– You look incredibly young for someone who spent 14 years on the European Poker Tour, and now you’re in your ninth year at Triton Poker?
– Well, inside I still feel young, but at the same time it seems like I’m aging too fast... But yes, I’m 42.
– How do Triton tournaments differ from PokerStars events in terms of organization?
– When we first started, we only had a few tables. So the most noticeable difference is the field size. At the EPT, you have to manage hundreds of tables, but at Triton, even with our incredible growth, it's still a completely different scale. There are a lot of small details that were simply impossible to deal with at the EPT, but that's where I learned to think about them—when PokerStars introduced Super High Roller tournaments and put me in charge of them.
– Can you give us examples of those details?
– It’s just that you look at everything from a different perspective. There’s a lot of money involved in these tournaments, and players pay much closer attention to the rules. And we follow suit.
For example, the hunt for good tables. I remember the very first Super High Roller tournament at EPT Monte Carlo, and several players were telling me, “No, no, we’ll wait before taking a seat. We’ll register, but we’ll wait.” I was like, “Okay.” And then 10 minutes later, I busted out—and they sat right back down. What happened? And then I realized—their chances of getting into the right table had increased.
Now at Triton, if there’s a table with three empty seats and a table with two, you’ll no longer have a better chance of getting into the table with three, because we do double randomization. First, we pick your table, then your seat.
– The Triton One series recently launched—a budget-friendly Triton with large fields. Will you be as actively involved in its organization? Or will you hire a separate team?
– We're currently thinking about creating a separate team. We've only held two Triton Ones so far, and the third will be held in Cyprus in November. Currently, these series are tied to the Super High Roller schedule, making for a very long festival. But ultimately, the goal is to make Triton One a standalone series. More precisely, one pair would remain tied to the other, while the other would be separate. This would require a separate team, as it's impossible to be in two places at once: each tournament requires a great deal of organizational work.
– What's acceptable at Triton that you'd never allow at the EPT? After all, your audience is wealthy, and people are used to privileges.
– Interesting question! Because I think I kept my job precisely because of them.
– How so?
– I've never been known for being overly soft, and I never caved in to anyone. I was pretty tough at the EPT, too. But when I first arrived at Triton, it was all VIPs. People would light up a cigar right in the middle of the hall and so on. But I decided not only to raise the level of this tour to the level of the European series, but to raise the bar even higher. So the question now is probably the opposite: what would I allow at the EPT that I would never allow at Triton? And why I say I kept my job because of them—one of my very first tough decisions was against Paul Phua, the series' founder.
– Wow!
– Yes, it was a delicate decision, but I thought it was fair to put Mr. Phua at a disadvantage, which is what I did. And everyone looked at me with pity: 'That's it, the guy just lost his job.' But I think Paul, being a smart man, realized I was simply making the fairest decision possible. And you know, when you show respect, you get respect in return.
– Respect for the game, of course. I'd expect that from Paul, too. He's a true player by nature. I don't know if you've heard of his battles on Full Tilt in 2013 against Russian-speaking regulars, it's absolutely legendary. I'm not surprised he respects poker and the rules of the game.
– 100%.
– Do you remember what exactly that decision was about?
– Not anymore, to be honest. So many years have passed.
– To what extent are the series founders Paul Phua and Richard Yong involved in the work?
– At first, there was a lot of involvement, of course, because there were a lot of doubts. They knew where I came from and what I'd done before, but they still didn't trust my decisions right away.
During the first discussions about the schedule, everyone looked at me again with surprise: "Who are you to tell them 'no'?" But you know, if you have a solid justification for every decision, they respect that. So, in the end, they trusted me and stopped interfering with minor details. But of course, I still listen to their opinions, because they live and breathe it as players. We discuss things constantly, and they regularly come up with good ideas, too.
– Can we take a step back? How did you end up at Triton? Did you take a break after working at PokerStars?
– It was kind of funny because I really wanted to take a little break. The life of a tournament director is crazy: constantly traveling from place to place, with serious responsibilities in between. A dealer finishes work and that's it, they can relax, but in our position, things are a little different. Anyway, Kate [Badurek], my girlfriend, also left PokerStars at the time, and Triton immediately invited her because of her experience and high roller contacts. So I followed her to Jeju, where I met Triton's current CEO, Andy Wong.
We started talking about everything but poker. After leaving PokerStars, I was actively grinding Hearthstone, even becoming the world's number one player at one point. We talked about Hearthstone, esports, and card tricks, which we still enjoy to this day, and that was pretty much it.
But when I left Jeju, I learned they were looking for a tournament director. I put myself forward and, I think, started working in 2018. Richard and Paul often came to play super high roller tournaments at the EPT, so we were already familiar with them; we weren't starting from scratch.
– How are decisions made about the Triton series schedule? For example, short deck and Omaha—sometimes you include them, sometimes you don't...
– I make these decisions, and they're based on a lot of different factors. For example, what's going on with short deck popularity right now? It certainly holds a special place in our hearts, since we introduced these tournaments, but... The scheduling situation is quite fluid: as much as I'd love to announce it for the entire year from Day 1 to Day 15, it's very difficult due to the buy-ins at Triton. If I announce a $100k short deck tournament at Montenegro, for example, six months in advance, I need to be sure there will be short deck players there. But it's not that easy, since the game is essentially extinct in Europe. In Asia, where we have more Asian VIPs and recreational players, it might still be worth a try, but ultimately, I'm just waiting until we get there to see if there's a field for it or not.
As for the rest of the schedule, poker has evolved dramatically. I remember when I was just starting out, people would go to dinner and discuss ranges among four people—whether calling on the river was right or wrong. Now players discuss whether they can get a 0.03 big blind advantage by calling 37.4% of the time instead of 35%... At the first Tritons, people would enter the pot with an average stack of 50 big blinds and literally give those chips away. Now, every decision is weighed, and tournaments need to be adapted accordingly. We even run simulations.
– On your own software or how exactly?
– I was lucky with my analyst. He's a former professional player.
– Famous?
– No, a simple online grinder named James. He's basically my ChatGPT. He runs all the data I used to process myself with a bunch of Excel macros. These days, any Excel spreadsheet can easily be turned into a program I can even use on my phone.
– Can you at least tell us a little about the process? Let's say you need to come up with a structure for a tournament that will keep amateurs happy and let pros able to capitalize on their 0.3% advantage. How do you even approach this?
– The most important thing is historical data. If you asked me after 14 years at PokerStars what percentage of players remain by the end of level 10, I'd say 52-55%, always. Because the structure was the same for 10 years straight, and although the game evolved, it didn't make much of a difference.
But poker has evolved much more dramatically in recent years. If you look at the curve of how many players remain after level 12 in a standard structure, when the average stack is around 15 big blinds, it used to be 40% of the field, but since COVID, the percentage of players remaining has been steadily increasing. The game has slowed down at some levels, while at others, it's actually moving faster.
We collect a lot of this data and run simulations: what happens if we have 220 players with this structure; what happens if we add a level; what happens if we repeat level 10—what happens at level 16? And so on.
In practical terms, at the EPT, in mass-market tournaments, you try to free up as many tables as possible to launch the next one. At Triton, it's a little different because we only have one tournament a day, and my main goal—which is both a business goal and a player's—is to try to ensure they have the opportunity to play in every tournament we host.
At the same time, we're trying to create a balanced structure where everyone can demonstrate their skill level at any time. If I make a tournament with 5-minute levels, I'll prevent Stephen Chidwick from fully realizing his skills. So it's a delicate balance, but the software is very helpful in finding the best structures, buy-ins, and so on.
– So, in your simulations, you even use the playing styles of certain players?
– Yeah, but I don't want to give away my secrets. It's basically like nodelocking.
– Are you knocking Stephen Chidwick?
– Yes, exactly. If you have, say, 150 players in a tournament, the percentages will average out, no matter how much variance you factor in. But if you show up on the bubble with 24 top players and two VIPs with short stacks, say, 10 BB each, then, of course, play at that level might take longer. But eventually, everything evens out somehow. It's like, 'The tournament will end with 50 BBs in play.' Or with 40 BBs in play. But it could also reach 20 BBs, because technically people can play with 10 BBs, and that's another two levels...
– How often do you change structures in general?
– We're changing them right now, starting next year. There will be a little more room for play, so to speak. I think we'll introduce a couple of innovations from Triton One for super high rollers. For example, repeating some levels. Starting stacks will be a little shallower, but not by much. None of the changes are huge. Instead of starting with 300 big blinds, some tournaments will have 250. Instead of 18 big blinds, the final level of late registration will have 22. Overall, the changes are small, but they all fit in with the data we have.
And now we have Triton Tempo—a time bank system where each player in each tournament is allocated a certain amount of time per move. No more wasting a 30-second time card if you only thought about 12. Triton Tempo terminals are built into every table, displaying how many seconds of time bank you have left until the end of the tournament.
We can now accurately see at any moment how much time a player spends on any decision, even folding, and this greatly helps us understand where tournament structure can be improved. We already have a huge amount of data on how players use their time for each tournament, and we can see where it can be sped up and where it can be slowed down. In short, this data can be used in a variety of ways.
– I assume you were actively involved in the creation of Triton Tempo?
– Yes! I don't usually take credit for anything, but this one is all mine. It was a lot of work and a lot of risk, because everything relies on Wi-Fi. So if the power goes out, everything's lost...
– Can you tell me off the top of your head how long it takes Isaac Haxton to make a decision on average?
– I don't want to give a number that turns out to be wrong, because I have too many numbers in my head. But yes, we have this data for each player too. True, we don't use it individually, but only by category—VIP, Pro, Super Pro...
– There are pros and there are super pros, or at least that's how I understand it.
– Well, we have to name these categories somehow! But in reality, we divide players by the time they spend on their turns: some don't think about decisions at all, some think about them in the middle, some take a long time, and some take even longer.
– And what do you do with all this information then?
– Sometimes I look at specific data if I want to understand whether something can be improved in a particular situation, and sometimes I analyze data sets. That's how my team and I notice things we hadn't even considered—and it happens quite often: 'It turns out that in turbo tournaments, people spend much less time per move, so by the end, players have much larger time banks than in any other tournament.' And you start analyzing...
– What issues are resolved on Triton when the floor is summoned? I think the situations must be very different from the ones at the EPT.
– Yes, they're very different, and honestly, I miss the days when I had to make 20 decisions a day. It's like a workout; it keeps you sharp. When they call for the floor on Triton, it's usually something very serious, because our audience... Well, it's just different.
– You're the 'Director of Live Play,' so you also make decisions in cash games when they call for a floor? Do you remember the biggest pot you ever had to call him on?
– I'd be happy to discuss cash games, but all our cash games are held under non-disclosure agreements, in closed areas. So, I can't say anything about them, except for the broadcast.
– Since we’re talking about money, how much do winners usually tip at Triton?
– It seems like this tradition has died down a bit in recent years. But that certainly doesn't mean players value the dealers' work any less. I don't really know much about it, and I try not to interfere.
There are tournament organizers who know everyone who is tipping and who didn't tip at all, but I really don't like that. In any case, it's clear that we're talking about huge sums. They used to say you should tip 1-3%—that was the golden rule, about 20 years ago. But if someone wins 15 million, 3% is a very significant amount. At the same time, you never know—maybe someone sold 99% of their stake, or maybe they were playing with a sponsor and didn't win anything at all...
– Who compiles the lists of businessmen for the Invitational?
– The Invitational works like this: first, we invite the participant ourselves. Kate does this. She's essentially the one behind the tournament.
– So she decides who to invite?
– No, there's a committee that then decides whether the person is suitable, but Kate receives the first application from them. Or she finds someone herself and invites them. And then, if the committee approves, they can invite a professional. And that's a completely free decision. But if a person is, say, new to Triton and has no connections to any players, Kate has a list of interested professionals—in alphabetical order, without any manipulation. And then she connects them with the chosen player. But more often than not, everything is already predetermined—for example, Jean-Noël Thorel always invites Christoph Vogelsang. And it's been that way for many years.
♦️ Invitational royalty.
— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) October 11, 2026
Jean-Noël Thorel and Christoph Vogelsang are back together, and the event wouldn’t feel the same without them. They bring two Triton Main Event runner-up finishes and a Main Event title between them.
See them in action. North Cyprus, Nov. 20 to 22. pic.twitter.com/9rmboa8XpO
– What is Kate’s position in the company?
– She is the director of work with VIP clients.
– Of course, Triton couldn't do without such a position. Incidentally, I've always wondered: is it possible to just walk into Triton off the street? You know, you're passing a casino, see a million-dollar tournament going on, and you just happen to have a bag with a million dollars in cash. Can someone like that walk in, buy-in, and immediately sit down at the table?
– If you know several such people, send them all to me.
– Agreed! But you check them somehow, don't you?
– Yes, of course. Our security team has a blacklist and various ways to screen and protect tournament participants. It also depends on the location. If, for example, a new player shows up in Jeju that no one knows, it's very difficult. But if we're holding a tournament in Monte Carlo, anything can happen... Someone could always show up and sit in a $100k tournament. But we'll still check who they are, do a little KYC, so to speak.
– How do you even ensure security for such an expensive series? Do you have the same security team that you bring with you to every festival?
– Yes, we have a team that travels with us and provides security, but at the same time, I think the most important thing about security with that kind of money is to make sure everyone knows there's no cash on site. We don't have cash there, and we don't accept cash buy-ins. There are probably still people who will see the announcement of the series and think, 'Oh, there's 150 million, we can take it.' But in reality, there's no money on site.
So, and this isn't just a financial matter, safety on Triton is the last thing players should worry about. We have numerous protocols we follow before, during, and after the series to ensure everyone feels comfortable. There's a lot of money at stake, and we have numerous procedures, devices, and tools in place to ensure safety, including preventing cheating.
– I suppose all these requirements also dictate geography? You need a great venue, but also good hotels nearby, for example? Are there any new destinations you're considering? Australia?
– Oh, if only! I really love Australia. But there are many factors at play. A private jet makes things easier, but for many, it's still a 15-hour flight with a layover or refueling... Legislation also plays a big role. There's a great location in Switzerland that we considered a few years ago. And they promised to change something, but it's still the same as in France—you have to pay 3% tax on any prize money. Obviously, this hits a business like ours hard, because our prize money... It's very large. That's why we can't go there.
It also has to be a beautiful place where VIPs can bring their whole family and have plenty of things to do. Food is also important. We determine the player menu based on the most frequently ordered dishes in previous episodes. We literally show up and say, "You absolutely must have grilled salmon with boiled potatoes." Or ribeye steak—it absolutely has to be on the menu. And at least five vegan options. In some places, all of this is very difficult to achieve.
– With your attention to detail, you seem to care about everything from the salmon to the chairs.
– Yes, we've tried a lot of chairs, ha-ha. They have to be a specific height relative to the table and very comfortable. In general, chairs are rarely considered except by the players when they sit down to play. And yet, they're one of the biggest operating expenses! They cost us more than tables because they're so bulky. Transporting them is a nightmare.
– Do you always carry them with you? Are you taking them to Cyprus too?
– Right.
– In huge containers?
– Yes, they're enormous. There are a lot of expenses people don't even realize. But we don't skimp on the players' comfort. They spend all day at the table, and even its upholstery is very important. We have a company in Italy that makes the tables and upholstery for us.
– Can you tell us what to expect from Cyprus?
– This is the final stage of our 10th anniversary, a significant event. The Triton Invitational will be called Triton Invitational X. We're returning to Cyprus after our success in Jeju, where we broke a record, so I think Cyprus will also be very successful. We'll be hosting Triton One there for the first time, where we'll introduce several new formats. I don't think anyone has ever held a series lasting almost a month in Cyprus or anywhere else. Probably because they're not as crazy as we are...
– Ambitious!
– Yes, ambitious. I like it better that way.
