Joao Simao and Nick Petrangelo Share $2M+ in Triton Jeju Finale

Joao Simao and Nick Petrangelo ended the Triton Jeju poker series with a chop, each taking home over $2 million. Simao's total earnings for the series reached nearly $10 million.

Joao Simao won the $200,000 buy-in Triton Invitational for $7,250,000. But as the final day of action at Triton Jeju came to a close, the 37-year-old pro decided that simply wasn’t enough of a win for this trip. Simao went on to chop the $150,000 Triton 10th Anniversary Special no-limit hold’em event with Nick Petrangelo to close out the series. Petrangelo walked away with the second trident trophy of his career and $2,212,910. But Simao secured the biggest prize as the second-place finisher, earning $2,517,090 as part of the agreement between the final two. Simao’s total earnings for the Triton Jeju series hit $9,874,090 as a result.

Nick Petrangelo earned 720 Card Player Player of the Year points, pushing him inside the top 100 in the yearlong race presented by CoinPoker. Joao Simao added 600 POY points to his total for the year, jumping up to 48th in the standings. The second-biggest buy-in event of this Triton Jeju series saw 67 entries made at $150,000 apiece, with a prize pool of $10,050,000. Thomas Boivin held the chip lead, with Petrangelo close behind. Daniel Dvoress was the first to fall, in ninth place ($286,000), failing to find a short-stacked double-up with pocket queens, as Miroslav Atanasov turned A♥9♥ into trip aces. Seth Davies ran A♦8♥ into Petrangelo’s A♥Q♣, falling out in eighth place ($377,000). Miroslav Atanasov won one of the biggest pots of the tournament to that point, persevering in a classic coin flip as his pocket jacks bested Danny Tang’s A♦K♦ on a nine-high runout. Adrian Mateos, largely quiet to this point in the final table, took this moment to step forward. Thomas Boivin’s early chip lead did little to soften the blow, when his A♠J♠ went up against Simao’s pocket aces. The final four players were briefly bunched together, but Atanasov lost big pots to both Simao and Petrangelo. Adrian Mateos doubled back off his remaining stack, but the last of his chips landed in Simao’s stack when A♠10♠ failed to improve against Simao’s pocket threes. Simao led by a margin of more than 3:1 going into heads-up play against Petrangelo. The pair agreed to an ICM chop, leaving $80,000 to play for. Petrangelo quickly doubled up twice into a massive lead, and then put Simao away to secure the victory.