The Montenegrin Triton Series kicked off with the GG Million$ Live tournament, which had a $25,000 buy-in. Players made 163 entries, almost half the number compared to a similar tournament at the March series in Korea. There, the tournament had even more unique participants – 183, and in total, more than 300 entries.
The winner was Chris Moneymaker, who is experiencing a revitalization of his poker glory days.
A couple of weeks ago, he became a finalist in the prestigious online tournament, The Venom.
However, bots were the ones who really stole the show.
Chris mostly plays live poker on major holidays, even in America. He makes an exception for his own series, the Moneymaker Poker Tour, and individual stages of Triton. This is probably because both series work closely with the ACR Poker room, which Chris represents.
The second day included 32 participants with 27 prize money spots. On the direct bubble, Moneymaker bluffed his entire stack into Garik Yaroshevsky's Full House and was left with a stack of 70,000. At that time, the big blind was at 60,000. In one of the following hands, Chris put it in with on the small blind. His opponents Brandon Hamlet and Biao Ding played a big side pot. The flop was and on the turn , Ding folded.
Hamlet opened , but on the river came a saving for Chris.
The bubble boy was Kiat Lee, who pushed unsuccessfully with in the of Byron Kaverman.
20th place went to Aleksander Zubov ($48,900), who had to tragically throw away a set on the bubble.
Aerts defended the big blind, check-called the flop, both checked the turn, and Aleksander folded on the river.
Patrik Antonius was eliminated in 17th place ($55,000), and Phil Ivey finished 14th ($55,000).
Chris Moneymaker entered the final table as a confident chip leader.
In the first 1.5 hours, two people were eliminated – Ike Haxton and Morten Klein. After that, the players found a winner in just 40 minutes.
In the top 7, Igor remained with a stack of 3.5 blinds and put in the big blind. Brian Kim opened from early position, Moneymaker on the button announced all-in. Yaroshevskyy thought a little and decided to call. The flop didn't seem to help him much.
However, the turn and river made him hold his head.
At the final level, players were exposed and eliminated in almost every hand.
First, Chris Moneymaker doubled up Danilo Velasevic ( offsuit against suited), but in one of the next hands, he eliminated Lewis Spencer ( vs ).
Immediately after this, Adrian Mateos, with the second biggest stack, opened with a raise from the hijack. Chip leader Brian Kim shoved from the big blind with , Adrian called with , but the river came a . In the next hand, Kim eliminated Velasevic in 5th place ( vs ). In 4-max, Moneymaker doubled up against Kim twice, first with against , then with against .
Both times, the perfect card came on the river.
Biao Dinh was eliminated in 4th place ( suited vs Kim's offsuit). Igor moved into the top 3 with a stack of 3 blinds and was eliminated against Chris ( vs Chris's ).
Moneymaker started heads-up with an advantage of 50 blinds to 30. Already in the third hand, Brian shoved , Chris called with and held.
"I just couldn't lose today," Chris said after the victory, mentioning 3 and 6-outers.
After the win, Chris tweeted, "Last week I final tabled Venom and studied ICM. This week I win Triton by saying fuck ICM. ICM is for pussies."
What you do after winning a triton event. Go play $1-$3 with your buddy. pic.twitter.com/iDed7uks5y
— Chris Moneymaker ⭕ (@CMONEYMAKER) May 13, 2024
Chris was selling shares of Triton on the PokerStake website. For the first tournament, people bought 2% from him, although only for the first tournament entry.
However, Chris won from the second entry, but after the victory, he returned their money to the shareholders, as reported on the backing site's Twitter. However, not everyone appreciated his generosity.
"Big of you! Why not give that 2% of your 900k to those folk?" asked one of the readers on Twitter. "That would make a real story not this BS."
"Not looking to make a story. Told Josh privately to refund the backers." Chris answered.
Luke Krahe continued,. "You won $900k (not sure exactly). Wouldn’t the best story to be, here you go my 2% backers, have your fill! Damn that would only escalate your profile (not needed sure) and the staking site would benefit hugely?"
And then, ACR's main ambassador gave his final answer: "Don’t have any interest in making staking site huge. I sold for an advertised bullet. I lost. That’s the end of it. Your logic is flawed and you are incorrect simple as that. If I show goodwill it would be to a charity or other causes. I gave back the stake quietly and didn’t need to do that."
The $40,000 Mystery Bounty Tournament
Players made 152 entries into the $40,000 Mystery Bounty tournament.
Bounties began from the start of the second day, which included 47 participants, and prizes from the top 27.
As in the first tournament, the main hero of the bubble could be Chris Moneymaker.
Nikita Kuznetsov opened, Chris raised and called the 4-bet. On the flop, Moneymaker called a quarter pot bet and folded on the turn.
"What did you have?" Nikita asked.
"I was planning to do something completely stupid on the turn if you had given me the opportunity," Chris smiled.
"Then maybe I played stupid."
The bubble boy was Paulius Vaitekunas from Lithuania, with Alexey Boyko (24th place, $30,000) and Phil Ivey (17th, $40,000) taking the money.
When there were 11 people left in the game, a huge pot was won by series debutant Artsiom "fokus_nik" Lasouski from Belarus. He held against the of Aleksander Zubov and the of Danilo Vlasevic.
After this hand, Aleksander had 50,000 left at the 50k/100k level. He spun up to 800,000 but still ended up in 10th place ( < Lasovsky, $62,750).
Finalist stacks:
The final table lasted almost 5 hours.
In the top 7, Artsiom and Nikita played a big pot.
Artsiom opened preflop, check-raised on the flop, bet a quarter of the pot on the turn, and folded on the river.
Over the next two hours, only Danny Tang was eliminated from the tournament. Short stacks constantly doubled, and the leaders replaced each other.
In the top 6, Nikita was again dealt against Moneymaker, and this time he managed to get paid in full.
Nikita opened with a min-raise, Chris and Dylan Linde from the big blind called. Kuznetsov's continuation bet was called only by Moneymaker. The turn was checked, and Nikita check-called on the river.
In the top 5, Samuel Ju from Germany doubled Nikita ( vs ) and was left with two blinds.
In the next hand, Linde raised almost his entire stack, Artem on the small blind announced a re-shove, Samuel folded on the big blind.
Linde called and was eliminated in 5th place ($202,000).
In the next hand, Artsiom raised from the button, Ju shoved the rest from the small blind, Nikita announced all-in on the big blind, Artem called.
Samuel tripled, Artem took a big side pot, and Nikita received $253,000 for 4th place.
In a telegram, Nikita assessed his performance in hot pursuit:
"I don't want to describe the whole tournament path and in particular the last hand, in which 'not everything is so simple.' The only thing that is certain is that it was necessary to spend one or two timebanks out of the remaining three in order to make the most correct decision and then not regret it (I do not rule out that this would also be a push).
Overall, I'm happy with how I played ✅.
Congratulations to Artem on his well-deserved victory 🏆.
Today there will be an opening ceremony of 'envelopes' 📦.
It is a great honor for me to take part in this event; I'm not even afraid to say that it was a kind of small 'dream'.
Starts at 19:15 local ⏰.
Thank you all for your support 👑."
3rd place went to Moneymaker ($311,000). In the last hand, he shoved 8 blinds from the button with J♣3♥, Samuel called from the big blind with K♣T♥.
Chris played four tournaments in the series, won prizes in three, and flew home.
"Back home I go to catch my kid's soccer games." Chris said.
In the mystery format, Moneymaker made three bounties. He also wrote that his envelopes would be opened by Nacho Barbero.
The heads-up lasted for an hour. The players started with stacks of 55 blinds against 20 in favor of Artsiom Lasouski. At some point, Samuel managed to seize the lead, but this was not enough to win.
25-year-old Artem Lasovsky became one of the youngest champions in the history of the Triton series.
Artsiom Lasouski added $680k to the prize money for 1st place for a bounty.
Finalist results including bounty:
Other Tournaments
The $25k buy-in tournament was won by Andy Ni from China, ending with a triple all-in.
In the very first tournament, Andy Ni played a colorful hand when he scared Stoyan Madanzhiev with two check-raises.
Andy Ni just shook the poker world with a mind-blowing double check-raise move holding the Nut Low at the Triton Super High Roller Series Montenegro! Is this the bluff of the year? pic.twitter.com/HZMDxgNaF2
— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) May 12, 2024
The Bulgarian player folded top pair, but his opponent had the worst possible hand – .
Ni said that he practically never plays poker, but came to Montenegro to relax with a friend.
The winner of the $30k tournament was Michael Watson.
Michael's collection includes many trophies from different series, both offline and online. But so far there is not a single World Series bracelet, where he lost heads-up 6 times.
PS. When this material was being prepared for publication, Igor Yaroshevskyy won the $50,000 Bounty Quattro tournament and earned more than a million dollars. We will talk about this tournament, as well as the main and most expensive tournaments in the series, in the next review.
