Champion Isaac Haxton

Tournament poker's most enduring but baffling hoodoo finally lifted in Jeju, South Korea, on Sunday night when Isaac Haxton, without question the best poker player never to secure a title on the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series, finally got a win to his name.

It's not like he hadn't been trying. Haxton played the first ever Triton tournament nearly a decade ago, and has been making final tables time and time again on the tour.

But the title still eluded him and the curse continued to mystify everyone who has followed poker for the best part of a decade. Haxton is a generational talent, named by everyone as consistently in the top five players in the world, who has continually crushed these highly prestigious events. Yet somehow he still couldn't get over the line.

But finally here in Jeju, in the month he turned 40, Haxton picked up the win. He did it in style too, taking down the $100K PLO Main Event for $2,789,000, and denying Nacho Barbero a back-to-back triumph. He also won an exclusive Jacob & Co timepiece, reserved only for Main Event champions.

"It feels pretty good, yeah," a relieved Haxton told Triton commentator Ali Nejad in his winner's interview. "This is the outcome I was hoping for."

A winner at last

The questioning obviously turned to the long trophy drought, made all the more confounding by the stats behind it. Before this final, Haxton had cashed 64 times on the Triton Poker Series, made 34 final tables and finished runner-up six times.

By anyone's reckoning, this too had been a superlative trip to Jeju for Haxton, who had played 11 tournaments and cashed all but three of them, making three final tables. If the hoodoo was ever going to lift, surely this is the stop at which he'd get it done.

"There's a lot of noise in poker," Haxton said. "I've won in other places, obviously. I've made a lot of final tables, it was bound to work out eventually."

Referencing his new life milestone (he turned 40 on September 6), he said: "I think it might be a good decade."

In order to finally get over the line, Haxton needed to beat a highly-competitive final table featuring many of the best PLO players in the world. There were a lot of chips in play and some unusual table dynamics, but there's no puzzle in poker Haxton can't unpick.

"I was kind of waiting for spots, keeping pots small, hoping I could find some good spots I could navigate and it kind of worked out," he said.

The moment that seemed destined never to come

He then turned his attention to the future of the Triton Poker Series as well as his own, referencing how far the tour has come since he was among a small cadre of players who flew to Manilla in 2016 for the first, solitary event.

Haxton said: "The future looks bright. This is a great festival, a great venue for it. And seeing Triton ONE take off it's pretty cool."

Nejad then asked him if the win will suddenly give him the confidence to improve his form even more. But Haxton was pragmatic.

"I was pretty confident already," he said. "I don't think I need anymore."

TOURNAMENT ACTION

After a triumphant Triton ONE and then buoyant short-deck and hold'em phases of the Super High Roller Series, all eyes switched to the four-card wizards. And with a six-figure buy-in, this tournament wasn't just for the dabblers.

But the Triton Poker Series has steadily risen to become to go-to tour for all serious PLO players and numbers edged rapidly upward through the day-and-a-bit of registration. In all, the 116 entries, including 66 re-entries, broke Triton's record for a six-figure buy=in PLO event.

It meant a prize pool of $11.6 million and a near-$2.8 million first prize.

Of the sizeable field, only 19 players would be paid and the tournament's pace predictably dropped as then money bubble approached. Bjorn Li, fresh from some profitable heads-up matches against Ossi Ketola, perished in 22nd. Then Ding Biao went out in 21st, leaving a handful of players on sub-10 blind stacks sweating towards a tournament break.

Nacho Barbero, a champion the previous day, doubled on the stone bubble. On an outer table, Martin Dam noted to his table-mates that only four players in the room had more than the average stack, and each of them had absolutely piles. Those players were more than comfortable. The rest of the field was bunched and panicked.

But then, on the cusp of the break, Liu Shixia took the fall. The Chinese player, with six blinds, called from under the gun holding 10986. Gergo Nagy, in the small blind, completed and David Wang checked his option.

The dealer put the J86 on the table. That was bottom two pair for Liu, plus a big draw, and after Nagy bet, Liu got it all in. Nagy had QJ92 and improved to a better two pair after the 9 turn. Liu stood up to leave and the 3 river didn't give him any reason to sit back down.

Liu Shixia bubbled the Main Event

The bubble was a thing of the past and the 19 left could now focus on the final table. After more of the same for the next six hours, the following emerged with chips to take into the final day:

Jesse Lonis - 7,985,000 (133 BBs)

Issac Haxton - 7,245,000 (121 BBs)

Rahul Byrraju - 6,655,000 (111 BBs)

Robert Cowen - 2,450,000 (41 BBs)

Danny Tang - 1,970,000 (33 BBs)

Nacho Barbero - 1,440,000 (24 BBs)

Klemens Roiter - 1,250,000 (21 BBs)

PLO Main Event final table players (clockwise from back left): Danny Tang, Robert Cowen, Jesse Lonis, Nacho Barbero, Klemens Roiter, Rahul Byrraju, Isaac Haxton.

There were sub-plots aplenty among these final seven, with Jesse Lonis and Danny Tang looking to add further Main Event triumphs to their previous wins in hold'em and short deck, respectively, and Isaac Haxton once again aiming for the win that has somehow eluded him on the Triton Series. Nacho Barbero could go back to back after winning the PLO/NLH half-and-half event, while Rahul Byrraju had the chance to win a Main Event on his Triton debut.

They were astonishingly deep and everyone knew this could last a while.

Klemens Roiter got his final table off to the perfect start, all but doubling up on back-to-back hands. But his third excellent pre-flop holding of AKKJ would prove to be the last cards he saw in this one. Nacho Barbero had AA105 and they bet and raised enough to get it all in pre-flop.

Roiter's hand couldn't catch up and he was knocked out in seventh for $489,000. Barbero, meanwhile, had already doubled in a massive pot against Lonis and had a stack to challenge. Indeed, this proved to be just the start of a charge to the top.

Klemens Roiter: A terrific series for the Austrian

Barbero won a big pot from Rahul Byrraju and then chipped up steadily to supplant first Lonis and then Isaac Haxton at the summit. Stacks had evened out across the board, with action resultantly slowing.

Tang had never quite managed to get his stack into the highest echelons at the final table, which left him vulnerable to precisely the kind of situation that ended up knocking him out in sixth. Tang had 14 blinds left and found KK43 in the cutoff. He put in a raise and Barbero had enough chips to defend the big blind with AK95.

Barbero led out with a pot-sized bet after the 942 flop. Tang had 10 blinds back, but committed them all with his over-pair and a splintered board. Barbero called for the tiny amount more and saw the best card he could have hoped for: the 9 on the turn. The J on the river was not one of the few outs that could help Tang and the reigning Ivan Leow Player of the Year departed. Tang won $655,000 for sixth.

Danny Tang: Reigning POY goes out in style

Shortly before Tang's elimination, Rahul Byrraju had lost a 15-blind pot to Haxton's full house, and that left the first Triton final table player representing Dominica with only 25 blinds. He then lost another chunk to Haxton's straight and he was suddenly scratching around with only two.

Jesse Lonis snaffled them from Byrraju, and the field was suddenly down to five. Byrraju's last hand, for the record, was KQ65 against Lonis' KK32. But Byrraju was close to all-in in the big blind, so there was little he could do about this. Nevertheless, his first ever Triton cash came in at $838,000.

Rahul Byrraju's fun run came to its conclusion

Robert Cowen is another relative newcomer to the Triton scene, but he's been a force on the online tables for a while, and has two WSOP bracelets, both in PLO. So his appearance in Jeju was not unexpected. Neither, it must be said, was this run to the final, although the Brit hadn't found too many spots to influence proceedings on that last day.

Though he'd won one significant pot from Haxton in the very early stages, the pair went to war significantly later on when the stack disparity was at its peak. Haxton had 137 blinds to Cowen's 15 when Cowen three-bet Haxton's open holding AKQ2.

Haxton just called, leaving Cowen with three blinds behind, as the pair took a flop of 873. Cowen stuck his chips in, and Haxton called tabling KQ107 for middle pair and a flush draw.

It ended up being enough as the 9 turn and 2 river bricked out. Like Byrraju before him, Cowen was signing for a maiden Triton cash. And at $1,037,000, one suspects he'll be coming back.

Robert Cowen enjoyed a profitable debut

Haxton had all the momentum and sat with two thirds of the chips in play.

Haxton's rise had coincided with Lonis' decline, and the overnight leader's steady slide ended at the hands of Barbero. Lonis had only 10 blinds and he opened AQ65 from the button. Barbero called from the big blind holding 101042.

Lonis caught a small piece of the 698 flop, enough to call off his last three blinds at least. But Barbero's over-pair remained the best hand through the 3 turn and 2 river. Lonis' bid to become the first person to win NLH and PLO Main Events came up short. He took $1,261,000 for third.

Jesse Lonis missed out on a double Main Event

Tournament officials reset the table for the heads-up duel. Haxton had a three-to-one lead with 144 blinds to Barbero's 50, and was by all objective metrics the overwhelming favourite for the win. But while Haxton was the man carrying the biggest Triton monkey on his back, Barbero was the opposite: he had played and beaten Adrian Mateos and Phil Ivey in his two most recent heads-up battles, so had all the confidence in the world. However, a closer look at Barbero's record showed he had played heads-up nine times on the Triton Series and lost five of them. So there was hope for everyone, even Haxton.

Nacho Barbero narrowly missed the back-to-back

As it turned out, there was no stopping Haxton, despite a heads-up duel that is worth replaying. A crazy hand played out in which Haxton held 10765 and Barbero had AK95 and then the dealer put the following on the board: 577AA.

Barbero had only a 5% chance of winning the hand on the flop, but somehow rivered the best. But for once, these two beasts were perplexed. Barbero bet his full house, and if Haxton had just called, Barbero would have won and been in the chip lead.

However, Haxton thought he was ahead and put in what he thought was a value raise. Barbero took more than two time banks to figure out what was going on, and eventually convinced himself that he was facing quads. He folded.

"I think I bluffed you by accident," Haxton said, as the pair discussed the hand afterwards.

"It's one of the most absurd hands you will ever see," said Henry Kilbane in the commentary booth.

It proved to be decisive. The very next hand cost Barbero his last 12 blinds. Haxton's 10876 rivered a straight to beat Barbero's AQJ2.

It was, finally, Haxton's day.