Triton CEO Andy Wong Talks About Building Poker's Most Prestigious High-Stakes Tour

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Sep 21, 2025 8 min read Last updated Sep 23, 2025

“For us at Triton, we've never been a loud brand in the media. There’s a lot of mystery behind the brand, right? And we do want to allow people a glimpse into who we are and what we're doing.”

These words from Andy Wong, CEO and co-founder of Triton Poker, carry particular weight coming from a man who normally prefers his events to do the talking.

As the captain who steers the ship of poker's largest and most prestigious high-stakes tour (alongside his team, whom he consistently credits), you may not have heard of Wong, but if you're a poker fan, you've certainly seen his work.

In a little under a decade, since founding players Richard Yong, Winfred Yu, and Wong created the tour, Triton has carved out a unique position as the game's undisputed premium tournament tour. Their Super High Roller Series has become synonymous with the biggest names and biggest buy-ins in poker, routinely hosting eight-figure events that attract the world's elite players and business titans. Wong, a nominee for Best Industry Person at February’s Global Poker Awards, has overseen its rise since 2018.

Now, in Jeju Island, South Korea, Triton has just wrapped up an enormously successful pilot of their brand-new mid-stakes series called Triton ONE, signaling an ambitious expansion into more accessible tournaments. If the numbers from the opening event are anything to go by, it'll definitely be back.

Was it all part of a grand masterplan? Hardly. Ending up as the head of poker's most premium tournament series was, in Wong's own words, "quite surprising."

But in this rare extended interview, Wong opens up about the founding players who made Triton possible, the philosophy behind their entertainment-first approach, and his vision for building a tour that transcends poker entirely.

Creating a Platform for the Best

Wong did not come to poker as a veteran of the industry, explaining how his background in esports helped him identify a market opportunity, though not entirely by design.

"To be honest, it's not a decision for me to like, you know, I want to make a career shift. I want to go into poker," Wong explains. "This came as quite a surprise to me as well as an opportunity."

The gap he identified was significant. While poker had enjoyed mainstream success in the mid-2000s through televised content and the birth of streaming, the highest echelons of the game had retreated from public view.

"We quickly realized that if you look at the scene back in 2017, 2018, the names of Phil Ivey, the names of Tom Dwan, you don't see them on stream for a long time... Everybody's in Macau, you know, all these nosebleed games are in Macau behind the scenes."

"It's a place where you can be remembered as a champion."

With the biggest names and highest stakes games happening behind closed doors, invisible to poker fans, the opportunity for someone with Wong's media background was obvious. Creating a platform that could bring elite-level poker back to audiences while maintaining the premium experience the top players demand became the mission for the Triton tour.

"We started with probably 30-40 unique players," Wong reflects, "and now you look at us like 14 days, 15 days, 18 days festival." For context, the inaugural Triton ONE Main Event here in Jeju would draw a gargantuan 1,046-runner field.

More significantly, perhaps, is the transformation in what these events represent, says Wong. "It has shifted from maybe a concept of 'we want to play at the highest level' into a place where people play big money, but it really evolves into a gathering place for the elite," he explains.

For Wong, the power of the Triton brand always comes back to what it offers the players. “For some players, it's a dream to play at this stage and they know if I come here, I can make my name... it's a place where I'll be remembered as a champion.”

The (Not-So-Secret) Triton Formula

The one thing immediately obvious to poker fans watching Triton events is the sheer level of production value. From LED-lit final table walkouts to smoke machines announcing champions, Wong makes no secret of his aim to stage tournaments that feel more like major sporting events than traditional poker broadcasts.

Working alongside production partners Sharehand, he explains his philosophy draws from an understanding of what makes any sport compelling, saying, "If you look at any sports out there... it's who is actually playing the game that makes the sport great."

"LeBron James was the person to make NBA amazing nowadays... Same with poker, it's who is playing the game that makes it very exciting and entertaining to watch."

"When you come to a Triton event, it has to feel a million dollars."

"Since day one, our strategy is to really focus on content," Wong explains. "When you come to a Triton event, it has to feel a million dollars from a staging perspective... You want to be on that stage playing."

However, it isn’t just smoke and mirrors; behind the spectacle sits some serious technology, most notably the Triton Poker Plus app, developed by Wong’s team to be a whole lot more than a simple viewing platform.

“We invested in technology whereby we want to ensure that we have a very established application,” he says. “Whether it's from a player's perspective or from the content perspective, you know, it goes coherently together.”

A quick flick around the Triton Poker Plus app reveals exactly what he's talking about. "This is the only application out there where the data is actually attached to the actual content itself, so people can watch the stream," Wong notes. "You can actually watch every hand, skip the content by skipping the hands, skip by flop and river."

Building the Triton Community

Turning to the history of the Triton brand since its inception in 2015, Wong is quick to acknowledge that without a core group of "founding players" who believed in the concept from day one, the tour might never have gotten off the ground.

"All these founding players are so crucial for our success," Wong explains. "It's mainly because they are ambassadors for the game... they're willing to put out the money, they want to learn the process, they put so much passion into the game."

Players like Malaysian high roller Paul Phua, still a regular on the Triton tour, as well as the late Ivan Leow, whose legacy lives on in Triton's prestigious Player of the Year award, belong to that exclusive group of founders Wong is referring to.

"Without them, we wouldn't be able to push through this far, because I think the initial startup is very important," Wong reflects. "[Because of those players] we actually have this golden opportunity to shorten the process."

"Founding players are so crucial for our success."

Turning to the debut of Triton ONE, the brand's newest tour, it’s clear that Wong does not want to limit the growth of the Triton community. Triton ONE represents a deliberate expansion into more accessible territory, targeting players who may have been priced out of the Super High Roller Series but still crave the premium Triton experience.

"There's a big differentiation between the US market and the Asian market when it comes to poker," Wong observes. "We're thinking, is there a potential that we create something for a grassroots movement, a grassroots initiative for people who might not be able to play this high, but there are fans back home?"

The challenge was finding the sweet spot between accessibility and maintaining Triton's premium brand. "Can we find a balance here that we can try to give a very unique experience, especially for the Asian market?" Wong asks. "At least if you have some sort of background in poker and you can save up some sort of bankroll, you know, to be able to come and have an experience."

With the large field sizes seen at the inaugural Triton ONE festival, which blended high-roller regulars and more recreational players, it’s fair to say the brand has successfully found that balance, at least in South Korea over the last couple of weeks.

Being 'More Than a Poker Brand'

Looking ahead to the future, it's clear Wong's ambitions for Triton extend well beyond tournament poker. While the brand has established itself as the premier destination for high-stakes competition, he explains he sees its current success as just the beginning of something much larger.

"We definitely have some thrilling projects that we're working on," Wong reveals, although he laughs as he says he can't divulge too much detail.

"We are constantly looking for venues so that we can give people different experiences in terms of different locations... UAE is opening up for gaming and potentially some sort of collaboration in the US in the future," are expansions to keep an eye on.

However, it isn't just about breaking new borders, Wong envisions Triton as what he calls a "lifestyle brand," where poker becomes one element of a broader luxury experience.

"End of the day, what we believe at Triton is that we're more than just a poker brand," Wong explains. "It's more of a lifestyle that we've created here... It becomes like some people always told us that 'I only come to Triton, I don't play any other events.'"

"We want to be the epicenter in the poker ecosystem," he says, and in that quest, Wong's team is building what he calls a "gathering place" where business deals happen alongside poker hands, where relationships are formed that extend far beyond the felt.

Ultimately, he sums it all up by saying, "We are very detail-oriented people, and that's kind of what makes Triton great."

_{*Photos courtesy Triton, Drew Amato, Enrique Malfavon & Spenser Sembrat}

Eliot Thomas is an Editor at PokerNews, specializing in casino and poker coverage. He has reported on major events around the world, including the World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour, and Triton Super High Roller Series.

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• Tags Andy Wong Christoph Vogelsang Ivan Leow Paul Phua Phil Ivey Triton Poker Tom Dwan
• Related Players Phil IveyTom DwanChristoph VogelsangPaul PhuaAndy WongIvan Leow