button in SafariGianna Avdic Mcintire Captures Massive Chip Lead on Day 1a of Triton ONE $5K Mystery Bounty
Triton ONE North Cyprus is only a few days into the festival, but the first-ever Triton ONE stop on European soil has already proven to be a massive success, as Day 1a of the $5,000 NLH 8-Handed Mystery Bounty attracted no fewer than 319 entries to the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel & Spa. After the ten levels of late registration were over, a regular prize pool of $812,174 and a bounty prize pool of $638,000 had been collected. With one more starting flight to go, those figures are expected to at least double in size.
Meanwhile, Gianna Avdic Mcintire brought herself in pole position to hunt plenty of bounties on Day 2, as she secured the chip lead with a stack of 2,695,000, worth nearly 135 big blinds when play concluded. Most of Avdic Mcintire's chips were won in a huge clash against Stefan Ionita just after late registration had closed. In a pot worth over 200 big blinds at the time, Ionita got his chips in on the turn with a straight, but Avdic Mcintire rivered a full house to claim the massive pot.
Austria's Siegfried Kapeller follows at considerable distance with 1,865,000, while 2025 GPI Player of the Year Punnat Punsri completed the top three with 1,845,000. Poker luminaries such as Julien Sitbon, Ren Lin, and Thomas Eychenne also all crossed 1,500,000 in chips, netting them spots in the top ten chip counts.
End of Day 1a Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gianna Avdic Mcintire | United States | 2,695,000 | 135 |
| 2 | Siegfried Kapeller | Austria | 1,865,000 | 93 |
| 3 | Punnat Punsri | Thailand | 1,845,000 | 92 |
| 4 | Rudy Halim | Indonesia | 1,750,000 | 88 |
| 5 | Benedek Farkas | Hungary | 1,730,000 | 87 |
| 6 | Julien Sitbon | France | 1,705,000 | 85 |
| 7 | Ren Lin | China | 1,680,000 | 84 |
| 8 | Thomas Eychenne | France | 1,510,000 | 76 |
| 9 | Ihar Soika | Belarus | 1,450,000 | 73 |
| 10 | Jeremie Zouari | France | 1,445,000 | 72 |
The remainder of the field that made it to Day 2 consists of a healthy mix of European grinders and Triton regulars. Ole Schemion (1,435,000), Quan Zhou (1,170,000), Felipe Ketzer (1,140,000), and Artsiom Lasouski (1,080,000) all ended with seven-figure stacks. Ehsan Amiri (915,000), Grzegorz Kozieja (740,000), Mikita Badziakouski, and leading Triton ONE Player of the Year Jon Vallinas Santos (690,000) sit in the middle of the pack, while David Kaufmann (395,000), Roman Stoika (375,000), and Fabian Niederreiter will be prime bounty targets on Day 2 with their short stacks.
High-stakes mainstays such as Emilien Pitavy, Jessica Teusl, Wai Kiat Lee, Aleksejs Ponakovs, Artur Martirosian, and Samuel Mullur were among the many casualties of Day 1a, and so was Triton Poker co-founder Winfred Yu. They will all get another shot tomorrow, November 8, as Day 1b will get underway at noon local time. Day 1b will follow the same structure as Day 1a, playing 35-minute levels until 25 percent of the field has been reached.
PokerNews will be back on the tournament floor in North Cyprus to report the final starting flight of the $5k Mystery Bounty from start to finish, so make sure to tune back in tomorrow.