Malaysian poker has a new star.

Already arguably the strongest Asian poker nation, thanks in no small part to the Triton Poker Series co-founders Paul Phua and Richard Yong, tonight in Jeju, South Korea, another Malaysian named Tuck Wai Foo emerged from nowhere to get his hands on the famous Triton trophy.

Foo had never played on the Triton Series before coming to Jeju this week, and his documented poker results tend to be from smaller events in his native Kuala Lumpur.

But Foo, an admitted amateur, took on a field of 348 entries in a $20,000 buy-in event on the Triton Series and beat them all, earning a top prize of $1.35 million.

The rail was packed with Asian poker’s finest, with Yong among the eager and passionate spectators watching Foo do battle with the elite. His shallow-stacked heads-up duel with two-time Triton champion Mario Mosböck was one for the ages, with each player doubling up multiple times, and each coming back from seeming certain doom.

Every blind steal was cheered with great enthusiasm, and when the final card of the tournament was a nine, pairing the nine in Foo’s hand, the room erupted in jubilation. Mosböck, who had battled back from only one big blind at one point at the final, could do nothing but congratulate the fantastic Foo, before looking for a runner-up payout of $856,000.

His third title will have to wait, but he can hardly begrudge Foo his incredible moment. It’s a victory that will mean huge amounts to the whole Triton family, which has its heart in Malaysia still.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The second event of this stop in Jeju all but matched the first for incredible turnout. By the time registration was closed, there were 348 entries, more than every other Triton event in the tour’s history, with the exception of the first this week.

The bigger buy-in for this one meant even more in the prize-pool, however. The final 55 players would be carving up close to $7 million, with $1.35 million reserved for the winner.

Despite the numbers, this one moved at a brisk pace. The bubble burst late on Day 1, with Australian pro Daniel Neilson busting to Ren Lin with to Lin’s .

That allowed Dan Smith and Justin Saliba, among others, to inch into the money, but they were not among the 50 players who came back for Day 2, led by Austria’s Daniel Rezaei.

With 30-minute levels, the pace was fast as the field shrank rapidly toward the final. Rezaei was among those swept away, following two of poker’s best known content creators out the door. Both Alexander “Wolfgang Poker” Seibt and Ethan “Rampage” Yau made the money, but fell short of the final. Seibt took $62,000 for 22nd and Yau earned $84,500 for 14th.

The man on the hottest heater, however, was Belgium’s Michael Gathy, who was making his Triton debut in Jeju. The four-time WSOP bracelet winner was a big chip leader as the last nine posed for their final table photo. The stacks were as follows:

Michael Gathy — 24,450,000 (75 BBs)
Ren Lin — 10,250,000 (34 BBs)
Andrei Kotelnikov — 10,000,000 (33 BBs)
Mario Mosböck — 6,750,000 (23 BBs)
Calvin Lee — 5,700,000 (19 BBs)
Shimizu Nozomu — 5,275,000 (18 BBs)
Igor Yaroshevskyy — 4,425,000 (15 BBs)
Tuck Wai Foo — 4,325,000 (14 BBs)
Jon Ander Vallinas — 450,000 (1 BB)

Although the early stages of this event in Jeju has been all about the newcomers, this final table featured two two-time Triton champions in Mosböck and Yaroshevskyy, alongside the very well known Lin and Gathy. Would experience win the day, or would we be crowning yet another first-time winner?

Obviously, it was going to be a tall order for Jon Ander Vallinas to make much of an impact at the final. One big blind is rarely enough to do much damage, but the Spaniard had other ideas. He started off well with a triple up, and then saw Yaroshevskyy take a bit of a tumble to land at the bottom of the counts. When Vallinas then found queens and doubled again, he sat with what must have seemed a lofty 18 blinds, ahead of two others on the counts.

Shimizu Nozomu wasn’t even one of those, but it was the popular Japanese player who ended on the rail first from the final. He fell after three-betting virtually all-in with and seeing Gathy call him off with pocket kings. Although technically the final chips didn’t go in until Nozomu had flopped top pair, they were always likely heading to Gathy. Nozomu landed $133,000 for eighth.

The remaining eight went on a dinner break and returned to terribly short stacks. The leader now was Tuck Wai Foo, but he had only 25 blinds. Calvin Lee now had a solitary blind, and all the others had between 10 and 20. When Mosböck doubled through Andrei Kotelnikov, the Russian joined Lee with one blind while Mosböck vaulted to the top.

But true to form, the short stacks clung on. Kotelnikov more than doubled, Lee survived when he was in the big blind. But then finally there was a knockout, two in fact, on the same hand. One was Lee, who took eighth place money ($164,000) and Vallinas was the other, who had laddered up to seventh.

Yaroshevskyy was the assassin, whose pocket sevens flopped a set and rivered quads, rendering his opponents’ hands kind of irrelevant. For the record, they both had off-suit aces but they came up short against four-of-a-kind.

Kotelnikov was next to fall, again at the hands of Yaroshevskyy. With levels escalating rapidly, Kotelnikov had only three blinds when he made a stand with , but lost to the of his opponent. Kotelnikov’s first ever Triton cash was worth $305,000.

The final table had been played at a swift pace and with plenty of chat, but the volume dialled down a notch with the next elimination. Ren Lin, always the loudest in the room, was the latest to be silenced by Yaroshevskyy.

Lin can count himself unlucky: he got his chips in good, with against Yaroshevskyy’s but not for the first time, Yaroshevskyy flopped well. By the time all five community cards were out, he had trip fours. Lin won $396,000 for fifth.

The waters were getting even choppier now, and it was Mosböck’s turn to take a major hit. He too ran into the new monster: ace-four, this time in Gathy’s hand. Mosböck’s was no good after Gathy flopped a four. Mosböck was left with one big blind.

Naturally, he soon got it in. And he managed three consecutive doubles, to get back to 10 bigs. When Tuck Wai Foo then also managed to double (with ace-four, of course), Gathy was back in the danger zone of 11 blinds. Mosböck’s subsequent umpteenth double, back through Yaroshevskyy, put him near the top of the counts once more.

And then it was time up for Gathy. The Belgian pro, with his infamous final table shirt shimmering under the studio lights, took his final stand with . But the resurgent Mosböck had and it held. Gathy was out in fourth for $501,000.

Less than an hour since he had one blind, Mosböck was chip leader with close to double his two opponents combined.

He was now in the mood, and Yaroshevskyy was next to feel the pain. The Ukrainian, himself a two-time Triton champion, raised from the button with and called off when Mosböck shoed the big blind. Mosböck had pocket kings and the big pair stayed best. Yaroshevskyy hugged Mosböck on his way to collect $619,000.

And then there were two: a relative veteran and two-time champion against a Triton newcomer. Mosböck versus Foo, with the small matter of $500K between first and second place payouts. Mosböck had a big lead, with 40 big blinds to 18.

They traded blows for the opening exchanges, but then a big double for Foo, with hitting a seven to beat Mosböck’s . It brought the stacks even at 22 blinds apiece. Foo extended his lead, the levels went up, and Mosböck was now in danger.

They each then doubled again when under threat, and Mosböck ended the exchange only five blinds to his name. Could he pull off another Lazarus act? This time, he could not.

Mosböck got his last blinds in with and was in good shape against Foo’s . Flop and turn were blanks, but the river was the and the place went nuts.

“I am a champion!” he said.

Event #2 – $20,000 NLH 8-Handed
Dates: February 27-28, 2025
Entries: 348 (inc. 121 re-entries)
Prize pool: $6,960,000

1 – Tuck Wai Foo, Malaysia – $1,350,000
2 – Mario Mosböck, Austria – $856,000
3 – Igor Yaroshevskyy, Ukraine – $619,000
4 – Michael Gathy, Belgium – $501,000
5 – Ren Lin, China – $396,000
6 – Andrei Kotelnikov, Russia – $305,000
7 – Jon Ander Vallinas, Spain – $227,000
8 – Calvin Lee, USA – $164,000
9 – Shimizu Nozomu, Japan – $133,000

10 – Christopher Park, USA – $110,000
11 – Ben Heath, UK – $110,000
12 – Daniel Rezaei, Austria – $95,500
13 – Simone Andrian, Italy – $95,500
14 – Ethan Yau, USA – $84,500
15 – Matas Cimbolas, Lithuania – $84,500
16 – Mao Renji, China – $76,000
17 – Roman Hrabec, Czech Republic – $76,000
18 – Artem Vezhenkov, Russia – $69,000
19 – Haohui Ma, China – $69,000
20 – Liu Yin, China – $69,000
21 – James Hopkins, Australia – $62,000
22 – Alexander Seibt, USA – $62,000
23 – Andre Marques, Portugal – $62,000
24 – Matthew Wakeman, Australia – $55,000
25 – Karim Maekelberg, Belgium – $55,000
26 – Jinlong Hu, China – $55,000
27 – Dimitar Danchev, Bulgaria – $55,000
28 – Rokas Asipauskas, Lithuania – $48,000
29 – Lyu Junqiang, China – $48,000
30 – Li Yuan, China – $48,000
31 – Anton Zhen Lu, Australia – $48,000
32 – Adam Hendrix, USA – $41,000
33 – Chris Brewer, USA – $41,000
34 – Viacheslav Balaev, Russia – $41,000
35 – Vincent Huang, Australia – $41,000
36 – Wang Ye, China – $41,000
37 – Sam Greenwood, Canada – $41,000
38 – David Coleman, USA – $41,000
39 – Calvin Anderson, USA – $41,000
40 – Alex Boika, Belarus – $34,000
41 – Clemen Deng, USA – $34,000
42 – Lin Jianwei, China – $34,000
43 – Aram Oganyan, USA – $34,000
44 – Wayne Heung, Hong Kong – $34,000
45 – Zhang Yu, China – $34,000
46 – Tobias Schwecht, Germany – $34,000
47 – Thomas Santerne, France – $34,000
48 – Yongjia Lin, China – $34,000
49 – Zhao Jiaming, China – $34,000
50 – Ben Tollerene, USA – $34,000
51 – Justin Saliba, USA – $34,000
52 – Jing Yao Yan, China – $34,000
53 – Sergei Kharchenko, Russia – $34,000
54 – Wang Yang, China – $34,000
55 – Dan Smith, USA – $34,000

The opening event of the Triton Poker Series fourth trip to Jeju was amazing before it even really got going. There were record attendance numbers (379 entries), including a vast array of Triton first-timers, most of whom were playing under the Chinese flag.

It was only fitting, then, that at the end of an unscheduled third day, required to finish a tournament of such incredible size, the last three players of this $15,000 buy-in event were all from China, and none had ever made the money on the Triton Series before. Indeed, only one of them had ever played a tournament here. The other two were total newbies.

Whichever of the three made it all the way, it would represent a remarkable achievement. And when the dust finally settled at the end of this marathon, it was the more experienced figure of Zhao Hongjun, 43, who can take the overwhelming bragging rights. He eventually downed Yuzhu Wang in second and Zhen Chen in third to claim a maiden success.

“I’m very happy to have won this tournament,” a level-headed Zhao said in the wake of victory. “I actually came to Jeju Island mainly to play golf and joined the tournament on the side. My work keeps me quite busy, and although I’ve been playing poker for over a decade, I haven’t participated in many tournaments.”

He added: “I found this event relatively easy, even simpler than some tournaments in China. It was really fun. Moving forward, I’ll continue to compete in the 30K and 50K buy-in events and fully enjoy the experience of these legendary tournaments.”

It came with a payout of $818,000, the figure he agreed during heads-up deal negotiation with Wang. At that point, Wang had a two-to-one chip lead and secured himself a $975,000 payout. That’s the kind of thing that only happens on the Triton Series: from zero to a million in a single event.

Zhou, however, took the trophy — and it was no more than he deserved after being the overwhelming chip leader for long periods on both of the opening days. Indeed, he was chip leader at the end of the first day and the end of the second. That doesn’t happen very often, and it’s not bad for someone doing this “on the side”.

He may or may not be a decent golfer, but it seems highly unlikely he’ll be earning this kind of money on the course this week.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The extraordinary turnout created a real buzz around the room from the very outset, with the flood of Triton newcomers excited to be a part of the most prestigious tour in the world. Meanwhile the regulars set about their task in their usual unforgiving manner, intending to welcome the first-timers by feasting on their chips.

As always in poker, it worked for some, and it very much didn’t for others. The list of early eliminations featured plenty of the established elite, who will need to fire again through the remaining events to turn a profit from their trip to Jeju.

The field dwindled rapidly, leaving only 71 still around at the end of the day, and a quick race to the bubble ensuing early on Day 2. By this point, organisers had already agreed that a third day would be necessary to get things done, so the focus for Day 2 was first to make the money, and then to get to the final table.

As always, there was drama as the bubble approached. Both James Hopkins and Jonathan Jaffe were all-in and at risk on neighbouring feature tables, with both surviving to double and edge into the cash. However, Dimitar Danchev and then Zewei Xu couldn’t pull off the same survival trick, with Xu becoming the stone bubble.

His pocket eights slammed into Samuel Ju’s aces and that left him heading out in poker’s saddest finishing position.

For a very long portion of Day 2, all of the field looked up to China’s Zhao Hongjun. He had more than twice the chips of his closest challenger for almost all of the day, with the likes of Ding Biao, Steve O’Dwyer, Danny Tang and Espen Jorstad falling short of the big money positions.

But after another several hours play, not only had Hongjun been reined in a bit by Lithuania’s Paulius Plausinaitis, but a constellation of more stars had hit the rail, including Triton Ambassador Jason Koon, who went out in 10th. (To be honest, Koon might have perished far sooner, had he not pulled off one of the outdraws of the tournament with 53 left.)

WOW Jason Koon!!!!

What a wild hand between @JasonKoon and Xu with the perfect card spiking the turn leading to absolute mayhem. The $15k 🔱Triton Poker Series Jeju Event has been wild. pic.twitter.com/TuX47oDZ8e

— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) February 27, 2025

The last nine lined up as follows:

Zhao Hongjun – 17,625,000
Paulius Plausinaitis – 13,475,000
Weiran Pu – 9,650,000
Yuzhu Wang – 7,850,000
Zhen Chen – 7,600,000
Damir Zhugralin – 7,325,000
Michael Jozoff – 7,075,000
Nikita Kuznetcov – 4,475,000
Chen Dong – 700,000

The short-stacked Chen Dong was always facing an uphill battle to get back into contention at the final table. It proved to be an impossible task and he perished first, in ninth, for $103,000. Dong shoved from under the gun with and lost to the dominating in Damir Zhugralin’s hand.

Dong cashed four times on his Triton debut here in Jeju last year, and he got off to a fine start this time around as well.

Despite that early fillip, Zhugralin ended up as the next player out thanks to a sickening hand against Zhou. It began as the perfect set-up for the Kazakhstani player. He had pocket aces against Zhao’s jacks. They got around 5 million in pre-flop, but then a jack appeared among the first three community cards and it was looking bleak for Zhugralin.

Zhao check-raised the flop, then check/snap-called Zhugralin’s turn shove. Zhugralin took $129,000 for eighth, but will have felt very unwell as he departed. Zhao was now back in full command.

There was just enough time left on Day 2 for Yuzhu Wang’s to beat Nikita Kuznetcov’s , all in pre-flop, which trimmed the field down to six. Kuznetcov, the longest lasting Russian in this mammoth field, headed out the door in seventh, banking $182,000.

They called it a night with Zhao cramming 64 big blinds into his bag. The next nearest, Wang, had 34. They were heading into that unscheduled Day 3 with still plenty of play left.

Ever since Koon’s departure in 10th, Michael Jozoff had been the sole remaining representative of the United States, and he came into the last day as the tournament short stack. Though he survived the early jousting for around half an hour, he became the first player of the day to depart, and in fairly unfortunate circumstances.

Jozoff was on the button with and not only saw the dominant chip leader Zhao make an early-position raise, he then also saw Weiran Pu move all in for his 12 big blind stack. Jozoff stuck his chips in with his premium holding, and although Zhao folded, Jozoff was in good shape against . Two hearts on the flop and a third on the river was very bad news for the big slick, however. Jozoff departed in sixth for $243,000.

Pu was now well placed to mount a challenge to the chip-leaders, but his wealth didn’t last long. In a pot soon after, Zhao made another pre-flop raise (as the runaway leader, this was inevitable) and Pu found in the small blind. He jammed, perhaps thinking he only had to worry about Zhao’s wide open range. But He hadn’t accounted for Yuzhu Wang sitting in the big blind, whose was plenty good enough to commit all his chips.

This time Pu couldn’t crack the big slick and was left with only two blinds as a result. Pu clung on longer than he might have, doubling at least five time, but eventually his cameo came to an end with a fifth-placed finish. He ran into Wang’s aces and couldn’t find a miracle with . Pu won $309,000.

Zhao still led of course, but Wang was very close behind. The average stack was only 24 big blinds and only those two had more than that, with Zhen Chen and Paulius Plausinaitis below the line.

Plausinaitis was of course now an interloper as the only non-Chinese player left. And he was forced to leave the three countrymen to it soon after when he lost a flip to Wang. All the chips went in pre-flop in a four-bet pot with Wang holding pocket nines to Plausinaitis’ . It was a dry board, with every card greeted with vocal exuberance from Wang.

Plausinaitis wandered away to collect $395,000, while Wang took over the chip lead and the three players without a single previous Triton cash to their name to do battle for the title.

The last three had all but equal stacks, but there was fewer than 100 blinds now in play. None of the players had shown much appetite for playing a waiting game either, so it was no surprise to see all the chips flying into the middle fairly soon after three-handed play began.

The only surprise really was the strength of the hands that decided the next elimination. Zhen Chen picked up and three bet over Wang’s open. And when Wang jammed with the covering stack Chen was happy to call off. The problem: Wang had aces. They held and Chen was suddenly on the rail, taking $497,000 for his third place.

Zhao and Wang were therefore now set to square off for the title, and the player who had been so dominant for the best part of three days now had only half the chips of his opponent. Wang’s 51 blinds comfortably covered Zhao’s 25. It sent them to Tournament Director Luca Vivaldi’s desk asking to look at the numbers for a deal, and they eventually settled on the following: Wang would take $975,000 minimum, Zhao would take $778,000 and there was $40,000 left on the side to play for.

They settled down to decide where it went.

It didn’t take long for the roles to reverse. Both players found an ace and all the chips went in. But Zhao’s nine kicker played against Wang’s four.

According to Chinese media, Zhao is by far the more experienced player with a number of titles to his name. Wang, by contrast, is a recreational player, enjoying his moment in the sun. This disparity only really became apparent in the heads-up phase of play, where Zhao’s greater familiarity with the situation allowed him to steal more pots. However, the two hands that ended up deciding it would likely have played this way no matter who had been holding the cards.

Firstly, Wang doubled his short stack with jacks against fives. But he then found another pocket pair, sixes, and got his chips in once more. Zhao had aces, however, and flopped a set. Wang offered his fist for a friendly fist-bump, before fully embracing his opponent when he was drawing dead on the turn.

With that, Zhao’s three-day run as the leader took him past the finishing post in first. What a fitting champion to this record-breaking event, and a brilliant start to this festival.

Event #1 – $15,000 NLH 8-Handed
Dates: February 26-28, 2025
Entries: 379 (inc. 113 re-entries)
Prize pool: $5,685,000

1 – Zhao Hongjun, China – $818,000*
2 – Yuzhu Wang, China – $975,000*
3 – Zhen Chen, China – $497,000
4 – Paulius Plausinaitis, Lithuania – $395,000
5 – Weiran Pu, China – $309,000
6 – Michael Jozoff, USA – $243,000
7 – Nikita Kuznetcov, Russia – $182,000
8 – Damir Zhugralin, Kazakhstan – $129,000
9 – Chen Dong, China – $103,000

10 – Jason Koon, USA – $86,000
11 – Dietrich Fast, Germany – $86,000
12 – Adrian Mateos, Spain – $74,000
13 – Sergei Petrushevski, Russia – $74,000
14 – Chuen Co Chung, Hong Kong – $65,000
15 – Christoph Vogelsang, Germany – $65,000
16 – Leon Sturm, Germany – $59,000
17 – Issam Fayad, Lebanon – $59,000
18 – Yongjia Lin, China – $53,000
19 – Zheng Xiaosheng, China – $53,000
20 – Emilien Pitavy, France – $53,000
21 – Thomas Mühlöcker, Austria – $47,000
22 – Danny Tang, Hong Kong – $47,000
23 – Alex Boika, Belarus – $47,000
24 – Oliver Bithell, UK – $41,000
25 – Kahle Burns, Australia – $41,000
26 – Lun Loon, Malaysia – $41,000
27 – Espen Jorstad, Norway – $41,000
28 – Steve O’Dwyer, Ireland – $35,500
29 – Aram Oganyan, USA – $35,500
30 – Samuel Mullur, Austria – $35,500
31 – Maksim Vaskresenski, Belarus – $35,500
32 – Ding Biao, China – $30,500
33 – Daniel Neilson, Australia – $30,500
34 – Rokas Asipauskas, Lithuania – $30,500
35 – Naryman Yaghmai, Iran – $30,500
36 – Ren Lin, China – $30,500
37 – David Peters, USA – $30,500
38 – Michael Addamo, Australia – $30,500
39 – Juan Pardo, Spain – $30,500
40 – Ramin Hajiyev, Azerbaijan – $26,500
41 – Yauheni Tsiareschanka, Belarus – $26,500
42 – Wang Yang, China – $26,500
43 – Jason Wong, UK – $26,500
44 – Ebony Kenney, USA – $26,500
45 – Kazuyuki Tanemura, Japan – $26,500
46 – Wenjie Huang, China – $26,500
47 – Wei Hsiang Yeu, Malaysia – $26,500
48 – Samuel Ju, Germany – $26,500
49 – Joao Vieia, Portugal – $26,500
50 – Mehdi Chaoui, Morocco – $26,500
51 – Zhu Haobo, China – $26,500
52 – Jieming Xu, China – $26,500
53 – Artur Martirosian, Russia – $26,500
54 – Lin Yoda, China – $26,500
55 – Zhou Quan, China – $26,500
56 – Frank Cucciara, USA – $24,000
57 – Kiat Lee, Malaysia – $24,000
58 – Viacheslav Buldygin, Russia – $24,000
59 – James Hopkins, Australia – $24,000
60 – Jonathan Jaffe, USA – $24,000
61 – Danilo Velasevic, Serbia – $24,000
62 – Aliaksandr Shylko, Belarus – $24,000
63 – Li Yuan, China – $24,000

*denotes heads-up deal

It’s long been true of tournament poker that absolutely anybody on their day can win. But if you’d predicted at the beginning of the year that an Argentinian rapper whose name translates as “Crazy” would win the biggest event on the industry-leading Triton Super High Roller Series, you’d probably have been laughed out the room.

But that is precisely what happened tonight at the Atlantis Resort, on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, where Alejandro “Papo MC” Lococo took down the Triton Million Paradise title. Lococo, or just Papo to his friends, earned $12.07 million, his first Triton title, a WSOP bracelet, and added thousands of poker fans to the millions who adore him already for his music.

Coming hot on the heels of Vladimir Korzinin’s show-stopping performance in Monte Carlo last month, Lococo’s spectacular victory adds a second remarkable chapter to Triton’s ongoing story of brilliance.

“It feels amazing for sure,” a clearly overwhelmed Lococo said. “Really happy, really glad to be here.”

Lococo’s performance today lived up to all the hype. Though he is far from a poker rookie, and has indeed been at the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event, Lococo is still best known as a rapper. He accepted an invitation from Triton to join this unique event, in which an official invitee pairs up with a poker pro and the duo pay $500,000 apiece for a seat.

Lococo represented the less experienced side of his partnership with Portugal’s Joao Vieira, but with the pro long departed, Papo did his thing. He was the most unpredictable entity on a final day when nothing quite went as expected. He ended the tournament heads-up with British pro Ben Heath, who had been down to half a big blind at one point, but built back to land an $8.1 million consolation prize.

Lococo enjoyed the run of the deck when he needed it, but was also completely unfazed by the situation and seemed to relish applying the maximum pressure on all his opponents, with everything dialled up so high thanks to the enormous buy-in.

Even the final hand upended expectations. Heath was in a dominant position with against Lococo’s . But Lococo flopped the deuce and snaffled Heath’s final 10 blinds at the same time.

With that, the title was his.

“It’s amazing. I’m very lucky to be here with my family and my friends,” Lococo said, singling out the Spanish player Adrian Mateos who had persuaded him to come to the Bahamas. “I’m very lucky to have Adrian as my friend. He’s a really humble person; he helps everybody including myself. He is a big, big part responsible for my wining.”

Lococo added how much he enjoyed his first experience of the Triton Series. “It’s amazing. Everything is perfect. The organisation is incredible. It’s perfect.”

TOURNAMENT ACTION

Among the numerous ways this tournament was unusual was the fact that we essentially knew the number of players before it started. There were only so many invites and only so many RSVPs. We were expecting, and got, a field of 74 players.

The number of re-entries was only confirmed by the time Day 2 resumed, however, and with 22 players opting to fire again, the field swelled to 96 entries.

Even by Triton Series standards, the $48 million prize pool was enormous. The $12.07 million on offer to the winner would be the second-biggest winner’s prize ever offered on the tour.

The style of play had been established right from the very opening hand on Day 1. Short version, nobody was playing scared. In that hand, which quickly went viral, Jared Bleznick and David Einhorn got their whole stacks in — more than 300 big blinds — pre-flop, with Bleznick’s aces holding against Einhorn’s big slick. Bleznick took a very early chip lead, while Einhorn took the day off and only returned to fire his second bullet at the start of Day 2.

As always needs to be the case, players were ousted unceremoniously from the tournament from that point on. Daniel Negreanu’s Triton debut ended the wrong side of the money line. Five-time winner Phil Ivey and 10-time champ Jason Koon also hit the rail.

BUBBLE TROUBLE

Only 17 players were due to be paid and conventional wisdom would suggest a tightening of play with around 25 left, followed by virtual gridlock from 20 onwards. It couldn’t be further from what actually played out.

After Alex Kulev was knocked out in 21st, one of the most dramatic hands of the tournament played out between Nick Petrangelo, Artur Martirosian and Dan Dvoress. Petrangelo had five blinds and shoved with from under the gun.

Dvoress had 28 BBs and looked at pocket jacks on the button. He called. And that persuaded Martirosian to call the extra from the big blind, holding . Petrangelo could do no more, but the other two were still betting.

Dvoress took a virtual lock on the hand after the flop. Martirosian checked and Dvoress checked behind. The turn now gave both Petrangelo and Martirosian a pair as well, even though it was hopeless. Martirosian bet 900,000 and Dvoress still just called.

The river must have looked good to Martirosian, who had now made two pair. He check-called Dvoress’ shove. It was, however, disaster for the Russian, who had run into Dvoress’ monster. He and Petrangelo both made their way from the table, just a whisker short of the money.

The drama was not done, however. Those two eliminations brought the tournament to its stone bubble, but a hand was still playing out on another table that had the potential to take the tournament all the way into the money. Ryan Feldman had locked horns with Alejandro Lococo in which players had reached a flop of for a single raise.

Feldman had a combo draw with , while Lococo, with by far the bigger stack, had middle pair and a draw of his own, holding . Crucially, Feldman did not know of the double knockout on the other table. He wasn’t aware that they were now on the stone bubble. He took a shot, shoving his last six blinds in the middle.

Lococo called, putting Feldman in real peril. The turn gave Feldman more outs, but still kept Lococo ahead. And the river was a miss, sending Feldman spiralling out of the tournament. He later lamented that he was “sick to my stomach” and admitted he didn’t know the tournament situation. The bubble always hurts but this, in Feldman’s words, was “Max pain”.

It also meant that although Mikita Badziakouski, Punnat Punsri and Phil Nagy were also quickly knocked out, they took $755,000 (Badziakouski/Punsri) and $792,000 (Nagy) instead of nothing.

That also ended Day 2, with Dvoress having rocketed up the leader board into second place overall, with Lococo now in third. They were both still behind the dominant Mike Moncek, who led the field at the end of Day 1 and was still there as Day 2 came to its conclusion.

Leading pros Adrian Mateos and Stephen Chidwick rounded out the top five, with a beautifully balanced final 14 heading to the last day.

FINAL DAY FIREWORKS

Many commentators would probably have expected those seasoned pros to come roaring to the top of the counts when the final day got under way. But this was not a predictable tournament at all. The day was barely out of its infancy before Chidwick bust, followed quickly by David Einhorn (he lasted longer on his second bullet than he had on his first), Esti Wang and then Mateos.

Dvoress held firm, but it was the otherwise relatively unheralded Turkish player Sinan Ünlü who was causing most of the damage. The 34-year-old from Istanbul had accepted an invitation to play the $200K event in Monte Carlo last month, where he finished 10th. He was back for more and rocketed up the counts as they closed in on a final here. He made it to the final all but neck-and-neck with Dvoress.

Moncek, however, has shown that he was mortal and had hit a tournament low point of 19 big blinds.

The last nine sat down to the following stacks:

FINAL TABLE LINE-UP

Dan Dvoress – 19,450,000 (65 BBs)
Sinan Ünlü – 19,100,000 (64 BBs)
Sosia Jiang – 13,100,000 (44 BBs)
Alejandro Lococo – 11,650,000 (39 BBs)
Ben Heath – 8,200,000 (27 BBs)
Aleksejs Ponakovs – 8,050,000 (27 BBs)
Elias Talvitie – 6,125,000 (20 BBs)
Michael Moncek – 5,725,000 (19 BBs)
Alex Foxen – 4,625,000 (15 BBs)

At the start of the event, Moncek would likely have accepted an offer of a ninth-placed finish. But after leading the event for so long, busting first from the final may have felt like an underachievement.

That, however, was his fate. The first major pot he played at the final was his last: he ran into Ben Heath’s pocket jacks. Dvoress opened with , Moncek jammed and Heath found the big pocket pair in the big blind. Dvoress folded and Heath’s hand held.

Moncek cashed for $1.2 million, the first seven-figure score of the tournament and the biggest of a career in which he has already won two WSOP bracelets.

Dvoress, as chip leader, was raising a lot of pots and though he raise-folded in the pot that eliminated Moncek, he raise-called in a skirmish that soon accounted for Sosia Jiang. This time Dvoress found under the gun and made a standard raise. Sinan Ünlü called on the button with a suited ace, but Jiang considered worth a shove.

Jiang had 32 blinds and put them all in. Dvoress only didn’t snap-call because he was trying to coax in Ünlü as well. Eventually, Dvoress called, Ünlü folded and the board was full of blanks. Jiang picked up her seventh cash on the Triton Series and finished in eighth on her second Invitational final table. Previously, seventh place in Cyprus was worth $820,000. This time, she landed a $1.605 million payday.

Almost precisely one orbit later, Dvoress was at it again. And this time, Aleksejs Ponakovs was on the wrong end of the typhoon.

Ponakovs has 19 cashes on the Triton Series, and has picked up more than $12 million in earnings. He was at three final tables in Monte Carlo earlier this year, and has been to Invitational finals before as well. But what Ponakovs does not have is a title, and the hunt goes on.

Action folded to Ponakovs in the small blind and he considered definitely worth shipping it in. But Dvoress had found and called once more. After another blank board, Dvoress was looking at an even more monstrous chip lead, while Ponakovs took $2,140,000 for seventh.

The extraordinary pace of eliminations, with big stacks clashing against one another, had been very good news for the likes of Elias Talvitie and Alex Foxen, who had come to the final near the bottom of the counts. Both had already laddered up significantly, but knew they would soon have to put their own heads on the chopping block and hope the axe-swinger missed if they wanted to get back into the contest.

Talvitie went first. And he was the fortunate recipient of a shadow falling temporarily across Dvoress’ sun-run. Talvitie shoved for his last 4 million chips, 10 big blinds, with . Dvoress called with but three hearts on the board (the last on the river) gave Talvitie a double.

That left Foxen with the shortest stack, and while he got it in in much better shape against Dvoress again — Foxen’s pocket sevens up against Dvoress’ — this was not to be Foxen’s day.

Foxen, who returned from a five-year Triton exile to win his first title in Monaco, watched Dvoress flop an ace. The remainder of the chips went in at this point, and Foxen couldn’t find a seven to survive. Foxen banked $2,795,000 for sixth place.

There were now three pros and two invitees among the final five, but Dvoress remained firmly in the driving seat. Meanwhile having prospered during the early stages of the final, Heath’s tournament took a decided turn for the worse.

Heath lost a succession of small pots, before shipping about 85 percent of his stack to Lococo when the latter’s rivered trips. Two more small cuts took Heath down to less than one big blind, but crucially he was still not out. He tripled with pocket sixes. Then he doubled with making a boat. Then he doubled again with and all of a sudden had a workable stack once more.

At the other end of the leader board, Lococo’s victory in the big pot against Heath put his stack to more than 50 blinds and, amazingly, he had more than Dvoress too. At least he did until he slammed into Talvitie’s aces and the Finn vaulted to the top of the counts.

Lococo, however, put that loss behind him immediately and won another succession of pots to reclaim the lead. “This has been the most insane final table to commentate on in recent memory,” Henry Kilbane said in the commentary booth. It was largely thanks to Lococo, but when Heath then doubled up once more, this time through Dvoress, it was Dvoress who now had the short stack having had one hand on the trophy only about an hour before.

The average stack was now 24 big blinds and the tournament was still somehow five handed. What’s more, four of the five remaining players had been chip leader at some point during the day.

Dvoress and Heath were the short stacks now, but true to the unpredictable nature of the event, it was Talvitie who perished next. The Finn was in the big blind and called Lococo’s small-blind raise holding . The flop of added a flush draw to his over-cards and Talvitie called another bet from Lococo.

The now gave Talvitie top pair and he called once again as Lococo piled more chips into the pot. The river seemed innocuous. Lococo kept telling his story and jammed, and Talvitie, with only half the pot in his stack, made the call. He was soon to learn some very bad news.

Lococo had which was nothing but an inside straight draw on both flop and turn. He drilled it on the river, though, and extracted the absolute maximum from his wild image. Talvitie was felted and took $3,542,000 for fifth.

Dvoress was now up against in and shoved on three consecutive hands. He got the first through, forcing a fold from Ünlü, and picked up blinds and antes uncontested on the second occasion. However when he found pocket deuces on the third deal and three-bet jammed over Lococo’s open, he found out that Lococo had pocket jacks.

The Argentinian flopped another jack and it was curtains for Dvoress. His roller coaster ride earned him $4.39 million and a fourth-placed finish.

This was now all about Lococo. He had 93 big blinds to Heath’s 17 and Ünlü’s 11. And Ünlü couldn’t last much longer. He three-bet jammed over Lococo’s latest open, but Ünlü’s was no good against Lococo’s . Ünlü’s tournament ended with a $5,304,000 payout for third.

The tournament paused to prepare for heads-up play, with Lococo sitting with 84 blinds to Heath’s 12.

Lococo won the first pot. But Heath then doubled back. Then they shared a few pots to keep stacks the same. Then Heath found what should have been the perfect spot to double once more, waking up with that big slick and seeing Lococo jamming. But the deuce was the killer; this was Lococo’s day.

He leapt to his feat in utter jubilation. This was a stunning, stunning success.

$500K Triton Million Paradise
Dates: December 7-9, 2024
Entries: 96 (inc. 22 re-entries)
Prize pool: $48,000,000

1 – Alejandro Lococo, Argentina – $12,070,000
2 – Ben Heath, UK – $8,160,000
3 – Sinan Ünlü, Turkey – $5,304,000
4 – Daniel Dvoress, Canada – $4,390,000
5 – Elias Talvitie, Finland – $3,542,000
6 – Alex Foxen, USA – $2,795,000
7 – Aleksejs Ponakovs, Lativa – $2,140,000
8 – Sosia Jiang, New Zealand – $1,605,000
9 – Michael Moncek, USA – $1,200,000

10 – Chance Kornuth, USA – $985,000
11 – Adrian Mateos, Spain – $985,000
12 – Esti Wang, China – $865,000
13 – David Einhorn, USA – $865,000
14 – Stephen Chidwick, UK – $792,000
15 – Phil Nagy, USA – $792,000
16 – Punnat Punsri, Thailand – $755,000
17 – Mikita Badziakouski, Belarus – $755,000