Champion Ben Tollerene!

Ben Tollerene had had, in his own words, something of a difficult trip to the Triton Series Monte Carlo this time, cashing only once and narrowly missing the money on multiple occasions. One of those happened late on Tuesday night, when he soft bubbled the $150K no limit hold’em event and looked pained as he walked from the tournament stage.

But the Triton Series always offers redemption, and Tollerene quickly found it in the $50K PLO event, which he entered moments after busting from the other one.

Tollerene, 37, successfully navigated his way through a field full of Nordic PLO specialists — plus a titanic bubble — ending heads up tonight with fellow American Michael Duek. Tollerene, who is hardly a stranger to PLO himself having crushed the online games for years as “ben86”, polished Duek off too in double-quick time to land a $1,070,000 first prize and a second Triton title.

“It’s great,” Tollerene said. “I was having a terrible trip. A couple of bubbles. I was just excited to play a different game, play some PLO, and there’s not much more to it.”

He added that he had some history with a lot of the PLO-only cohort who came to Monte Carlo, and enjoys keeping up with new trends in the game.

“I have played with a lot of them but it’s been a little while,” he said. “Some things stay the same and some things change and evolve in the game. But I have a decent feel for what they’re up to.”

He added that there’s plenty of enthusiasm remaining for a return to the Triton Series for upcoming stops.

“My plan is to definitely play Triton. I really enjoy the staff and the people and the way they run everything. I’ll definitely be playing Triton in the future.”

With another $1m in the account, this terrible trip suddenly got a lot brighter.

Michael Duek was defeated heads up

The tournament numbers here in Monte Carlo have been buoyant, and this positive trend extended into the PLO portion of the schedule, which attracted 82 entries. That meant 14 places would be paid.

Even so, there was no way to predict what happened as the bubble approached. In short, nobody got knocked out. Despite multiple short-stacked players spread across the three remaining tables, whenever someone was all-in, they doubled up.

It eventually broke a Triton record. There were 39 — THIRTY-NINE! — hands of hand-for-hand play on the stone bubble, which extended to 3:30am. If someone was in the big blind with only one blind to their name, they doubled. It was simply unburstable.

It’s always incredible unlucky to eventually end up on the wrong side of this equation, but in this instance it was doubly true. However, American pro Sean Winter eventually ran out of good fortune and chips. J 8 2 His  lost to Ben Tollerene’s . Tollerene paired his seven, and that was enough.

They bagged for the night with 14 players left, six of whom had stacks of less than five big blinds. Jonas Kronwitter had precisely 25,000 in chips, with the big blind at 50,000. It was the bare minimum he could have had to scrape into the money.

When they returned for the second day, there were few immediate surprises. The players who were all critically short departed, meaning Kronwitter, Luc Greenwood, Jason Koon et al headed out the door, leaving the following to assemble around a final table of seven.

They lined up as follows:

Joni Jouhkimainen – 4.25m (85 BBs)

Ben Tollerene – 3.7m (74 BBs)

Maxi Lehmanski – 3.55, (71 BBs)

Zhou Quan – 1.845m (37 BBs)

Michael Duek – 1.83m (37 BBs)

Espen Myrmo – 670,000 (13 BBs)

Mads Amot – 555,000 (11 BBs)

TOURNAMENT ACTION

Triton Monte Carlo Event 13 final table players (clockwise from back left): Ben Tollerene, Mads Amot, Michael Duek, Maxi Lehmanski, Espen Myrmo, Zhou Quan, Joni Joukimainen

Keen followers of action on the Triton Series will notice that only two of those final seven — Tollerene and Quan — had also played the hold’em phase of tournaments. It underlines the specialism of the PLO players; this is a markedly different discipline, especially at these stakes.

Norway’s Espen Myrmo was one such PLO specialist who had made it to the Triton Series for the first time. He had made it into the money and then to the final table in his first tournament, but his run ended in seventh.

Myrmo got involved against Zhou Quan, with half his stack going in pre-flop holding A K J  and the rest going in after a flop of  .

Zhou had Q Q 3  and so this actually seemed a lot like a hold’em hand, with pocket queens up against ace-king suited, which flopped a flush draw. The turn of  and river  were blanks, and Myrmo’s tournament ended with a $193,000 payout.

Event13_Day2

This turned out to be a bad passage of play for Norwegians as Mads Amot followed Myrmo out the door. Amot is a relative veteran by the standards of the PLO specialists (he’s playing his third Triton) but he ran his A Q 7

Amot took $244,500 for sixth and headed over to the PLO Main Event.

A rap on the table and Mads Amot is gone

Joni Joukemainen had come to this final table with a considerable chip lead, but the inherent turbulence had not been kind to him and he’d seen that lead totally swallowed up. Joukemainen was the short stack when he looked down at A K Q  and put in a pot-sized pre-flop raise, for essentially half his stack.

After Tollerene three-bet with A J 9 , Joukemainen called for the rest of it. His flush draw was covered, and Tollerene had that pair of jacks too. But after a board of , Tollerene had Joukemainen crushed.

The Finlander won $314,500 for this one, his first Triton cash.

Nordic challenge ended with Joni Joukemainen

The Nordic challenge ended with Joukemainen and left two Americans to take on one Chinese and a German. One of those Americans, Tollerene, was making the running, while the other was propping up the final four.

Tollerene, however, continued his dominance and sent Quan to the rail next. They played it slowly as a flop of 7 6 J was followed by the  turn. All the money went in here, and no surprise. Quan had top set with   while Tollerene had   for a massive combo draw.

The  river gave Tollerene a flush and Quan was out in fourth for $393,000.

Zhou Quan’s tournament ended in fourth

The all-American final was only one step away, but Maxi Lehmanski had shown few chinks in his armour. Duek had picked up some chips in a significant pot with Quan, and he now also had Lehmanski covered. After a single raise from Duek in the small blind, Lehmanski called in the big and they went to a flop of 3 9 7.

Lehmanski, with QQ J  bet, but Duek had a big draw with  and jammed with the covering stack. Lehmanski called, and the  made Duek the straight he was looking for.

Lehmanski perished in third for $485,000.

Maxi Lehmanski left the two Americans to it

Tollerene led Duek by 43 BBs to 23 heads up, but this was not one of the epic heads-up encounters. That’s because Tollerene was able to quickly polish it off in a total of three hands, winning every one of them.

The most significant turned out to be the final hand too, with Duek opening  and Tollerene calling with . Tollerene check-raised all in after a flop of 2 4 Q and Duek called with his flush draw.

It missed, however, and Tollerene was champion, adding a PLO title to the hold’em event he won on his debut in Cyprus in 2022.

As for Duek, his second Triton career cash earned him $736,000. One suspects both will be heading quickly for the PLO Main Event too.

New champion, Ben Tollerene