Who Will Win the Second-Ever Short Deck Ante-Only Live Event in Montenegro?
The second-ever Short Deck Ante-Only live tournament has created a field of 50 entries (including 18 re-entries) so far, all ponying up the buy-in of HKD1,000,000 ($132,000) at the Maestral Resort & Casino in the final event of the 2018 Triton Super High Roller Series in Budva, Montenegro.
All deuces through to fives are removed from the traditional deck of 52 cards, the game plays with a deck of 36 and flushes beat full houses, while the aces also doubles as a five. The action-packed game further increased the aggressive playing style thanks to the six-max format and the vast majority of participants preferred to fire the stack of 300,000 as three single bullets of 100,000 each.
While only 13 players survived the carnage of the seven 60-minute levels on Day 1, the final day of the high stakes festival won't be over in a hurry with hundreds of antes at disposal upon restart at 3 p.m. local time. Late registration remains open for another two levels and the field is expected to grow further, it may in fact even surpass the 63 entries of the HKD1,000,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event. When the registration has officially closed, the remaining unused 100,000 bullets will be redeemed all at once.
Leading the field into Day 2 after using just a single bullet so far is China's Devan Tang with 2,300,000. Jason Koon, who already finished fourth in the HKD250,000 Short Deck Ante-Only here in Montenegro, sits in second place with 1,810,000 and four other players advanced with more than one million in chips in Wang Qiang (1,490,000), Main Event third-place finisher Peter Jetten (1,451,000), Jaime Kaplan (1,401,000) and HKD250,000 Short Deck Ante-Only champion Phil Ivey (1,083,000).
The other Day 1 survivors also include Marius Torbergsen (985,000), Andrew Robl (887,000), Gabe Patgorski (750,000), Triton co-founder Paul Phua (610,000), Xuan Tan (421,000), Wai Leong Chan (213,000) and Alan Sass (100,000).
Among those to be expected to likely join the action again on Day 2 are Richard Yong, Mikita Badziakouski, Rui Cao, Dan Cates and Tom Dwan. Action gets back underway with an ante of 6,000 and button double ante of 12,000. The live stream with English commentary by Kane Kalas and Randy Lew will kick off after the first break of the day at around 5.10 p.m. local time and the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to provide all the action until a champion is crowned.
Day 2 Draw
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Antes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Gabe Patgorski | United States | 750,000 | 125 |
| 1 | 2 | Phil Ivey | United States | 1,083,000 | 181 |
| 1 | 3 | Paul Phua | Malaysia | 610,000 | 102 |
| 1 | 5 | Peter Jetten | Canada | 1,451,000 | 242 |
| 1 | 6 | Jason Koon | United States | 1,810,000 | 302 |
| 2 | 1 | Marius Torbergsen | Norway | 985,000 | 164 |
| 2 | 2 | Wai Leong Chan | Malaysia | 213,000 | 36 |
| 2 | 3 | Alan Sass | United States | 100,000 | 17 |
| 2 | 5 | Xuan Tan | China | 421,000 | 70 |
| 3 | 1 | Andrew Robl | United States | 887,000 | 148 |
| 3 | 3 | Devan Tang | Hong Kong | 2,300,000 | 383 |
| 3 | 5 | Wang Qiang | China | 1,490,000 | 248 |
| 3 | 6 | Jaime Kaplan | United States | 1,401,000 | 234 |
. Devan Tang looked him up with the 
and the board ran out 
.
.
and Pang scored a full house. He was all in for 1,065,000, which had Qiang covered by a few antes, and Kaplan also had to let go of a decent 900,000 stack, too.
and faced pocket aces. The board came 
and Goldstein had to redeem his final bullet.
