Mikhail Smirnov was eliminated and Orpen Kisacikoglu saw Patrik Antonius chip up at his expense. The next bigger pot on their table saw a four-way flop of and Paul Phua had bet 15,000 in the cutoff. Kisacikoglu folded in the big blind and Alan Sass jammed from under the gun.
Julian Thomas asked for a count on the jam, which was for 98,500, and folded. Phua gave it some more thought and folded as well.
Over on the feature table Dietrich Fast opened to 9,000 in the cutoff with the and Phil Ivey three-bet on the button to 35,000 with the . Fast called to see a flop of .
Ivey made it 40,000 to go and Fast check-called, the turn and the river was then checked down and Fast scooped the pot with his set of tens.
Over on table four, Marius Torbergsen shot up the leader board while Bryn Kenney took a hit after coming back from the final break. And then, defending Triton Super High Roller Series Montenegro Main Event champion Manig Loeser opened to 9,000 out of a stack of 70,000 and Dominik Nitsche from one seat over on the button three-bet to 27,000.
Xuan Tan in the big blind simply four-bet all in for 278,000, and Loeser called after using one time bank extension and some confusion as to when his shot clock had been out. Nitsche folded and the cards were turned over.
Manig Loeser:
Xuan Tan:
The board came gave Tan two pair and Loeser left the table with a "nice hand." Tan joked "all in all in" while raking in the pot.
Three-way to the turn, Dietrich Fast bet 45,000 with the to see Koray Aldemir check-raise all in out of the small blind for 224,000 with the .Devan Tang from under the gun folded the [Js10d
The Triton Super High Roller Montenegro casting team: Randy 'nanonoko' Lew and Kane Kalas
Watching televised or live streamed poker tournaments would not be anywhere near as exciting if there were not some entertaining and insightful commentary to accompany all the action.
Fortunately, the Triton Poker team have the skills of online poker professional Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew and semi-professional player and professional poker commentator Kane Kalas to call upon to cast their highly entertaining live stream.
Streaming live poker is not your standard job, but then neither is playing professionally, but Lew and Kalas have some experience at doing both, and do a pretty good job of it too.
The 32-year-old Lew streams regularly on twitch when he is grinding tournaments for a living, and is not too bad at that either, with over $1.42-million in live tournament winnings and over $1-million in online tournament winnings.
Kalas is also no slouch. The 28-year-old former professional, now semi-professional poker player boasts over $1.25 million in live tournament winnings. Kalas also has broadcasting and commentating in the blood; the son of legendary Philadelphia Phillies Major League Baseball commentator Harry Kalas, Kane’s brother Todd also sportscasts professionally for the Houston Astros.
PokerNews presenter Laura Cornelius interviews Kane Kalas
PokerNews caught up with the pair on a break and grilled them about what it’s like behind the casting desk and on the end of a microphone.
Is it more fun playing or commentating?
Kane Kalas: “I enjoy both. I think it really depends on my mood. When I’ve been playing a whole lot then I really want to commentate, and when I’ve been commentating a whole lot without playing then I’m ready to get back to the tables and play.”
Randy Lew: “I enjoy playing more, just like because you can win chips and lose chips [chuckles]. But the good thing about commentary is that it’s relaxed so you’re still involved with poker but you don’t have the stress of putting up the buy-in and you can actually learn a lot during commentary. You’re not really learning while you’re playing, usually, you’re just trying to apply the things that you do and the learning is after you finish playing.”
How did the two of you get into the live commentary game?
Kane Kalas: “The first time I ever did a broadcast was part of a iPoker iPops event, where it was an online tournament, but then the final 12, or final 16 players came together and played live for the final two tables.”
“I busted before making the final table. But they were doing a live stream at the final table and I said ‘Hey! I’ll help out and do some color commentary for the broadcaster.’ Jesse May was broadcasting the tournament and so that was my first time doing it, I must have been 20-years-old, it was a lot of fun.”
Randy Lew: “So I’ve done some guest commentary for the EPT’s and things like that, but the time when I started to do a lot more commentary was during the Aussie Millions with Jason Somerville. He hosted that first one and I did a bunch of guest commentary for him. I was only planning on doing it the once, but he was like ‘Hey! Come back, everyone loved you,’ so I went back and we did the PCA commentary as well and then he invited me in to do Aussie Millions again, this previous one that just passed, so it just kinda fell into my hands I guess."
Which is the bigger challenge, remaining creative when commentating, or playing your best poker during long tournament days?
Kane Kalas: “Probably remaining creative while commentating I guess. Depending on the situation and depending on the tournaments I might not know the players that well so I’m always able to kinda commentate with a good fundamental game theory background. I’m always able to make good points about the hands, but I don’t necessarily always know inside stories and things that might be interesting to the audience. You have to do a little more field research there, and oftentimes you can’t really do that because the players are playing and they’re not going to be giving you that information all the time. “
Randy Lew: “Usually when I’m playing I like to think that I’m playing my best, but when you’re getting far in a tournament I don’t look at my phone anymore so I’m really tuned into all the bet sizes and maybe some live tells, or anything like that. Whereas commentary, it’s hard to really think of new things to say. But I know a lot of things to say so…[chuckles]. Once I get through all of that, maybe when I do this over and over again maybe I might run out of material, but, yeah, I think that it [commentary] is harder.”
What is the most hilarious chat box comment you have seen posted in the chat box when commentating?
Randy Lew: “That’s kinda hard actually, nothing that stands out… I mean I know there is some stupid stuff, maybe I get back to you on that one.”
Kane Kalas: “Something I like to always ask the chat is ‘what do you think these players would be doing if they weren’t professional poker players?’ You know, what you’d expect, just based on their look, what they would be doing for a living. I had one player one time, he was wearing sunglasses and he had his shirt unbuttoned a little bit and he looked like he went to the gym a lot and the whole chat just started calling him Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat. I was like, oh yeah, that’s perfect, he’s totally Johnny Cage!”
Koray Aldemir got back in for bullet three while Manig Loeser re-entered for the first time.
Stephen Chidwick boosted his stack without showdown after moving all in on the turn, and Christian Christner on the button let go to forfeit the pot of around 120,000.
The tournament clock has been paused with 15 minutes remaining on level seven and there will be just five more hands played today, with the opening flight of the Triton Super High Roller Montenegro Main Event concluding shortly.
In the last hands of the night, Rui Cao was involved in the action on his hand. The first one included a battle big blind versus button against Steffen Sontheimer and Cao, who had three-bet preflop, continued for 30,000 on the flop, Sontheimer called.
On the turn, both players checked and Cao's jam on the river forced a fold.
Two hands later he opened to 8,500 on the button and Stefan Schillhabel three-bet to 43,000 in the small blind. Cao called to see a flop of , which brought no betting action. On the turn, Schillhabel made it 50,000 to go and Cao quickly folded.
One table over, Stephen Chidwick doubled in the very last hand with pocket queens against the pocket jacks of Paul Phua.
Table four is the former feature table and with chip leader Chan Wai Leong and the active Xuan Tan at the table, along with Bryn Kenny, Dominik Nitsche, Jason Koon and Marius Torbergsen all seated and in action, there was plenty of that to go around for the last five hands.
We picked up a three-way hand that took place between Dominik Nitsche (big blind), Leong (under-the-gun) and Tan (under-the-gun-plus-one), arriving on the flop with the community cards spread . Nitsche had checked the action over to Leong, who led for what looked to be around 13,000 and was called in both spots.
That was it for the betting for the rest of the hand with the turn and river being checked around. Nitsche turned over for a rivered two pair and the other two players mucked quickly.
Chipleader Leong and Jason Koon played an interesting hand not long after this, with Leong the pre-flop aggressor making it 8,500 to go from the button and Koon defending from the big blind.
Koon checked the flop over to Leong, who continuation bet 7,500 and Koon busted out a quick check-raise to 32,000. Leong double checked his cards and used nearly the full 30-seconds of the shot clock before tossing out the call and it was off to the turn.
Now Koon had the initiative he seemed keen to keep it and fired for 28,000, which Leong called once more to bring in the river.
This saw Koon bomb it for 115,000 leaving himself 86,000 behind and Leong used the full 30-seconds before tapping the table and sliding his cards into the muck leaving Koon to rake in a tasty pot.
Bryn Kenney and Xuan Tan seemed eager to squeeze out the last little piece of action in the last hand, with Kenney the initial aggressor, making it 10,500 to go from under-the-gun and Tan made the call on the button.
The flop saw no betting, with Kenney also checking the turn, leaving Tan free to take a stab for 10,500, which was quickly called.
The river saw Kenney check again and Tan quickly reached for chips, betting out 27,000, with Kenney again making a quick call.
Tan turned over but this was not enough to best Kenney’s and the US pro won the last hand of the day, at least on this table and it appears that it is Chan Wai Leong who will be taking the chip lead into Day 2 with a stack of 778,500.
![[user38873]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
and Paul Phua had bet 15,000 in the cutoff. Kisacikoglu folded in the big blind and Alan Sass jammed from under the gun.
and Phil Ivey three-bet on the button to 35,000 with the 
. Fast called to see a flop of 
.
turn and the 
river was then checked down and Fast scooped the pot with his set of tens.
gave Tan two pair and Loeser left the table with a "nice hand." Tan joked "all in all in" while raking in the pot.
turn, Dietrich Fast bet 45,000 with the 
to see Koray Aldemir check-raise all in out of the small blind for 224,000 with the 
, which brought no betting action. On the 
. Nitsche had checked the action over to Leong, who led for what looked to be around 13,000 and was called in both spots.
for a rivered two pair and the other two players mucked quickly.
turn.
river. 
but this was not enough to best Kenney’s 
