Matthew Wantman Wins First Triton Title in Jeju $50K Event
He beat Nick Schulman after a heads-up deal, with Ben Tollerene completing an American podium.
Matthew Wantman won his first Triton title in Jeju, taking down Event 11 of Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju II, the $50,000 seven-handed no-limit hold’em event. He beat Nick Schulman heads-up after the two agreed to a deal, with $30,000 still in play for the winner, and finished with the trophy and $836,721.
Triton’s report said the event drew 70 entries from 49 unique players, with 21 re-entries, and built a $3.5 million prize pool. The tournament ran on 13 September, and the series said Wantman and Schulman chose to keep playing heads-up only as long as needed after they chopped the payout.
The closing stretch produced an American podium sweep, with Ben Tollerene finishing third for $448,000. Aliaksandr Shylko took seventh for $168,000, Danny Tang was sixth for $213,000, Danilo Velasevic finished fifth for $273,000, and Dan Dvoress was fourth for $344,000. The final table also featured Tang and Dvoress alongside Schulman, who brought a Poker Hall of Fame résumé and eight WSOP bracelets into the match.
Card Player reported that the bubble did not burst until the second day and that the official final table of seven did not lock in until well into the evening. By the time heads-up began, the stacks were nearly even, with Schulman and Wantman both sitting around the mid-40 big-blind mark.
Wantman entered Jeju with well over $12 million in career earnings, plus a 2019 World Poker Tour title in Las Vegas, a first WSOP bracelet from 2025 and four PokerGO Tour titles. He later said he had not had time to process the result yet and described getting heads up against one of his best friends. The win added 714 Card Player Player of the Year points, lifting him to 3,287 and 50th place in the CoinPoker-sponsored yearlong race.
