The Marshall Islands, a tiny country in Micronesia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, does not exactly have a rich poker history. But as of tonight, it has a Triton Super High Roller Series champion after the quiet, unassuming and ruthless Yu Liang beat David Benefield heads up to win the £50,000 buy-in short deck tournament at London’s Park Lane Hilton.
Two days ago, Benefield won the first major poker tournament of his career when he took down a £25,000 short-deck event. But even the Texan, who goes by the name “raptor” online, couldn’t chew up Liang. As the clock struck midnight on the final day of this long and lucrative festival, Liang’s 
flopped best against Benefield’s 
when the dealer put the 
on the board. All the chips went in and a long and gruelling tournament ended with the 
turn and 
river not enough to push Benefield back in front.
Liang too £777,000 for the victory, while Benefield adds another £560,500.
The tournament started slowly yesterday, with a clock ticking down above empty seats. But then four hardy souls — Peter Jetten, Daniel Dvoress, Sam Greenwood and Mikita Badziakouski — got things started, and others eventually decided that they wanted in too.
With registration remaining open into the second and final day, it allowed for 52 entries to land on the cash desk and a prize pool of £2.465 million. It was the smallest of the festival, but not a single person would sniff at the £777,000 first prize.
Sniff was all that all of those four pioneers — plus a roll call also including the likes of Jason Koon, Cary Katz, Seth Davies, Gabe Patgorski and Danny Tang — could do, however, as they perished before the final table was even close. But we then saw a Triton first: a double knock-out on the stone bubble, on two different tables, meaning two players split the seventh place prize.
Those two were Malaysia’s Tong Siow Choon, whose 
lost to Richard Yong’s 
and Mike Watson, whose 
lost to David Benefield’s 
.
With all due respect to Choon, the latter bust-out was far more significant. Watson was sitting in second place in the overall chip counts nine-handed when he got it in, with Benefield the only player who could possibly knock him out. It was particularly grim, therefore, for Watson to see an ace on the flop: his wretched fortune in Triton events continues, even though he took £64,750 for a chop of seventh. (He was only in for one bullet, so that’s a profit.)
The knock-on effect of this was that Beh Kok Weng was the retrospective bubble boy, though he was long gone by that point.
Thanks in a large part to that huge hand, Benefield went to his second short-deck final of the week as a soaraway chip leader. The full line up looked like this:
1 – David Benefield, 5.98 million
2 – Richard Yong, 2.585 million
3 – Yu Liang, 2.08 million
4 – Romain Arnaud, 1.41 million
5 – Chin Wei Lim, 1.41 million
6 – Stephen Chidwick, 815,000
Chidwick has had a brilliant Triton London festival, cashing four of the five tournaments he has entered, including the £1 million event. He was in for four bullets in this final event, however, so needed to finish fourth or better to return a profit.
He doubled his short stack through Benefield early in final table play, but almost immediately sent the whole lot over to Yong, when his 
lost to Yong’s when Yong rivered a flush. Chidwick rounds off his week with £160,200 on to the ledger.
As for Yong, his star was in the ascendant. Though Benefield was still clear at the top, Yong also then managed to knock out Romain Arnaud in fifth place in a standard > coup. Arnaud won £209,500.
As tends to happen in short deck tournaments, the stacks were suddenly relatively deep so the action slowed down a little. But Chin Wei Lim found himself growing shorter and made a stand with . Benefield had all the chips to play with and 
was plenty good enough to take a free hit at Lim.
Benefield flopped a set, Lim turned a straight and then Benefield rivered a full house. Anyone still questioning why short deck is a volatile game should replay that run out over and over. It happens all the time. Lim cashed three times this week, including in the £1 million tournament, and this one was worth £271,300.
As tends to happen in short deck tournaments, the stacks were suddenly relatively deep so the action slowed down a little. But Chin Wei Lim found himself growing shorter and made a stand with . Benefield had all the chips to play with and was plenty good enough to take a free hit at Lim.
Benefield flopped a set, Lim turned a straight and then Benefield rivered a full house. Anyone still questioning why short deck is a volatile game should replay that run out over and over. (In full, the board was 
) Lim cashed three times this week, including in the £1 million tournament, and this one was worth £271,300.
Much like in the short deck main event, taking place on the neighbouring table, three-handed play took a good long while. But unlike in the main event, the Yong in this tournament found himself in trouble. And then he was out. With young Wai Kin Yong occasionally wandering over to see how his father, Richard, was faring, Yu Liang did his bit in trimming the Yong quotient in half.
Liang’s stayed better than Yong’s through a board of 
. Yong won £357,000.
Benefield had found himself heads up for a short deck tournament only a matter of two days ago, and had come through that battle with flying colours. But this one proved to be much more of a test. Even though Benefield opened up a big lead, it was Liang who scored the first major double up when his tournament life was hanging by a thread.
They got their stacks in on a flop of 
with Benefield’s 
representing a very fragile two pair against Liang’s 
. The 
turn gave Liang even more cause for optimism, then the river completed his straight. That then gave Liang a three-to-one chip lead: 150 antes to Benefield’s 45.
Benefield tried to get something going, and had seemingly abandoned his strategy from yesterday when he said the key to short deck was just to “go all in”. The pots were comparatively small. But then there was that huge flop, with trips to Liang and top pair to Benefield, and neither was backing down.
Triton London Short Deck
Dates: August 7-8, 2019
Buy-in: £50,000
Entries: 52 (inc. 21 re-entries)
Prize pool: £2.465 million
1 – Xu Liang, Marshall Islands, £777,000
2 – David Benefield, United States, £560,500
3 – Richard Yong, Malaysia, £357,000
4 – Chin Wei Lim, Malaysia, £271,300
5 – Romain Arnaud, France, £209,500
6 – Stephen Chidwick, UK, £160,200
7= – Mike Watson, Canada, £64,750
7= – Choon Tong Siow, Malaysia, £64,750
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