With a slew of poker tournaments on the go around the world, a number of winners have been claiming big prizes. Let’s recap three of the biggest winners of the week as we look at the important poker headlines right now:
Adams Wins Triton Jeju Main Event
Timothy Adams has won his first six-figure buy-in poker tournament, cashing in at the Triton event in Jeju, Korea. The Canadian rose to the top of a field with 38 entries to capture the no-limit hold-‘em main event. His prize was $3,608,865, which might seem high for a 38-person field, but when the players had to buy-in with just over $250,000 a pop, it led to some big prizes.
The win now boosts Adams career earnings to $14.1 million, putting him 39th on the all-time poker money list. He is now fourth on Canada’s earnings leaderboard.
Bryn Kenney, who was the runner-up at this event in Jeju, won $3,125,135. He gained 500 Card Player points. This was good enough to push Kenney into first place in the 2019 Player of the Year points race, with 3,620 and just over five million dollars in year-to-date prize money. Dan Smith finished third and won $1,768,000 along with 400 Card Player points.
The win marked the second for Adams this year after he previously won the $50,000 high roller at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January. He also picked up 600 Card Player of the Year points as a result of the win.
Neagoe Wins Bucharest Main Event
Sticking with the theme of big wins, Darius Neagoe of Romania ensured that the champion of the Bucharest Main Event remained Romanian for a second consecutive year. Neagoe won the 2019 Bucharest title following up Andrei Racolta, who won in 2018.
The Bucharest tournament’s main event had greater-than-expected interest from players, which led to it exceeding the original guarantee. They ended up with a prize pool of just over 387,000 Euros, due to the 505 entries. That was a slight increase on the 469 players we saw enter the event last year.
Neagoe defeated Bogdan Nicolae in Romanian heads-up final competition to win the title. His victory netted him 62,300 Euros, while Nicolae, as the runner-up, won 59,900 Euros. Meanwhile, Zhiping Zeng was third with 33,960 Euros.
Koon Wins Short-Deck Title In Jeju
Jason Koon, one of the best short-deck money players in the world, has added to his treasure chest. He won yet another event, this time the 2019 Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Jeju. The Short-Deck Ante-Only competition, which drew 81 entries along with a buy-in of nearly $130,000, had a prize pool of just under $10 million.
Before this tournament, Jason Koon was already the world short-deck money leader with over $3.5 million. Now, after winning the short-deck championship in Jeju, Koon has won $2,840,945 to boost his overall figure above $6.3 million in career earnings. The 33-year-old Koon won his second title on the Triton Poker High Roller Series after winning the Triton Super High Roller event in Montenegro.
Rounding out the top three was Paul Phua, who was the runner-up and won $2,025,607, and Furkat Rakhimov, who was third and won $1,330,021.