Gregoire Auzoux Wins Triton Cyprus $40,000 High Roller

Gregoire Auzoux earned his first seven-figure live poker tournament score by taking down the $40,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event at the Triton Super High Roller Series Cyprus. The Frenchman struck a heads-up deal with Robert Heidorn that ended with Auzoux pocketing $1,050,024.

Thanks to this career-best score, Auzoux now has more than $2.1 million in recorded tournament earnings to his name. The victory also netted him 924 Card Player Player of the Year points. This was his second POY-qualified final table of the year, having also placed fifth in a €50,000 buy-in event at the European Poker Tour Paris festival back in February for $280,000. He now sits in 131st place in the overall POY standings as a result.

The healthy turnout of 125 entries to the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel & Spa in North Cyprus resulted in a prize pool of $5 million that was paid out among the top 17 finishers. Day 1 of this two-day affair ended with 42 still in contention. After Maher Nouira lost a preflop coinflip to Tom Dwan to finish 18th, the remaining players all locked up at least $78,500.

By the time the final table was set, poker’s all-time money leader Justin Bonomo was in the lead while Auzoux sat in seventh position among the remaining eight competitors. Two-time Triton event winner Tom Dwan scored the first knockout when his A-10 held against the A-2 of Florencio Campomanes. Despite winning that all-in, Dwan was ultimately the next to hit the rail. He lost a chunk of his stack in a preflop race with A-K against the pocket queens of Auzoux, and then ran K-Q into the pocket queens of Bonomo to finish seventh for $222,500.

Artem Vezhenkov’s (6th – $291,000) pocket aces were cracked by the pocket tens of an ascendant Auzoux to see the field narrowed to five. Moments after that, bracelet winner Daniel Dvoress found himself all-in and at risk with pocket nines trailing the pocket kings of recent Triton Cyprus kickoff event champion Santhosh Suvarna. The bigger pair held up and Dvoress was eliminated in fifth place ($369,000). The Canadian now has more than $26.3 million in career earnings after this latest deep run.

Suvarna lost a big all-in with pocket jacks against the A-10 of Heidorn. The board double-paired with kings and queens to counterfeit Suvarna’s jacks, sending the key double to Heidorn. Suvarna’s final chips got in with pocket eights facing the A-K of Bonomo. A king-high flop gave Bonomo a big lead in the hand. Blanks on the turn and river resulted in a fourth-place finish for Suvarna, who has now cashed for nearly $1.8 million in 2023.

Bonomo slid to the bottom of the chip counts as three-handed play continued. In his last hand, he raised all-in on the flop with an open-ended straight draw. Auzoux called with top pair and avoided Bonomo’s outs to send the three-time bracelet winner packing in third place ($552,500). Bonomo now has more than $63.1 million in recorded tournament earnings, expanding his lead over second-ranked Bryn Kenney ($57.9 million) on poker’s all-time money list.

Heads-up play began with Auzoux holding 16,050,000 to Heidorn’s 8,950,000. He had a chance to close out the title when he had A-10 up against Heidorn’s pocket queens, but the German’s pocket pair held up to essentially even the playing field. Shortly after that, the two struck a deal that saw they each lock up seven-figure paydays, while setting aside $40,000 and the title to play for.

Shortly after the agreement was finalized, all of the chips got in with Auzoux’s A-K leading the A-4 of Heidorn. Neither player improved and Auzoux doubled up to take roughly a 30:1 lead. In the end, it was J2 for Auzoux against the Q6 of Heidorn. The board ran out K427K to give Auzoux kings and deuces for the win. Heidorn left with the $1,057,976 that he had negotiated for, which was the largest payday of his career. He now has more than $4.2 million in lifetime cashes.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Photo credit: Triton Poker / Joe Giron.

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