Champion Jason Koon!

Ladies and gentlemen, in case you were ever in any doubt, Jason Koon is back.

The most decorated player in the history of the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series tonight secured the 11th title of his glittering career in the same room he won his first.

Koon took down the $150K buy-in no limit hold'em event, which rounds off the hold'em portion of this latest trip to the Maestral Resort & Casino, Montenegro.

"I just had to beat the greatest poker player of all time," Koon said in the immediate moments after his incredible success, referencing his great friend Ben Tollerene, who this time he beat heads up.

This was surely the sweetest of them all for Triton Poker's leading ambassador Koon. Not only did he pick up another sensational payday — $3,393,656 to be precise, the second biggest he's ever won — he got to share the late stages with his best buddy, as well as the lion's share of the $16.2 million prize pool.

Jason Koon and Ben Tollerene sweat the final hand together

The pair arranged an ICM chop and Tollerene took $3,437,344 too. But this was somehow about more than just the money.

"I got heads up with my best pal and mentor, inspiration to be standing here," Koon said. "About 12 years ago, whenever I first saw an elite poker player, what it took for them to be great, it was through Ben. And honestly I never thought at that time I would have the ability to be standing here."

Her added: "You see what putting your head down and working your ass off for over a decade does. Here we are, 11 wins later, winning one of the biggest ones of my career."

It's been two years since Koon last won on the Triton Poker Series, by his standards an eternity. But while everyone in the poker world knew it was only a temporary drought, Koon wasn't so sure.

"I had plenty of doubts," he said. "It was a loaded final table."

However Koon, who will turn 40 in two months, and is now a father of two young boys, has reset his life to focus more on things away from the table. And perversely, it's paying dividends back in the arena he first made his name.

"I'm just at a point in my life now where I'm very comfortable in myself," Koon said. "I have an incredible life outside poker, and what that allows me to do is sit down and feel free and play my best. At this final table, I think I did a good job of executing and I played to the best of my abilities."

That's a frightening prospect for anyone who sets foot in the same poker room, including Tollerene, for whom Koon reserved special praise.

"The thing with Ben and I, we're both committed to the game," Koon said. "We're committed to executing a strategy that we know is optimal. And so if you watch him and I play poker hands, it can become pretty violent. It's paradoxical, you have somebody you love so much as a person but we just rip each other's faces off. We wouldn't respect one another if we didn't play absolutely as hard as we could."

Tonight all the skills and learning took Koon past a characteristically cutthroat final table, featuring not only Tollerene but Phil Ivey, Christoph Vogelsang, Isaac Haxton and Matthias Eibinger, all sensational players in their own right.

But when Triton is in town, there's no one who can hold a torch to this man. Koon is still head and shoulders above all the rest.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The tournament had the second-biggest buy-in of the entire Triton Montenegro schedule, which of course meant an enormous bubble. With 17 players due to be paid, you might have thought it would prove to be a tortuous period in the run-up to the money, but not so.

In the space of four hands, the field trimmed from 20 players to 17.

Andrew Leatham, a Triton champion in Vietnam a couple of years ago, got his short stack in with 10[9 and lost to Matthias Eibinger's K6. But then on the same table -- the feature table, no less -- two Triton titans butted heads.

Jason Koon had a big stack, and after Patrik Antonius raised from the button, Koon jammed from the big blind and got Antonius to fold. But it was the next hand that was the really big one.

Bryn Kenney found QQ and raised under the gun from a 25-blind stack. Koon, in the small blind, called with A4 and saw a low, connected flop of 736. Koon led at it.

Bryn Kenney fell just short of the money

Kenney, with his over-pair, raised, and Koon applied the maximum pressure with a covering jam, putting Kenney at risk one from the cash. Kenney is hardly scared money in any tournament, and he committed his last chips. The 10 offered Koon nothing, but the 5 filled his gutshot and sent Kenney out the door.

The tournament moved to the official hand-for-hand period, but it didn't require any real intervention from the staff to oversee this sometimes tricky phase. On one of the outer tables, Barak Wisbrod open-jammed his seven blinds and Ben Tolerene, with one of the biggest stacks in the room, called from one seat to his left.

The other players folded and the at-risk Wisbrod tabled his pocket 10s. Tollerene's KQ was in a straight race, and sped ahead after the 4K5 flop. There was nothing for Wisbrod to cheer through neither the 9 turn nor the 8 river, and that took everyone into the money.

Wisbrod departed the tournament room. Poseidon Ho, the shortest stack in the room, shook Eibinger's hand in celebration of making the money. Ho was out soon after, but was the first to be paid. And in this case, it was for more than a quarter of a million dollars.

A stone bubble for Barak Wisbrod

Koon used the elimination of Kenney as his springboard to take him to the very top of the counts. Though there was some movement lower down the leader board, Koon remained in the lead as the tournament closed in on its final. Wayne Heung moved upward thanks to his elimination of both Talal Shakerchi and Patrik Antonius, while Matthias Eibinger busted both Dan Dvoress and Klemens Roiter on the other table.

That took them down to a nine-handed final and the following stacks:

Jason Koon - 5,370,000 (67 BBs)

Matthias Eibinger - 3,670,000 (46 BBs)

Wayne Heung - 2,955,000 (37 BBs)

Ben Tollerene - 2,895,000 (36 BBs)

Eelis Parssinen - 1,720,000 (22 BBs)

Phil Ivey - 1,480,000 (19 BBs)

Wiktor Malinowski - 1,285,000 (16 BBs)

Christoph Vogelsang - 1,125,000 (14 BBs)

Isaac Haxton - 1,110,000 (14 BBs)

Event 12 final table players (clockwise from back left): Eelis Parssinen, Phil Ivey, Matthias Eibinger, Christoph Vogelsang, Ben Tollerene, Wayne Heung, Jason Koon, Wiktor Malinowski, Isaac Haxton.

If the run up to the final had been mainly about Koon, Eibinger and Heung, the man starting the final fourth in chips quickly came to the party. Ben Tollerene rapidly picked off the two players at the bottom of the counts, taking AQ to beat Isaac Haxton's AJ and then roughly the same hand, AQ, beating Christoph Vogelsang's A8.

Haxton's trip to Montenegro has been middling so far, with one previous final table and one other in-the-money run. But he's also a PLO player, so will take his $405,000 payout from this one and almost certainly reinvest in the four-card streets as he continues a search for a first title.

Ninth place for Isaac Haxton

Vogelsang, meanwhile, keeps it strictly hold'em and he's surely going to look back fondly on this trip. He finished 10th in the Mystery Bounty, 19th in the Invitational and then fourth, for nearly $1.5 million in the $100K Main Event.

Making the final table here meant Vogelsang cashed all three of the biggest buy-in events on the NLH schedule, and added $543,000 to his coffers for eighth place on his last night.

The end of a tremendous trip for Christoph Vogelsang

Koon still led, but his close friend Tollerene was now breathing down his neck in second place. And the pair continued to hog the spotlight as all bar Eibinger of their opponents had to dig deep and stay disciplined with stacks getting reliably smaller.

Koon knocked out Wiktor Malinowski next. The Polish player, best known as "limitless" after his online name, might have been out on two previous occasions, but had wriggled off the line twice.

In one intriguing hand, he took K10 up against Koon from the small blind and ended the hand with trips after a 9831010 runout. However, he smelt something fishy about Koon's river jam, especially as the American had been betting every post-flop street. Malinowski foled on the river and Koon didn't get fully paid with his J5. It was an incredible fold from Malinowski.

That earned him a ladder (Vogelsang busted soon after this hand) amd then Malinowski also found a jack when all in with AJ against Heung's AQ. But his stack slid again, and Malinowski was forced to jam from the button with Q7. Koon picked him off successfully this time, with A6 holding.

Malinowski, who won the $200K event here last year for $4.8 million, had to settle for $721,000 and seventh place this time.

Jason Koon, right, got Wiktor Malinowski in the end

Koon threatened to run away with it, but Tollerene refused to let him go. They were the two significant leaders, but still found time to play a pot against one another, with Koon check-raising a flop of 925. Tollerene was having none of it and three-bet shoved. The other tiny stacks were surely desperate for Koon to call and help them move up a spot, but he let it go. It was only after the hand appeared on the stream that we learned what they had: Koon was at it with K4. Tollerene was going nowhere with pocket aces.

Ben Tollerene sees the funny side after the two big stacks went at it.

They went on a tournament break, and on his return Eelis Parssinen was one of two players with a stack of less than eight blinds. The Finn found pocket kings, however, and ripped them in after Tollerene's early-position open.

Tollerene had pocket jacks and called immediately, setting up a delicious cooler for Parssinen. But things quickly went sour when the flop came 9J2. Parssinen picked up considerable re-draw hopes after the Q turn, but the 6 missed and he was out.

The PLO expert has done superbly well in hold'em already this trip, picking up another $943,000 here for this one. And PLO is just getting started next door.

Eelis Parssinen: 'I missed the PLO for this!?!'

Phil Ivey had a tiny stack, and had been sitting with it for a long while. He'd got a couple of shoves through, and then he doubled up with A6 through Tollerene's pocket fours. He was doing well to stick around not least because Eibinger's tournament was about to go up in flames.

Eibinger had the third biggest stack, trailing only Koon and Tollerene. And when he found pocket fives, he three-bet his button, following an open from Tollerene in the cutoff. Tollerene shoved with a covering stack, and Eibinger called for his tournament.

But he'd run into it. Tollerene had pocket kings, which held. Eibinger was torched in fifth for $1,195,000. He'll add that to the pile he won for his Turbo win earlier this week.

Matthias Eibinger: Turbo champ goes deep again

Heung was short now too, but doubled when his Q10 hit a flush to beat Tollerene's KQ. And that meant the bell eventually did toll for Ivey next. His grind came to its conclusion when he open-jammed with A5 and Koon picked up pocket sevens. Koon ended up with a full house, while Ivey ended up with $1,482,000 for fourth.

Phil Ivey finally got got in fourth

Three were left: best friends Koon and Tollerene with almost identical stacks of about 45 blinds each. Only Heung, with 17 blinds, could disrupt them.

But he could not. After some gentle three-handed jousting that did not really affect the bottom line, Heung shoved his chips in over a Tollerene button raise and the co-leader called. Tollerene was way ahead with A10 against Heung's 109, but a nine on the flop made it interesting.

However, the full board ran KJ9Q8 and that was a straight for Tollerene. It was the end of the party for Heung, whose new career best score is $1,790,000 he gets for third in this one. He left the old buddies to it.

Wayne Heung hits the rail in third

Koon and Tollerene are not only good friends, they are the biggest cheerleaders for each other's game, repeatedly naming one another when asked who they most respect in poker. It was only to be expected that they immediately asked to see the numbers and agreed an ICM chop immediately.

Tollerene had a chip lead of 62 blinds to Koon's 46. And that translated into a guaranteed payout of $3,437,344 for Tollerene and $3,263,656 for Koon. There was $130,000 on the side to play for, plus the trophy and the title.

Jason Koon and Ben Tollerene heads up

During early heads-up exchanges, Tollerene only extended his lead. But then Koon doubled when all his chips went in on the turn with the board showing 6AJ9. Tollerene jammed with 85 and a huge combo draw. Koon made an excellent call for all of it with J2.

Koon called for the king of spades on the river. And, just like that, the K appeared. That was a blank and it doubled Koon to 50 blinds, with Tollerene left with 36.

The next big confrontation was the last.

This time, the chips went in pre-flop, with Koon holding 66 and Tollerene sitting with A9. It was a straight race. "Let's sweat it together buddy," Koon said as the pals stopped and watch the dealer decide their fate.

Ben Tollerene congratulates Jason Koon

The flop was blank. The turn was too. And the river missed both of them as well, which meant only one thing.

Koon, the winningest player on the Triton Series, had done it once again. Eleven. Simply stunning.

"It's bizarre," Koon said. "There's been a lot of drama happen for me at this table. Some ups and downs, some big cash game pots and some big tournament wins. I just can't believe I'm still here doing it. I've been with Triton seven years now and it's incredible."