandy Graham, nice to meet you" she says while sticking out her hand.
I'm so embarrassed. Everyone is laughing.
"Ah ya it's so early in the morning. I go to the noon lecture"
"With Troy?"
"Ya"
"So you'd know who filled in for him the 4 weeks he was on
vacation"
I can barely breathe
"I'm gonna be honest with you, I've been playing a lot of poker"
Scott Seaver has made a dramatic image change :
– My very hipster opinion is that I think Jackie Brown is Tarantino's best film (if we don't count True Romance).
Patrick Leonard recalled the epic hand between Tom Dwan and Barry Greenstein, in which they got all in on the flop for a pot of about $1 million:
– "A 22 year old Tom Dwan with exactly 50% refusing to take back money after Greenstein declined to run it twice. A generation of internet kids drooled in admiration. The good ole days."
“I get why it looks a bit silly," Daniel Negreanu admitted, "but I think there is some logic to why Barry did this:
1) his policy was always run it once to deter people aggressively jamming draws for essentially half the cost
2) once he sees the hand is 50/50 it’s a neutral EV situation and it’s easy to just each take some money back rather than a spot that is like 58/42 that requires some calculation.
I’m not arguing it’s sound logic, but just guessing as to how he viewed this spot and don’t think it’s that crazy."
"I think we both thought we were 52ish. We talked about it some months or w/e after," Tom Dwan added.
“That seems incongruent with him wanting to take money back, but tracks with you saying no,” Berkey replied.
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