Senior Editor U.S.
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It’s an exciting day on South Korea’s Jeju Island as the first-ever Triton One festival made its debut inside Landing Casino & Resort. But the day was more sickening than thrilling for content creator Frank Cucchiara, who made an unfortunate exit from the opening event thanks to a cruel turn card.
Tuesday, Sept. 2 saw the start of the $3,000 buy-in Triton One Genesis, a three-day event that will wrap up on Sept. 4. The festival, which features buy-ins much more affordable than typically offered by Triton, runs through Sept. 8 and will culminate with the $8,000 Triton One Main Event from Sept. 5-8.
CelestialPoker is on-site for the inaugural Triton One series, and will also be on island time for the Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju running Sept. 8-23.
Learn More About the New Triton One Series!
Bad Turn Card for Frankie C
Day 1A of the Triton One Genesis drew 300 entrants, including Triton regulars like Alex Foxen, Kristen Foxen, as well as other well-known pros including Xuan Liu, Mustapha Kanit and Ignacio Moron. The flight also drew a few poker content creators like Alexander “Wolfgang” Seibt and Frank Cucchiara, who will use whatever runs they make to produce content views by hundreds of thousands of poker fans.
“Frankie C” made his Triton debut in Jeju earlier this year, which he spoke about in a July episode of the Life Outside Poker podcast. But Cucchiara’s run this time around was short-lived as he five-bet all in with pocket tens to be in bad shape against the pocket queens of Bingxin Li.
Cucchiara took a major lead as the flop landed 10♥2♣6♥ to give him top set, but the Q♥ landed on the turn immediately after to bring a smile from Li. Cucchiara remained stoic but couldn’t improve on the 9♥ river.
“That runout’s insane,” said Triton commentator Randy Lew.
Li had slightly more chips, so Cucchiara was left nursing a one-big-blind stack that he ran up a bit before busting and hopping into Day 1B.
It wasn’t the only tough beat at the feature table. Shortly after, Luo Xixiang found himself all in with ace-king to be crushed by the aces of Duy Thuc Nguyen, who improved to top set on the flop of Q♠10♥A♦. However, the board proceeded to finish out 2♠J♣ as Xixiang made a miracle Broadway to stay alive.
Action Picks Up Early
Most of the Day 1A field consisted of regional grinders from China, Japan, Taiwan and other East Asian countries. That includes China’s Xiaohu Liu, who drew the commentators’ attention with a bold play he made less than an hour into the day.
With blinds of 500/1,000/1,000, Liu raised on the button with A♦5♥ and played a heads-up pot against Tingjia Cao in the small blind with K♦10♥. Both players checked on the K♠Q♦3♥ flop and Cao bet his top pair on the 8♦ turn. Liu decided to float with his ace-high with plans of making a move should a diamond land on the river.
Sure enough, the river brought the 6♦ and Cao bet 5,500 before Liu raised to 22,000 with his nut flush blocker. It was a big enough size to get Cao to fold, but the antennas went up at the table. Shortly after the hand, Anton Lu made a frisky four-bet against Liu with ace-rag and got it through, leading Lew to note on stream that the action had picked up early here in Jeju.
Day 1B is currently underway and had 51 entrants at the time of publishing. Coming up on the horizon at Triton One are the $5,000 Nightly No-Limit Hold’em on Sept. 3 and a $10,000 Mystery Bounty event running Sept. 4-5.
Check out the remaining schedule for the inaugural Triton One series in the table below.
Triton One Jeju Schedule
*Photos courtesy Triton & Drew Amato
Senior Editor U.S.