Reda Achnit has entered a dreamland in Jeju

For the overwhelming majority of poker players—all those people who play purely for fun around kitchen tables or in college dorms, or for small stakes online—the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series is a million miles away. It is great fun to watch, but it's a different, untouchable, dream world.

For 24-year-old computer engineering graduate Reda Achnit, dreams are quickly becoming tangible this week in Jeju.

Achnit is an ardent poker fan, just like millions of people around the world, and was watching the Triton stream from his home in Morocco when he heard about a promotion on Coin Poker to play a freeroll online. The prize? The trip of a lifetime to Jeju and a $25,000 buy-in to a tournament on the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series.

Achnit played a little poker online, mainly for micro-stakes, and thought, "Why not?" He opened an account, entered the promo code, then tirelessly played through the satellites. And eventually, despite the overwhelming odds, he found himself the last player with chips.

The package to Jeju was his.

"I was alone, at my parents' house, playing on my laptop," Achnit says, remembering the moment. "When it was over I sat there for a while genuinely not understanding what had just happened — I was thrilled, but my brain hadn't caught up. I went and told my brother, and he was amazed, but we didn't run around the house screaming."

He adds: "It was one of the biggest moments of my life, and it happened in complete silence."

Achnit's incredible story was only just beginning — and the volume is gradually being turned up.

The Triton concierge team welcomes Achnit to his new world

Despite never having played live poker before, and never having sat on a plane, Achnit had to begin preparing for a journey across the world where he'd be joining the elite. He had just started a new job, from which he had to arrange vacation, and he had to try to start explaining what had just happened to friends and family who didn't even know what poker really was, much less that Achnit played it.

"Most of them didn't believe me at first," Achnit says. "I'd kept poker private — almost nobody had ever seen me play or heard me talk about it — so when I said I'd won a trip to South Korea to play a $25,000 tournament, I think some of them assumed I'd won a lottery. When I told my parents or my friends, they didn't take me seriously. It was like, 'Are you crazy?'

"I had to explain what poker actually is: that it's a game of skill over the long run, that there's a mathematical framework behind it, that people study it seriously and use tools like GTO solvers to work on their game. That's not the image poker has where I'm from — it gets grouped with gambling. Changing that impression one conversation at a time has been its own project."

Reda Achnit in the spotlight

Achnit is under no illusions about what faces him when he sits down to play in Jeju. But he also has a clear idea of the chance that now presents itself.

"I'm treating it as a professional opportunity, not a holiday," he says. "My honest goal is to perform well — to reach the money at minimum, and to win it if the cards allow. I'm not going there hoping to survive an hour and take a photo.

"At the same time, I'm realistic about who's in that field. These are the best players in the world, and I've been playing seriously for three months. So my definition of a good trip is: play the best poker I'm capable of, don't make mistakes I know better than to make, learn as much as I possibly can from being in that room, and represent Morocco and Coin Poker well. If I do all of that, the result will be whatever it's going to be."

Adrian Mateos was there to face off against Achnit at his first tournament table

A video call with Mario Mosböck explained the full specifics of the prize he had won, but it wasn't until Achnit got to the airport that things started to sink in. He enjoyed business class travel to Jeju, a layover in Doha and the executive lounge, then found himself checking into a luxury hotel where he'd neighbor the poker superstars he'd previously only watched on TV.

He tried to describe the conflicting emotions of an experience that felt both humbling and empowering at the same time.

"It's incredible," Achnit says. "I'm still dreaming. I haven't grasped the feeling that I did it. It's a whole other experience. I've never lived something like this."

The Moroccan pro and Triton champion Mehdi Chaoui had played a significant role in bringing Achnit to this point. Achnit had watched Chaoui from afar for several years, delighted to see a fellow Moroccan making a name for himself on the global poker stage. And Achnit says he was inspired to play the online freeroll as a way to further support Chaoui, never expecting that he might actually sit across the table from him.

Achnit gets a quick tutorial in the mechanics of live poker

Chaoui, who is in Jeju this week, made a point to welcome Achnit as he visited the casino for the first time. And then Achnit got to stand on Chaoui's rail as he made the final table and finished fourth in the second event on the schedule.

"I want to thank him," Achnit says of Chaoui. "I found out about Triton because a Moroccan was playing there. That's it. I started watching because someone from my country was in that room, and while I was watching I fell in love with the competition itself...So life is strange: a man I'd never met changed the direction of my life without knowing I existed. That's a real thing worth saying out loud. You can inspire someone just by being visible, and never know it happened.

He added, philosophically: "I don't know how this happened, but it happened."

Achnit is now getting to grips with this new reality. He stepped into the Triton tournament room, glanced around at what he saw, and prepared to be transformed from a viewer to a participant.

"It's kind of surreal," he says. "Just from watching it on YouTube to being there and seeing the players that you used to watch on YouTube, it's something you can't imagine. It happens in dreams...From zero to competing at this level, the Champions League or the World Cup of this game. It's mind blowing, actually."

Achnit took down the first pot, and is now ready for a long day at the tables

But Achnit is keen to stress that if he can do it, anybody can. He wants to be the next player to inspire others to try to make their dreams come true.

"To anyone reading this who's in a hard place: I'm not special. I'm a software engineering graduate from Morocco who just started his first job and played micro-stakes poker at night from his parents' house. Whatever you're working on, you can build something that surprises people — but it isn't quick and it isn't easy, and most of it happens while nobody is watching and nothing seems to be working.

"The hard period doesn't last forever. Keep going through it, and one day you'll look back and be proud that you didn't stop."

• Follow Achnit, and everyone at Triton Jeju, via the Triton Poker Plus app.