Champion Dan Dvoress!

The appropriately named Golden Decade tournament kicked off the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series latest trip to Montenegro this week and tonight it crowned one of Triton's favorite sons as its latest champion.

As Triton celebrates 10 years of excellence, Dan Dvoress, a player whose own decade at the top of the game has been nothing short of scintillating, landed a fourth win on the series, banking $849,000.

The triumph was Dvoress' first win in no limit hold'em, the game he favors the most, but it completes the so-called Triton Trident, a win in NLH, PLO and short deck. Dvoress had both the other two under his belt already, and now adds that two-card win as well.

"I'm very proud," Dvoress said. "It's great, obviously. It is kind of funny that it took me forever to get my first Triton trophy to begin with, and then they came in short deck, then PLO and then short deck. I've generally been a no limit specialist. I've not been playing the other two games for very long. So it feels nice to finally get this one."

The victory also helps atone for what happened in this very room one year ago, when Dvoress finished runner-up to fellow Canadian Xuan Liu in the equivalent event. In it, Dvoress lost the run of the cards at the crucial moment, and was powerless to stop Liu sealing victory in what was her first event.

A humble Dvoress tonight admitted, "That event last year, I felt like I got a little bit of a tough run of cards relatively speaking. Of course, you have to get such a good run to even get second. But heads-up it was a little bit tough going. But this year it was just the opposite. I was making hand after hand. It was extremely smooth."

Dejan Kaladjurdjevic picked up $575,000 for second

The smooth ride continued through a brief heads-up battle against Montenegro's Dejan Kaladjurdjevic, a player who now has two runner-up finishes in Triton tournaments held here, his home country. Kaladjurdjevic had led for long periods on the final day, but Dvoress found all the momentum at the right time this time around to cruise to the win.

"I was prepared to go into a three-hour [heads-up] battle because we started so deep and it was just over within what feels like 20 minutes or something," Dvoress said. It was indeed a comparatively simple process to close it out, despite more than 120 blinds between the pair when heads-up play began.

Dvoress expressed his joy at locking up a title so early in a festival, but cautioned that there's still a lot of play left in this trip.

Dvoress collects a fourth Triton trophy

"The momentum is nice, but at the same time this is just the start," Dvoress said. "There are a lot of tournaments left to play. A lot of big buy-ins, so it's important to not get carried away."

But let's see just how far this momentum can carry him.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The $25,000 NLH, this time named the Golden Decade in honor of Triton's spectacular 10 years, is now a fixture at the start of any stop on the Super High Roller Series. Players reliably sauntered into the room in their dozens, with registration only closing after 146 entries were registered, putting $3.65 million in the prize pool.

And then they commenced figuring out who would have no chance of winning any of it.

The field was carved to ribbons on Day 1, meaning Day 2 resumed only a few eliminations from the money. Pretty soon, all attention focused on the table hosting not only both Espen Jorstad and Hannes Jeschka, who were the two shortest stacks, but also Ben Tollerene and Dan Dvoress, who were the two chip leaders.

On the stone bubble, Tollerene and Dvoress played a pot between them, which had the potential for devastating consequences at the very summit of the counts. But after Dvoress checked a full house on the river, perhaps hoping for a Tollerene stab at it, Tollerene got away.

That did then mean Jorstad and, in particular, Jeschka were in danger. And Jeschka ended up broke after a one-two punch from Dvoress and then Tollerene.

This was one of those sequences that would have critics of the online game claiming it was rigged. Jeschka had only four blinds when he got them in holding A9. He was up against Dvoress holding A. The board ran out . Though a split pot was not what Jeschka wanted with the dominant hand, he actually made a slight profit and moved above Jorstad in the standings.

Hannes Jeschka faced the same hand twice and bubbled

When, on the very next hand and in the big blind, he found A9 again (suited this time), and saw Tollerene open from the small blind, he seemed to ponder a little while before committing the chips once more. And remarkably he was once more against . This one was also suited.

The dealer put the board of Q8J out there, and Tollerene flushed out Jeschka. Twice the German had a dominant ace on what turned out to be his final two hands. He didn't win either of them.

Jorstad was the next man out, but picked up the $42,000 min-cash. Dvoress and Tollerene, meanwhile, survived all the way to the final.

When Wiktor Malinowski bust in ninth, the following sat down to play the opening final of this trip to Montenegro.

FINAL TABLE

Dejan Kaladjurdjevic - 8,525,000 (68 BBs)

Dan Dvoress - 7,125,000 (57 BBs)

Mikhail Soltanov - 3,700,000 (30 BBs)

Paul Phua - 3,350,000 (27 BBs)

Ding Biao - 3,300,000 (26 BBs)

Danilo Velasevic - 3,200,000 (26 BBs)

Fabian Niederreiter - 2,975,000 (24 BBs)

Ben Tollerene - 2,300,000 (18 BBs)

Samuel Mullur - 2,000,000 (16 BBs)

Event 1 final table line up (clockwise from back left): Ding Biao, Dejan Kaladjurdjevic, Samuel Mullur, Fabian Niederreiter, Ben Tollerene, Mikhail Soltanov, Paul Phua, Danilo Velasevic, Dan Dvoress.

Tollerene had been the overnight chip leader, finding himself in a customary position at the top of the counts. But he slipped through the pre-final table action, and had only eight blinds when they were one spot from the final. He picked up aces to bust Malinowski, the only player with a smaller stack, but it meant that Tollerene himself was under threat when the final table got going.

Unfortunately for the man who won the PLO Main Event here last time around (and the NLH Main Event on our last stop in Jeju), he couldn't recover. Tollerene lost 95 percent of his stack in a pot against Dejan Kaladjurdjevic (Tollerene's A3 losing to Kaladjurdjevic's , with Kaladjurdjevic making a tremendous call of Tollerene's river nearly-jam) and shipped the remaining scraps to Paul Phua.

Tollerene has a cash on the board already for the trip, and it weighs in at $85,000.

Ben Tollerene got his Montenegro stop off and running with a final table appearance

Danilo Velasevic came to this final with one of the tricky middling stacks, and he wisely opted to stay out of harm's way to see if he could find a spot. The blinds went up and he hadn't yet played a hand, but eventually picked up AQ on the button after seeing the chip-leader Kaladjurdjevic open from the hijack.

Velasevic put in a committing three-bet in position, but Kaladjurdjevic responded with a four-bet jam. Velasevic duly pushed forward his last six blinds, quickly learning that he was flipping against Kaladjudjevic's pocket eights. Velasevic needed to hit, but there was no help from the dealer.

The Serbian pro, who enjoyed a stellar trip to Montenegro last time, has hit the ground running once more. This cash, for eighth, was worth $106,000.

Another near miss for Danilo Velasevic

Montenegro has emerged as a favored stop for European players to take their Triton Poker Series bow, and this tournament welcomed numerous new faces. Two of them made it all the way to the final on their Triton debut: Russia's Mikhail Soltanov and Fabian Niederreiter, from Germany.

Both newcomers were now sitting with short stacks, however, with Soltanov holding marginally more than Niederreiter. However, it was the former who took the fall next.

Dvoress, still sitting with a mighty stack and second on the leaderboard, opened from the hijack. Soltanov may have only had nine blinds, but opted to peel from the small blind with 64.

Soltanov missed the hearts but hit bottom pair after the Q47 flop. He checked and then jammed over Dvoress' c-bet. Dvoress couldn't get his chips in quickly enough. He was holding pocket queens and now had three of them.

Soltanov was drawing exceptionally thin, and although the 3 turn kept him alive, the K river ended his hopes. Soltanov landed a $145,000 payday from his first Triton tournament.

Mikhail Soltanov timed his Triton debut very well

Soltanov's elimination gave Niederreiter the ladder up, but the latter was now alongside Samuel Mullur as shortest in the room. Niederreiter has been playing the mid-stakes European circuit for a few years, and had a breakout performance at the WSOP in the Bahamas in December 2024, perhaps persuading him to give the Super High Roller Series a try.

Making the final table on your first attempt certainly suggests this was the right decision, even if his run ultimately ended now, in a sixth-place finish.

Niederreiter picked up K4 in the cutoff and pushed in his last six blinds. Ding Biao was the last person still with cards, in the big blind, but he looked down at a dominant K and called. Four hearts among the five on the board ended Niederreiter's tournament.

The German's maiden cash was for $195,000.

First-timer Fabian Niederreiter is sure to be back

Dejan Kaladjurdjevic was having fun on home soil. He was applying pressure consistently on the smaller stacks, while refusing to shy away from confrontations even with Dvoress, his closest challenger. Resultantly, Kaladjurdjevic began pulling away at the top, and when Dvoress then also doubled up Phua (sixes holding against A10), Kaladjurdjevic pulled further clear.

However, Dvoress is a difficult one to shake entirely, and the Canadian sat comfortably in second as the rest of the field slipped below the average stack line.

The closest player to Dvoress and Kaladjudjevic was Ding Biao, the Chinese three-time Triton winner. After a relatively long period of play without any significant chip fluctuation, Mullur and Phua had slipped to below 10 blinds, while Ding had 22. However, they were soon all to head to Dvoress.

Ding opened KQ from under the gun and Dvoress, with 5 in the big blind, made what poker purists of yore would consider an especially loose call. (The game has changed, folks.) And Dvoress then saw the absolutely glorious flop of .

Dvoress checked and Ding also checked, despite holding top pair. The 4 came on the turn and now Dvoress led out, picking up a call from Ding, still under-repping the king.

The 4 river gave Dvoress a boat and he bet enough to put Ding's effective stack all-in, essentially the size of the pot. Ding now had to hope Dvoress had neither three nor a four, but reckoned his kings up were good. They weren't as Dvoress tabled his hand and sent Ding to the rail.

Ding picked up $252,000 for fifth.

Ding Biao ran into Dvoress' invisible boat

The hand that eliminated Ding put Dvoress into the chip lead, but on the very next deal he ended up doubling the short-stacked Mullur. Mullur's KQ beat Dvoress' K for seven blinds. Dvoress raised and took the blinds on the hand after that, but then on the next one, Kaladjudjevic finished Mullur off.

Mullur started this hand with 15 blinds, and looked down at AQ. He open-raised his small blind and Kaladjudjevic called from the big, taking the pair to a flop of . Mullur flopped top pair, but Kaladjudjevic had and had flopped even better.

Both players checked, setting traps, and the 4 turned changed little. Mullur now bet and Kaladjudjevic called. The 5 completed the board and Mullur bet almost all he had. Kaladjurdjevic asked for the remainder, Mullur called and found out the bad news.

Mullur departed in fourth for $314,000.

Samuel Mullur continues to knock on the door

Paul Phua, the man known in these parts as "Boss", had shown once again all the incredible skills for obduracy that have come to define him as a poker player. The Triton founding player is notoriously difficult to knock out, and sometimes it never happens, such as when he won the $150,000 event in Jeju a couple of months ago for a new career high score.

Phua had a short stack for a long while in this one, but outlasted players with more. And he also managed to find a double of his last four blinds holding J5 against Kaladjurdjevic's J. That gave him 10 blinds to play with.

It then took something of a bad beat to finally send Phua packing in this one. Kaladjurdjevic was the man to profit from it, spiking a straight on the river to beat Phua's top pair.

Kaladjurdjevic opened his button holding Q10 and Phua called in the big blind with K. The flop came . Phua checked and Kaladjurdjevic bet one blind. Phua jammed for his last six and Kaladjurdjevic called.

The 6 turn changed nothing, but the J river was the card Kaladjurdjevic needed. Phua couldn't beat the straight, rapped the table and headed out. He'll find another $384,000 to his name.

More excellence from Boss Paul Phua

Two players remained now, and they were deep. Dvoress led Kaladjurdjevic by 71 blinds to 51.

Through much of the final table action, Kaladjurdjevic had shown willingness to play big pots with Dvoress, three-betting light a couple of times and usually managing to get away if there was danger. However, during heads-up play, Dvoress quietly began to turn the screw.

His early lead only extended, with Kaladjurdjevic slipping below 30 blinds.

On what turned out to be the final hand, Kaladjurdjevic checked his option in the big blind holding 109. Dvoress had completed with the speculative 3, but then saw a flop of to give him an open-ended straight draw. Kaladjurdjevic, meanwhile, had top pair.

Heads up begins

Kaladjurdjevic checked and Dvoress put in a big bet, which Kaladjurdjevic called. And Dvoress made his straight after the A turn. Kaladjurdjevic checked again, and Dvoress now bet again, and bet big once more. Kaladjurdjevic called again, and possibly thought the 9 river was his perfect card.

He now had two pair and moved all in. Dvoress called with the nuts and this tournament was over.