Sam Greenwood Leads the HK$2 Million Triton Main Event After Day 1
Sam Greenwood has already made for a headline at Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju. He topped Day 1 in the HK$500k 6-Max event and now he put his name atop of the leaderboard again. This time, it's in the marquee event of the festival with a jaw-dropping buy-in of HK$2,000,000 (approximately $255,000).
The Main Event has drawn 42 entries so far and Greenwood closed the day with 865,000 in chips to lead 22 survivors after the first eight levels of play.
While he finished at the top, Greenwood's start to the tournament wasn't ideal. He was among several players who made a pit stop at the registration desk after busting their first bullet. His first entry was dusted by David Peters on the last hand before the second break.
Peters overbet the pot on the river of a nine-high paired board and Greenwood pulled off a bold check-shove for less than double of the size price of the original bet. Peters tank-called with pocket jacks and Greenwood showed only seven-six for the second pair. He wasted only a short period on the sidelines and then fired another shell.
Greenwood took a seat on the secondary feature table and his second attempt worked out much better. While there were other hot contenders for the lead during the day, Greenwood was the only player to eventually eclipse the 800,000-mark. He eliminated Wai Kin Yong towards the end of the day when they tangled in a blind-versus-blind battle which saw Greenwood's pocket fives prevail against king-queen suited.
The following players on the leaderboard are tight within a narrow chip-range as Chan Wai Leong (790,000), Peters (742,000), Winfred Yu (731,000), Jason Koon (710,000) and Mikita Badziakouski (707,000) all put heaps of chips in their bags.
Sam's brother Luc Greenwood has also had a strong showing on Day 1, having amassed 599,000 ahead of Day 2. The rest of the standings features some of the absolutely most accomplished players of all times, including Patrik Antonius (577,000), Phil Ivey (330,000) and John Juanda (329,000).
With late registration still going, it is likely that we'll see some more additions to the field tomorrow when the play gets underway with the 3,000/6,000 blinds and the 6,000 big-blind ante. Players such as Paul Phua, Richard Yong, Rui Cao and others have already tested the Main Event waters but they might be eager to give it another shot. The total prize pool is already guaranteed to surpass $10 million so the incentive is strong for anyone with a big bankroll as well as a strong courage.
Come back to PokerNews on Tuesday, July 31 at 2 p.m. local time for more updates from the star-studded tournament with one of the highest buy-ins of the year.