‘Gambledore’ Stuns High Rollers At Triton Monte Carlo

The Triton Poker Super High Roller Series held its most recent stop in Monaco, with 14 events taking place inside Sporting Monte-Carlo. A staggering $118.3 million in prize money was awarded throughout the series, putting the average prize pool at just shy of $8.5 million. Every event awarded at least seven figures, with four eight-figure prize pools among them.
Patrik Antonius Earns Career-Best Score
While Patrik Antonius is a Poker Hall of Famer with $29 million in career tournament earnings, along with millions more won online and in cash games, he had his hands full with a stacked final table in the $200,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em invitational. Some of the world’s best high-stakes crushers were on hand to battle Antonius for the $5,130,000 first-place prize, but it was a complete unknown that ended up giving him the most trouble.
After three days of play, the field of 102 had been whittled down to just two, Antonius, and 69-year-old businessman and poker novice Vladimir Korzinin. The Estonian, who admitted on the live stream that he didn’t “know how to play,” became a viewer favorite for his wild and unconventional decisions and was even dubbed ‘Gambledore’ by those in the chat for his bearded resemblance to the Harry Potter character.
Korzinin had Antonius on the ropes at one point, and would have won the tournament had he found a hero call during heads-up play, but Antonius was able to fight back for the title and the $5.13 million payout.
“Obviously, it feels really special at home,” said the Finnish pro, who has lived in Monaco for more than a decade. “A bit surreal. It was not easy today.”
Although Antonius normally focuses on cash games, it’s been a great year on the high roller circuit for the 43-year-old former model and tennis standout. In March, he took fourth in the Triton Jeju $100,000 event for $1.7 million, and then in April, he returned home to win the €100,000 EPT Monte Carlo high roller for $2.2 million.
Korzinin settled for $3.47 million, which was only his third recorded cash. In October, he took third in a $10,000 EPT Cyprus side event for $78,300 for his first-ever in-the-money finish.
This event featured a unique format where amateur players invite poker pros to play, but are segregated in their own field to start the tournament. The field is then combined on day 3.
Plenty of notables ran deep in this event, including Brian Kim (15th), Nick Petrangelo (14th), Chris Brewer (13th), Linus Loeliger (12th), five-time Triton champion Mikita Badziakouski (6th), Roman Hrabec (4th), and 2022 WSOP main event champion Espen Jorstad (3rd).
‘Gambledore’ Gets The Win In $150,000 Event
Just a handful of days removed from his close call in the $200,000 buy-in invitational, Vladimir Korzinin managed to battle his way down to the final two in another nosebleed-stakes event. This time around, it was a $150,000 buy-in high roller that drew 121 entries to build an $18,150,000 prize pool.
On just his fourth recorded live tournament score, Korzinin managed to come away with the title and the gigantic top prize of $4,350,000. He now has more than $7.9 million in recorded earnings, with all but $109,300 of that coming from his unbelievable one-two punch in the largest buy-in events at this series.
The enigma of a man offered no words in any requests for interviews after the big win but did leave a few notes scribbled on hotel stationery, writing, “You cannot lose, if you do not want to win and be better than everybody else.”
He then signed the note as Santa Claus, another one of his nicknames earned during the series.
The top 20 players made the money in this event, with familiar faces at the final table in Sam Greenwood (8th), Dan Smith (6th), Stephen Chidwick (5th), Bryn Kenney (4th), and Fedor Holz (3rd).
Ossi Ketola was the eventual runner-up. Like Korzinin, Ketola was also a complete unknown before the series. The Finnish player with the funky hat showed up in Monte Carlo and final tabled the $40,000 mystery bounty event for $247,000 and then added two min cashes in high rollers worth $183,000 and $218,000 respectively, before making his deep run in this event.
The last hand was befitting of the bizarre tournament as Ketola and Korzinin got their chips into the middle on a board reading Q♠ J♣ 10♥ 7♣. Ketola was ahead holding Q♣ 6♥ for top pair, and Korzinin held second pair with a flush draw sitting on 10♣ 6♣.
The river brought the 9♣ to complete the flush draw, although Korzinin was not immediately aware that he won the tournament. He thought he was accepting applause as the runner-up, but was quickly informed of the good news that he was the champion.
Ketola took home $2,970,000 million, giving him more than $3.6 million for the series overall.
Bryn Kenney Extends Lead On All-Time Money List With Main Event Victory
When the stakes are high, Bryn Kenney seems to find a different level in his game. The New York native has always excelled on poker’s biggest stages, finding ways to close when life-changing money is on the line.
Nowhere has the 38-year-old been more successful than on the Triton tour. In fact, of his $72.4 million in recorded earnings, $43.3 million has been won at Triton tournaments, including the $20.6 million he banked in the £1 million buy-in Triton London Charity Invitational half a decade ago.
Kenney’s latest score was worth $4,410,000, taking down the $125,000 main event in Monte Carlo for his fourth Triton title overall. Already poker’s all-time money list leader, Kenney has now opened his lead over second-ranked Justin Bonomo by more than $6 million and is $13 million clear of the pack behind him. (See pg. 49)
“Never give up, that’s the secret, for sure,” Kenney told Triton reporters after taking down this event for his third-largest career payday. “Everyone has their roller coaster, their wave that they’re on… You just got to hang on for the ride. Give it your best, don’t let things get you down, and never stop fighting. I’ve put my life into poker. It’s been quite the mountain climbing. Incredibly lucky, grateful, blessed.”
The event drew 159 entries, which created a total prize pool of $19,875,000. The final 27 players made the money, including a final table consisting of Danny Tang (7th), Jonathan Jaffe (5th), Haralabos Voulgaris (4th), and Punnat Punsri (3rd).
Punsri managed three final-table finishes during this festival, cashing for more than $3.2 million across those scores. The Thai poker pro now has 18 final tables on the year, with two titles won along the way. As a result, he now sits in fourth place in the POY standings presented by Global Poker.
Wai Leong Chan took home $2,970,000 as the runner-up, his third multi-million-dollar score.
Jesse Lonis and Alex Foxen Make POY Moves
Punsri wasn’t the only player to make big moves near the top of the POY rankings thanks to this festival. Jesse Lonis climbed all the way into second place thanks to his two final-table finishes, bringing his total up to 21 for the year.
Lonis’ biggest score of the series saw him beat none other than Punsri heads-up in the $50,000 no-limit hold’em event a couple of days prior to the main event. Lonis outlasted a field of 125 entries for $1,502,000 and 1,122 POY points. With 8,702 points, three titles, and more than $6.5 million in POY earnings, Lonis now trails top-ranked Adrian Mateos by 1,472 points.
The two-time bracelet winner now has more than $14.4 million in career earnings, with this being his second-largest payday yet.
In addition to Punsri, Mario Mosbock (6th), Leonard Maue (4th), and Dan Smith (3rd) also joined Lonis at the final table.
Alex Foxen joined the top 10 in the POY standings with a win in another $50,000 buy-in event. This victory put a fitting punctuation mark on a recent hot streak that saw the 33-year-old American poker star secure his second WSOP bracelet, which he won in the online series in a $500 mystery bounty PLO event. Foxen also took second in the WSOP Europe €25,000 buy-in high roller and made three final tables at the recent PokerGO Tour PLO Series II festival.
The former college football player defeated a field of 147 entries in this event, topping fellow two-time bracelet winner Aleksejs Ponakovs heads-up to earn $1,470,000 and 1,224 POY points. This was Foxen’s 19th final table finish and second title of 2024. His 6,229 total points are good for ninth place on the POY leaderboard. That puts him one pip ahead of Ponakovs, who has made 14 final tables this year to claim the 10th-place spot in the standings.
Foxen has finished inside the top 10 for the last six years, and is looking to make it seven in a row with a strong finish to 2024.
Martirosian Triumphs Twice
This festival featured two turbo bounty events, with one being contested over no-limit hold’em and the other in pot-limit Omaha. Both were ultimately won by Russia’s Artur Martirosian, an EPT champion and two-time bracelet winner.
Martirosian’s first knockout title came in the $30,000 no-limit hold’em turbo, which drew 105 entries. He walked away with $891,000 from the main prize pool after topping a final table that included the likes of Espen Jorstad (8th), Ben Tollerene (7th), David Benefield (6th), Ren Lin (5th), and Adrian Mateos (4th).
Just over a week later, he came out on top from a field of 75 in the $25,000 PLO turbo bounty, adding another $525,000 to bring his career haul to nearly $21 million.
All told, Martirosian cashed seven times for more than $2.5 million at the series, with three final-table showings earning him 1,764 POY points. That brought his total on the year to 4,988 points, which is good for 18th place in the standings. He has won six titles in total this year from 12 total final-table finishes.
Eelis Parssinen Proves PLO Dominance
Finnish pot-limit Omaha star Eelis Parssinen scored more than $2.27 million for taking down the $100,000 PLO event, growing his career earnings to nearly $9.4 million. The vast majority of that money has been earned across his 42 recorded cashes in PLO tournaments.
Parssinen was already on top of the PLO money list before this win, sitting just ahead of American pro Dylan Weisman. Weisman bubbled this tournament, however, while Parssinen’s victory earned him a career-best score to put him well in front of the pack with nearly $7.4 million in PLO cashes. Weisman remains second on the list with more than $4.6 million in PLO earnings to his name.
Parssinen was the last player standing from a field of 87 entries in this four-card clash. He outlasted big names like Alex Foxen (6th), Phil Ivey (5th), Sean Winter (4th), and Daniel Dvoress (2nd) down the stretch.
The Rest Of The Best
The series kicked off with a $25,000 event which drew 170 entries. Brian Kim came out on top, earning $941,000 for the win. This was the third-largest score yet for Kim, who finished seventh in this year’s WSOP main event.
This was Kim’s first Triton title after 18 pervious cashes on the high-stakes tour. Kim added three more by the time the festival was done. He now has more than $11 million in earnings, with more than $6.9 million of that coming from his success in Triton events.
Kayhan Mokri has been a tournament-closing machine over the past few months. He has made six final tables since Aug. 28, and come away with the title in four. The Norwegian’s latest trip to the winner’s circle came in the $30,000 no-limit event, which had 144 entries. The $1,005,000 top prize was the second-largest of his career, trailing only the $1,523,386 he earned for winning the €100,000 high roller at EPT Barcelona in September of this year.
Roman Hrabec is also having a career-best year on the high-stakes scene. The Czech former pro hockey player’s three largest scores have all come in 2024, including the $4.3 million he locked up as the winner of the $100,000 buy-in main event at the Triton Jeju stop this spring. The next pair of scores both came at this stop. He beat a field of 155 entries in the $40,000 mystery bounty event for nearly $1.2 million before adding another $1.9 million with a fourth-place showing in the $200,000 buy-in. With three titles and nine final tables, Hrabec has climbed to 15th in the POY race.
The fourth-largest prize pool of the series was created by the 131 entries made in the $100,000 no-limit event. The $13.1 million was paid out among the top 23 finishers, with Belgian bracelet winner Pieter Aerts seizing the title and $2.2 million as the champion. The final handful of contenders in this event included several of the most accomplished players in the game, including Steve O’Dwyer (5th), Mario Mosbock (4th), Fedor Holz (3rd), and Michael Soyza (2nd). Both Mosbock and Holz managed multiple seven-figure cashes at this series.
Ukraine’s Igor Yaroshevskyy has earned all of his top five tournament scores in Triton events. His latest saw him navigate his way through a 61-entry field in the $60,000 turbo event to secure his second title on the tour and $862,357 in prize money.
Ben Tollerene took down his second major pot-limit Omaha tournament in just over a three-week span by emerging victorious in the $50,000 PLO six-max event. The 82-entry field resulted in a $4,100,000 prize pool, with $1,070,000 for Tollerene as the champion. A month prior, Tollerene won the $25,000 finale at the PGT PLO Series II for $496,000. Just over a month before that, Tollerene also won the final event (albeit in no-limit hold’em) at the Poker Masters. The longtime high-stakes online cash game star now has nearly $18 million in recorded tournament cashes after this title spree of the past few months. ♠

Triton Super High Roller Series – Sporting Monte-Carlo – Monte Carlo, Monaco

Event Player Payout (POY)
$25,000 NLH

Nov. 1-3

Entries: 170
Prizepool: $4,250,000 1 Brian Kim $941,000 (1,092)
2 Enrico Camosci $634,000 (910)
3 Alexandros Theologis $436,000 (728)
4 Roberto Perez $356,000 (546)
5 Tom Fuchs $284,000 (455)
6 Dominykas Mikolaitis $218,000 (364)
7 Aleksejs Ponakovs $159,000 (273)
8 Ranno Sootla $115,000 (182)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$30,000 NLH

Nov. 2-3

Entries: 144
Prizepool: $4,320,000 1 Kayhan Mokri $1,005,000 (1,008)
2 Paulius Vaitiekunas $680,000 (840)
3 Alex Kulev $454,000 (672)
4 Orpen Kisacikoglu $371,000 (504)
5 Patrik Antonius $298,000 (420)
6 Marius Kudzmanas $231,000 (336)
7 Krasimir Neychev $171,000 (252)
8 Dimitar Danchev $125,000 (168)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$40,000 NLH KO 7-Max

Nov. 3-4

Entries: 155
Prizepool: $3,100,000 1 Roman Hrabec $1,182,019 (1,008)
2 Samuel Mullur $983,000 (840)
3 Morten Klein $558,000 (672)
4 Luc Greenwood $480,000 (504)
5 Ossi Ketola $247,000 (420)
6 Artur Martirosian $639,000 (336)
7 Punnat Punsri $196,000 (252)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$50,000 NLH

Nov. 4-5

Entries: 147
Prizepool: $7,350,000 1 Alex Foxen $1,470,000 (1,224)
2 Aleksejs Ponakovs $915,000 (1,020)
3 Marius Kudzmanas $922,000 (816)
4 Dominykas Mikolaitis $964,000 (612)
5 Liang Xu $507,000 (510)
6 Kiat Lee $393,000 (408)
7 Quan Zhou $291,000 (306)
8 Lun Loon $214,000 (204)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$100,000 NLH

Nov. 5-6

Entries: 131
Prizepool: $13,100,000 1 Pieter Aerts $2,234,587 (1,320)
2 Michael Soyza $2,305,000 (1,100)
3 Fedor Holz $1,528,097 (880)
4 Mario Mosbock $1,544,316 (660)
5 Steve O’Dwyer $904,000 (550)
6 Kiat Lee $701,000 (440)
7 Roland Rokita $519,000 (330)
8 Christoph Vogelsang $381,000 (220)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$30,000 NLH KO

Nov. 6

Entries: 105
Prizepool: $3,150,000 1 Artur Martirosian $891,000 (840)
2 Nikita Kuznetsov $438,000 (700)
3 Jamil Wakil $353,000 (560)
4 Adrian Mateos $313,000 (420)
5 Ren Lin $236,000 (350)
6 David Benefield $163,000 (280)
7 Benjamin Tollerene $134,000 (210)
8 Espen Jorstad $111,000 (140)
9 Paulius Vaitiekunas $93,000 (70)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$200,000 Invitational

Nov. 7-9

Entries: 102
Prizepool: $20,400,000 1 Patrik Antonius $5,130,000
2 Vladimir Korzinin $3,470,000
3 Espen Jorstad $2,255,000
4 Roman Hrabec $1,867,000
5 Mikalai Vaskaboinikau $1,506,000
6 Mikita Badziakouski $1,188,000
7 Konstantin Maslak $908,000
8 Tan Xuan $684,000
9 Morten Klein $510,000

Event Player Payout (POY)
$50,000 NLH 7-Max

Nov. 8-9

Entries: 125
Prizepool: $6,250,000
1 Jesse Lonis $1,502,000 (1,122)
2 Punnat Punsri $1,021,000 (935)
3 Dan Smith $675,000 (748)
4 Leonard Maue $556,000 (561)
5 Daniel Rezaei $446,000 (468)
6 Mario Mosbock $350,000 (374)
7 Anson Ewe $262,000 (281)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$125,000 NLH

Nov. 9-11

Entries: 159
Prizepool: $19,875,000 1 Bryn Kenney $4,410,000 (1,440)
2 Wai Leong Chan $2,970,000 (1,200)
3 Punnat Punsri $2,045,000 (960)
4 Haralabos Voulgaris $1,665,000 (720)
5 Jonathan Jaffe $1,330,000 (600)
6 Mario Mosbock $1,020,000 (480)
7 Danny Tang $743,000 (360)
8 Thomas Muhlocker $538,000 (240)
9 Jesse Lonis $445,000 (120)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$60,000 NLH

Nov. 10

Entries: 61
Prizepool: $3,660,000 1 Igor Yaroshevskyy $862,357 (612)
2 Alexandros Theologis $860,143 (510)
3 Dominykas Mikolaitis $468,900 (408)
4 Lucas Greenwood $360,000 (306)
5 Aleksejs Ponakovs $285,500 (255)
6 Leon Sturm $223,200 (204)
7 Ren Lin $175,700 (153)
8 Thomas Boivin $137,200 (102)
9 David Yan $104,000 (51)
Event Player Payout (POY)
$150,000 NLH

Nov. 11-13

Entries: 121
Prizepool: $18,150,000 1 Vladimir Korzinin $4,350,000 (1,320)
2 Ossi Ketola $2,970,000 (1,100)
3 Fedor Holz $1,962,000 (880)
4 Bryn Kenney $1,616,000 (660)
5 Stephen Chidwick $1,300,000 (550)
6 Dan Smith $1,016,000 (440)
7 Tom Fuchs $762,000 (330)
8 Sam Greenwood $562,000 (220)

Event Player Payout (POY)
$50,000 PLO 6-Max

Nov. 12-13

Entries: 82
Prizepool: $4,100,000 1 Benjamin Tollerene $1,070,000 (816)
2 Michael Duek $736,000 (680)
3 Anonymous NA
4 Quan Zhou $393,000 (408)
5 Joni Jouhkimainen $314,500 (340)
6 Mads Amot $244,500 (272)

Event Player Payout (POY)
$100,000 PLO

Nov. 13-14

Entries: 87
Prizepool: $8,700,000 1 Eelis Parssinen $2,270,000 (960)
2 Daniel Dvoress $1,563,000 (800)
3 Espen Myrmo $1,029,000 (640)
4 Sean Winter $836,000 (480)
5 Phil Ivey $667,000 (400)
6 Alex Foxen $518,000 (320)
7 Mads Amot $409,000 (240)
8 Haralabos Voulgaris $311,000 (160)
9 Jonas Kronwitter $231,000 (80)

Event Player Payout (POY)
$25,000 PLO KO

Nov. 14

Entries: 75
Prizepool: $1,875,000 1 Artur Martirosian $525,000 (588)
2 Isaac Haxton $270,000 (490)
3 Dan Smith $279,000 (392)
4 Ren Lin $304,500 (294)
5 Michael Duek $100,000 (245)
6 Ronny Kaiser $108,000 (196)
7 Richard Gryko $62,000 (147)
8 Sergio Martinez $48,000 (98)
9 Stephen Chidwick $36,500 (49)