Six days of the highest quality poker in the world has whizzed by quicker than a spear flying into the gut of some TV villain. We’ve had barroom brawls, handbags at ten paces, and one man even won £19m.
Still, there’s a long way to go.
The third Triton Champion in London is Charlie Carrel. The man from the South of England defeated Jason Koon in a heads-up encounter detached from the rest of the tournament thanks to gambling regulations insisting the Hilton stop dealing cards at 4 am.
But before Carrel and Koon tried to catch a dream or two…
Event #2: £50,000 No-Limit Hold-em attracted 109 entrants(inc. 43 re-entries), and 15-players earned a minimum £87,000 after Sergio Aido exited on the bubble.
The remaining testosterone tickled Titans ploughed on until only six-players remained, and the big hand struck two on the Rolex’s around the room. The first to leave at this stage was Robert Flink after Carrel flopped an eight when all-in, and behind, with A8 facing AT.
That’s how you win tournaments, folks.
Carrel ensured his presence in this event would prolong when his pocket jacks survived a five-card free for all against the KT of Linus Loeliger before we lost Matthias Eibinger in fifth with the Q9 of Kahle Burns beating KT thanks to a queen on the river.
Koon seemed the likely sparring partner for Carrel when his AQ doubled through the young wizard: AQ>A8, before eliminating Burns AK>K9 (Burns had to grab forty-winks before appearing in the protracted final of Event #1).
Loeliger would join Burns in the final of Event #1 (he would go on to win it), after leaving this one in third-place. Carrel put him all-in after rivering a straight, and Loeliger called with his two-pair hand, and that was the end of the action for the day.
Heads-Up
Carrel and Koon, the two enigmas, returns to finish things the following day, and the chip lead got tossed about like seashells in a tsunami before Carrel’s Q2 beat Koon’s K9 when a deuce hit the river.
It was Carrel’s first victory on the Triton circuit, and his most significant score to date beating the $1.2m he earned for winning a €25k at the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Monte Carlo back in 2015. It also continues an epic run of form that saw Carrel make the final table of four high rollers at this years EPT Monte Carlo.
Carrel’s win prevented Koon from winning an unprecedented fourth Triton title, but the £907,000 consolation prize fills a hole made by his failure to make an impression in the £1m buy-in Triton Million, and sees him move ahead of Mikita Badziakouski at the top of the Triton All-Time Money list with close to $12m in earnings.
Payouts
- Charlie Carrel – £1,321,000
- Jason Koon – £907,000
- Linus Loeliger – £594,000
- Kahle Burns – £481,500
- Matthias Eibinger – £386,000
- Robert Flink – £302,100
- Jun Yap – £238,000
- Daniel Dvoress – £182,000
- Isaac Haxton – £133,000
- Talal Shakerchi – £107,500
- Mikael Thuritz – £107,500
- Sam Greenwood – £94,700
- Jesús Cortes – £94,700
- Christoph Vogelsang – £87,000
- Benjamin Pollak – £87,000