Champion Alex Foxen!

When Alex Foxen takes control of a poker tournament, there’s not much anyone else can do to stop him.

The American pro has not been seen on the Triton Super High Roller Poker Series for five years — he had other priorities and didn’t want to travel so much — but showed today what everyone already knew: he could do very good things on this tour.

Foxen was the dominant force throughout pretty much every moment of the final day in the $50,000 NLH 8-Handed, never relinquishing his chip lead throughout a final table from which he emerged with $1,470,000 and his first Triton title.

It came after the last four cut a four-way deal, with three opponents all closely packed a long way behind Foxen’s dominant lead. They took a bit of the variance out of it thanks to the ICM chop, but Foxen was immediately guaranteed $1.3 million and quickly secured up the remaining $170,000 as well, with Latvia’s Aleks Ponakovs and the Lithuanian duo of Marius Kudzmanas and Dominykas Mikolaitis unable to do anything about it.

“It definitely feels great,” Foxen said. “There’s no high stakes series like this one.” He added: “Missing it was definitely a little painful.”

He made it look easy and admitted things had gone pretty much perfectly, stating “The tournament went really smooth for me. I was really fortunate for a lot of the time.

“Everything just felt right…I was feeling confident and excited.”

Foxen was focused throughout in a brilliant victory

Everything was wrapped up before 10.30pm local time, with Foxen stating that he and his wife Kristen will be returning pretty quickly to the Triton Series. “I definitely think the Foxens will be on the Triton tour a lot more,” he said. “There’s no comparison in terms of high stakes poker from what I can see. You’ll definitely be seeing more of us.”

Each of the three others involved in the deal banked more than $900K, with Ponakovs officially finishing in second place. The Latvian has 17 cashes and more than $10 million in earnings on this tour, but he’ll need to find a more amenable heads-up opponent than Foxen, at least in this mood, to get his first win.

Runner up Aleks Ponakovs

For the second consecutive day, the bubble burst in unorthodox fashion: two players knocked out on the same hand to send the remaining 23 players into the money. Yesterday’s min-cash was split between two players, but the difference this time was that Matthias Eibinger and Paulius Vaitiekunas were sitting at the same table, and departed in 25th and 24th, respectively.

Eibinger had only three blinds and Vaitiekunas had about nine, and the hand played out with a button shove from Eibinger with A 4, a reshove from Juan Pardo in the small blind with J K and an under-call all-in by Vaitiekunas with A9.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

Juan Pardo, seated, eliminated both Matthias Eibinger, left, and Paulius Vaikiekunas, right on the same hand

Vaitiekunas had the best hand, but if Pardo hit one of his cards, the other two were holding one of each other’s outs. That’s exactly what transpired as the dealer put the K 5 Q flop on the table, and Pardo took a lead that he did not surrender.

Both Eibinger and Vaitiekunas left with nothing.

Pardo was guaranteed a return on investment, but he could not make it to the final. The field of 23 shrank rapidly and they reconvened around a final table at around 5.30pm local time. Alex Foxen had been in characteristically ruthless mood, blasting into a chip lead that he held as the last nine settled down.

Yaman Nakdali’s elimination in 10th brought the tournament to its final

The stacks were as follows:

Alex Foxen – 8.56m (86 BBs)

Marius Kudzmanas – 5.09m (51 BBs)

Xu Liang – 4.425m (44 BBs)

Zhou Quan – 3.4m (34 BBs)

Aleks Ponakovs – 2.22m (22 BBs)

Dominykas Mikolaitis – 2.165m (22 BBs)

Kiat Lee – 1.93m (19 BBs)

Lun Loon – 1.095m (11 BBs)

Alex Theologis – 520,000 (5 BBs)

Triton Monte Carlo Event 5 final table line-up (clockwise from back left): Alex Theologis, Dominykas Mikolaitis, Zhou Quan, Lun Loon, Kiat Lee, Xu Liang, Marius Kudzmanas, Alex Foxen, Aleks Ponakovs

Each of Kudzmanas, Quan, Ponakovs and Mikolaitis were already taking a seat at a second final table of the week, while Liang had made it three cashes from the three events he had played so far. Alex Theologis had also already cashed everything: third in the first event here, followed by ninth in the Mystery Bounty. The momentum was clearly strong with all of them, but they still had to do battle with Foxen, who was in the mood on a rare trip to the Triton Series.

Theologis was the most likely to be knocked out first from the final, and so it proved. He didn’t win a single hand at the final and his last chips dribbled over to Foxen’s stack after Theologis shoved the cutoff with red pocket eights, but lost when Foxen’s 10 9 hit a ten.

This performance gave Theologis another $170,000 to go with the $70K he picked up in Event #3 (plus bounties) and the $436K from Event 1. He approached the cashier with a friendly smile; he is a regular visitor.

What else could he do? Alex Theologis out in ninth

Malaysia’s Lun Loon was one of the breakout stars on the Triton Series last season, and here he was again back at a final table. Similar to Theologis, he also couldn’t find a spot to do anything at the final, and was knocked out the minute he tried.

Loon found A 9 in the hijack and put in a big raise for what was essentially half his 11 BB stack. Aleks Ponakovs had pocket tens and asked Loon for the rest of it with a three-bet. Loon called but only connected with his nine on the board. That wasn’t enough. Loon was out in eighth for $214,000.

Another final table for Lun Loon

After these two hasty eliminations, the tournament went through a lull. This was the result of one of those ICM logjams, where Foxen’s stack was unimpeachable, but none of the others wanted to sacrifice their position at the table, at least not before any of the others had.

They went on an extended dinner break so that the mystery bounty pulling ceremony could take place. And when they came back, the dam finally broke, with Zhou Quan and Kiat Lee making way. In fairness, Quan’s elimination could and would have happened at any other stage of the tournament too. He found pocket queens and was up against Dominykas Mikolaitis’ pocket kings. Quan opened, Mikolaitis shoved with the covering stack, and Quan called it off.

Nothing spectacular on the flop and Quan was out for $291,000.

All she wrote for Zhou Quan

It was the other Lithuanian who did for Lee. The Malaysian pro opened A J then called the rest when Marius Kudzmanas shoved with his AQ. There was both a jack and a queen on the flop, so the best hand prevailed.

Lee took $393,000 and reinvested a chunk into the $100K that was starting a few yards away. (The cruel run-out, with the jack in the window, at least gave Lee’s rail something to chuckle about.)

A cruel run-out for Kiat Lee

Lee’s elimination brought chuckles from his rail

Foxen now had an even more commanding lead than before, even though he sat out the third elimination in a row. Xu Liang had fewer than four bigs blinds, which he got in with, A 2only to find Aleks Ponakovs sitting with AK. The better ace held and Liang took $507,000 for fifth. He has made a profit from every tournament he’s played so far in Monte Carlo.

On to the next one for Xu Liang

With Liang on the rail, the remaining four decided to look at the numbers. Foxen had 62 big blinds, the average stack was 29, and nobody else had anything more than 21. With more than $1m between fourth place and first, they decided to take the edge off.

Foxen’s lead translated into a $1.3 million guaranteed payday. Kudzmanas locked up $922,000, Mikolaitis secured $964,000 and Ponakovs was guaranteed $915,000. With $170,000 left on the side, no one was catching Foxen’s payout whatever happened, but it kept it interesting.

Luca Vivaldi, right, helps broker a four-way deal

Mikolaitis fell first. He found A Q and raised from the button. Foxen three-bet the big blind, holding A Q and it looked bleak for Mikilaitis already. He called, taking them to the flop that ensured it all went in: 9 Q2. Foxen bet, Mikolaitis called and the turn was the K.

Foxen now jammed and Mikolaitis called it off with his pair of nines. Foxen’s queens were better, and Mikolaitis went home with that $964,000.

Dominykas Mikolaitis busts after the deal was done

That was one Lithuanian accounted for, and Foxen quickly turned his attention to the other. Foxen picked up KJ and made a standard open. Kudzmanas found A8 and moved all in. Foxen called.

The flop brought an ace, but by the time all five community cards were out there, Foxen had backed into a Broadway straight. That was that for Kudzmanas, whose prize stuck at $922,000. He had been down to only eight big blinds when there were still 19 players left, so this was a great turnaround.

Marius Kudzmanas laughs his way to the rail

Ponakovs had around 4 million chips as heads up started, while Foxen had 25 million. The Latvian was looking at a steep mountain, but doubled almost immediately with KQ, making trip queens. It didn’t get much better than that for him, however, with Foxen enjoying the run of it again from that moment on.

The final hand came quickly. Foxen limped with KJ, Ponakovs shoved with A 7 and the king came on the turn to end it all. Easy as that.