A lot of incredibly talented poker players were eliminated from Event #1 of the Triton Series Cyprus Special Edition in the early levels of play today, but there was barely any fuss made about any of them.
Timothy Adams, Christoph Vogelsang, Daniel Dvoress, Nick Petrangelo and Teun Mulder were all among those who departed in silence, having burned off their last $50K buy-in. But they simply sat around for an hour or so, maybe grabbed a bite to eat, before getting right back into the action in Event #2, another no limit hold’em tournament, where the buy-in is $100,000.
The absence of drama is perfectly standard in events like this, but it’s also normal that the elimination of Mikita Badziakouski, which just happened here in the Crystal Cove Resort, was a good deal more charged. That’s because Badziakouski was the bubble boy, the final player eliminated before the money kicked in.
At Triton events, when the money kicks in, it really kicks in. A min-cash in this tournament is $99,000. It meant that Badziakouski was the last player to miss out on what is essentially a six-figure payday.
The hand in question happened on the feature table, shortly after the full tournament redraw when only 12 players were left. That random sorting of the remaining field put the two shortest stacks in the room — Badziakouski and Siang Eng Ewe — on the same table, while all the monster stacks headed to the floor. We kind of knew at that point that, barring any ridiculous cooler or some ICM suicide, stream viewers would see the final penniless bustout up close.
It turned out to be a tragedy in two acts. Firstly, Badziakouski opened a pot, perhaps only the third since the redraw, but then folded when his fellow short-stack Siang Eng Ewe shipped from the big blind. That left the Belorussian crusher with only nine big blinds.
He was in the big blind himself soon after and action folded around to Michael Soyza in the small blind. Soyza is celebrating his birthday today, and enjoyed a glass of champagne, a cake and some sparklers during the most recent tournament break. But he was looking for some cash to really make this one to remember. It was soon in his own hands.
With a stack of around 1.2 million, Soyza looked down at 
and moved all-in. Now all he needed was Badziakouski to find something with which he’d be prepared to risk it all. The 
in Badziakouski’s hand passed the test. He called and was at risk for his final 355,000.
Action concluded without incident on the outer table, so the dealer was able to put the 
on the most meaningful flop. That connected with nobody.
“I’m not asking for too much, just a deuce,” Badziakouski said. “A sweat.”
The 
turn was pretty good for him, giving him four extra outs. But four is an unlucky number among Asian gamblers, and it didn’t appear here to bail out Badziakouski. The river was the 
.
There was a smattering of applause as Badziakouski got up from the table and made his way over to the $100K event. (Yep, he jumped straight in that one.) Badziakouski has won three Triton Series events prior to this, and sits pretty at fifth in the all time Triton rankings, with $11.8 million earned on this series.
But he won’t be adding to it just yet. Badziakouski is now getting used to life as the most recent bubble boy instead.
Photography by Joe Giron/PokerPhotoArchive