Live Reporter
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The first-ever Triton ONE $8,000 Main Event has come to a thrilling conclusion at the Landing Casino inside of the five-star Jeju Shinhwa World resort. For the debut of the new mid-stakes tour launched by the world-renowned high-stakes brand, a gargantuan field of 1,046 emerged to produce a mammoth prize pool of $7,607,558 and the lion’s share of that was up for grabs on the final day.
Heads-up play featured Thai entrepreneur Punnat Punsri and former football player Joshua Gebissa, a defensive midfielder with roots in Ethiopia who was active in the lower divisions in Germany and retired from the sport in 2019 at the young age of 24 years old.
When the dust had settled, Gebissa came out on top of a topsy-turvy duel to earn the first-place prize of $975,225. His previously largest recorded live poker cash was only $40,099, and he also finished in the money in the opening Triton ONE $3,000 QQPK Genesis Event at the start of the festival.
This trademark victory is what most aspiring poker players can only dream of and a telltale story of how poker legends are made. It is made even sweeter by the fact that Gebissa won his entry through the satellite program of title sponsor QQPK and received an exclusive reward of $100,000 in tournament coins for the popular online poker app.
Runner-up Punsri eventually had to settle for a consolation prize of $1,205,775, an amount that may come in handy for the upcoming 2025 Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Jeju II which will unfold in the following two weeks. Some of the biggest names in the world of poker are expected to take part in more than a dozen high-stakes tournaments.
The businessman from Thailand and number one on the country’s all-time money list according to The Hendon Mob database had already racked up more than $26.2 million in tournament cashes prior to this series, which included four Triton Poker Super High Roller Series titles between 2022 and 2025 including two titles this year in Jeju and Montenegro.
He is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished poker aficionados in the Asia-Pacific region and it was just fitting that he also made it to the heads-up stage of the first-ever Triton ONE Main Event on Jeju Island. During a break with three players left, Punsri was spotted chatting with Jason Koon in the nearby Short Deck Event but there wouldn’t be a victorious ending this time. Instead, it was the boisterous German-speaking rail that had reason to celebrate on the final day of the first-ever Triton ONE stop in South Korea.
Final Table Result
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (in USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joshua Gebissa | Germany | $975,225* |
| 2 | Punnat Punsri | Thailand | $1,205,775* |
| 3 | Daiki Shingae | Japan | $573,000 |
| 4 | Ruogo Wen | China | $431,000 |
| 5 | Dajie Zhuo | China | $328,000 |
| 6 | Artur Martirosian | Russian Federation | $241,300 |
| 7 | Kaoru Kishimoto | Japan | $183,000 |
| 8 | Igor Yaroshevskyy | Ukraine | $130,558 |
| 9 | Sergei Petrushevskii | Russian Federation | $101,700 |
*Denotes deal of the final two players prior to the start of the heads-up
Gebissa entered the final day as one of the bigger stacks near the top of the leaderboard but was flying somewhat under the radar for most of the day until the crucial stages came about.
“The plan was to see how the table plays, how aggressive people are, if they’re more passive, and then adjust accordingly.”
He is a rather new face on the live poker circuit with his first small cash dating back to March 2020 before he became more active three years later including a debut visit to Asia earlier this year.
“When you’re in-game, you’re really just so focused. I mean, for me especially, I’m not playing much live, so I have to count out the stacks all the time and really concentrate to get the numbers right and everything. So that kind of helps with the nerves.”
Throughout the entire duration of the final day, Gebissa appeared very composed at the tables and didn’t seem to be intimidated by the big names he was up against despite the lack of high-stakes live poker action. It culminated in the heads-up duel with Punsri, who he had shared the table with the previous day.
“Yesterday we already played a bit at the table. I didn’t know him personally before. This is my first-ever visit to Jeju, so usually I just see him on stream … So I realized he’s actually a very nice guy. He was really nice to play with. He’s kind of a legend of the game. Playing heads-up versus him for a big trophy, can’t get much better than this I think.”
Action of the Final Day
The final day recommenced with 16 players remaining spread evenly across the two feature tables and there was a pay jump in play. Ming Juen Teoh was the shortest stack and doubled in the very first hand before securing another double soon after. The Malaysian was then also responsible for the first elimination when his pocket sixes held against the ace-king of Takashi Yagura.
While the action thereafter slowed down, the following out became a frantic affair with five eliminations to bring the field down to ten in a hurry. Weiran Pu was the first to fall when his ace-queen ended up second-best to the ace-seven of Dajie Zhuo. In another clash of players from China, Hongjun Zhao came up short with pocket tens against the ace-king of Ruogo Wen.
Yuefeng Pan, who had started the day with the lead, had to settle for 13th place after losing a flip to Daiki Shingae and became the third Chinese hope to leave empty-handed. Ruogo Wen then knocked out Teoh and Chao Li in consecutive hands to bring the field down to the final table bubble. Artur Martirosian and Punsri secured several double-ups after spending time in the danger zone and the latter then knocked out Michael Zhang to set up the final nine.
The very first hand of the final table provided fireworks when Sergei Petrushevskii picked up ace-king and three-bet. He spiked top pair and top kicker to jam the turn only to walk right into the slow-played pocket aces of Punsri.
Igor Yaroshevskyy became the next player to depart. He was a big stack after the bubble for an extended period on Day 2 but entered the final table among the short stacks. In three-way action, Yaroshevskyy flopped trips eights only for Wen to hit running jacks for what would end up being a superior full house. Yaroshevskyy used multiple time bank extensions and then called all-in to get shown the bad news.
That elimination ensured a pay jump for fellow short stack Kaoru Kishimoto, who bowed out only a few minutes later. In a duel of players from Japan, Kishimoto defended the king-nine from the big blind and jammed on a gutshot straight draw. Shingae looked him up with ace-king and was already ahead, then rivered an ace to deal the final blow.
The action was now more deep-stacked and the always dangerous Martirosian picked up chips with a five-bet shove against Wen with ace-king versus ace-jack. When the Russian poker prodigy got into a preflop raising war again, he picked a bad timing for his six-bet shove with ace-three suited, as Punsri looked him up with ace-king to take over the lead five-handed.
That lead grew to half of the chips in play with the elimination of Zhuo, who flopped top pair with king-jack in three-way action. The relentlessly aggressive Punsri had the goods once again with ace-jack and pulled further ahead of the pack.
Next to depart was Wen in a preflop flip with king-queen suited against the pocket sixes of Shingae, who pulled way ahead of Gebissa with three times as many chips. The shortest stack among the final three still had a mighty 30 big blinds at his disposal, though.
Shingae took over the lead three-handed and even pulled further ahead but it all went down in flames when he bluffed in a big pot against Punsri. The Thai hero-called correctly to leap into a commanding lead and the misery for Shingae got even worse soon after when Gebissa doubled through him. Ultimately, Shingae busted with pocket kings against Gebissa’s ace-queen when the latter rivered Broadway.
While Punsri entered heads-up play with a comfortable cushion, it was certainly no one-way traffic. Gebissa doubled twice in what was a cagey affair and then wrestled his way into an overwhelming lead. Punsri earned back-to-back doubles with a severe short stack but the miracle comeback was cut short to once again send Punsri to the rail just shy of another triumph in his impressive poker career.
This concludes the CelestialPoker live reporting from the first Triton ONE Main Event in Jeju, which has entered the world of mid-stakes poker with tremendous prize pools, set for a very bright and ambitious future.
*Photos courtesy Triton, Drew Amato, Enrique Malfavon & Spenser Sembrat
Live Reporter
In this Series
- 1 Triton ONE: New Live Tour Set to Expand Triton Poker’s Reach
- 2 Debut Triton ONE Schedule Revealed; Super High Roller Series Announced
- 3 Countdown to Triton ONE: Four Days Until Poker’s Hottest New Festival Debuts
- 4 CelestialPoker is Heading to Jeju for Triton ONE & Super High Roller Series
- 5 Poker Vlogger Hits Dream Flop Before Nightmare Turn Card at Triton ONE in Jeju
- 6 Xuan Liu on Historic Triton Victory: ‘I Felt Like I Was on Top of the World’
- 7 ‘A Bridge to Our New Champions’: Triton ONE Series Sees Strong Start in Jeju
- 8 How a $1.4 Million Score Saved This Poker Crusher from a Major Downswing
- 9 Player Makes Epic Hero Call Against Alex Foxen in Triton ONE Main Event
- 10 Former Footballer Beats the Pros in First-Ever Triton ONE Main Event for $975,225