Champion Jeremy Ausmus!

Despite one of the most glittering resumes in world poker, Jeremy Ausmus is only an occasional visitor to the Triton Super High Roller Series. But just like pretty much every other leading player in the world, Ausmus headed to Jeju this week to play in this record-shattering stop–a decision he is surely now happy he took.

Under the watchful eye of his friend and countryman Jason Koon, Ausmus tonight managed to take down his maiden Triton title, earning $1.892 million for victory in this $25,000 buy-in hold’em event.

But this was not just any $25K. It was the biggest ever held on the Triton Series, with 391 entries. Ausmus eventually gathered all of their chips to add Triton gold to his six WSOP bracelets and fill an otherwise prominent space on his mantlepiece.

“It’s amazing,” Ausmus, 45, told reporters after his sealing his success. He explained that he lives in Las Vegas and tends to be happy to live his life close to home. “It’s a lot for me to come overseas for a series,” he said. “But I saw how big Jeju was last year and thought, ‘I’ve gotta go next time.'”

This was a characteristically composed and professional performance from Ausmus, who needed to contend with the usual swings and volatility of a Triton Series event.

Ironically, his one major blunder ended up working in his favour, and quite possibly saving his tournament. Sitting with pocket kings, with 23 people left, Ausmus put out the wrong size for a raise and was forced only to call. Luckily for him, this “misclick” was perfectly timed. His opponent had aces and Ausmus was able to get away when two more aces came on the board.

Ausmus admires his newest trophy

Ausmus admitted his mistake and pointed to jetlag and tiredness. The rest of his game was pretty much flawless, however, including during a wild short-stacked finale against the Chinese star Zhou Quan, who finished second, narrowly missing out on a second title of his own.

The final also featured a spectacular performance from another American, whose name on official documentation is Alexander Seibt, but who is known far and wide as Wolfgang Poker, one of the most popular content creators in the game. Seibt is playing for the first time in the high stakes arena, but made it all the way to a fourth-place finish that will delight his many fans.

The star attraction: Alexander Seibt

But this one was, in the end, all about Ausmus, a player clearly well-equipped for everything the Triton Series can throw at him.

With the Triton Jeju festival still recovering from the record-breaking attendance of Event 1, players in Event 3 showed up to raise the bar once again. This time, the 228 unique players added a further 163 re-entries to create this absolute monster, with the dizzy heights of a 400-entry field surely only a matter of time.

The crazed period of entries and re-entries on Day 1 gave way to a more measured Day 2, with the 73 returning players aiming not to be among the 10 who would leave without getting paid. But that proved to be impossible for multiple Triton champions Dan Dvoress, Mikita Badziakouski and Alex Foxen, among others, with the latter bursting on the stone bubble.

Foxen’s last 11 blinds went in pre-flop with the recent Triton Paradise champion holding pocket tens. Ding Biao had Q9and flopped a pair of queens to sent Foxen out. The rest of the room sighed in relief and tried to ensure the biggest payday they could.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

Alex Foxen, right, watches his hand outdrawn to burst the bubble

Roman Hrabec, Ben Tollerene, Stephen Chidwick, Punnat Punsri, Phil Ivey, Sam Smith, Steve O’Dwyer, Adrian Mateos and Ding were among those to fall before the final 20, with Patrik Antonius and Fedor Holz getting even closer but missing out on the biggest money.

It was past 9pm local time when Thomas Boivin went out in 10th, taking them to the official final. It was looking like another one of those long Triton nights before we’d identify the champion, not that you’d detect any fatigue from the nine who were still involved.

They stacked up as follows:

Shunjiro Kita — 15,950,000 (53 BBs)

Jeremy Ausmus — 14,400,000 (48 BBs)

Matthias Eibinger — 10,725,000 (36 BBs)

Maksim Vaskresenski — 10,425,000 (35 BBs)

Zhou Quan — 8,100,000 (27 BBs)

Paulius Vaitekunas — 6,325,000 (21 BBs)

Sim Kok Wai — 5,075,000 (17 BBs)

Alexander Seibt — 5,050,000 (17 BBs)

Aliaksandr Shylko — 2,225,000 (7 BBs)

Event 3 final table players (clockwise from top left): Alex Seibt, Zhou Quan, Aliasandr Shylko, Jeremy Ausmus, Maksim Vaskresenski, Paulius Vaitikunas, Shunjiro Kita, Matthias Eibinger.

The previous two final tables on this stop have both featured short stacks rising from the point of elimination to get themselves healthily back in the battle. But Aliaksandr Shylko wasn’t able to join that particular clique.

He was quickly put to a decision for his tournament life when Jeremy Ausmus shoved the small blind with a comfortably covering stack, and Shylko had Q3 and about a third of his stack in the middle already.

Shylko’s sweatshirt bore the slogan, “I did nothing, I just got lucky.” But here both contentions were untrue. He did something, he called. But he didn’t get lucky. The board was dry, which meant Ausmus’ A6 remained in front.

Shylko’s first career Triton cash was for $178,000.

Aliaksandr Shylko ponders calling off his last few blinds

Things now took a turn for the volatile, with the chip lead changing hands multiple times. That meant others tumbled down the standings, even if there were precious few flops and fewer still called all-ins. But then three players picked up decent holdings all at once, and the very best of them — pocket aces, no less — landed in Zhou Quan’s hands.

The aces stayed good, which meant Shunjiro Kita, with AK, was sliced down to two big blinds. Meanwhile Matthias Eibinger, who had pocket nines, was heading out the door.

Eibinger is a three-time former Triton champion, but he is not yet adding to his haul. Instead, he has $222,000 to reinvest in the remainder of this tournament series.

Matthias Eibinger hits the rail

As for Kita, his tournament didn’t last much longer. Two hands later, he picked up A8 and got the last of his chips in against Paulius Vaitiekunas and Maksim Vaskresenski. Vaitiekunas made a small bet on the river to push Vaskresenski out of the pot, by which point his 109 had made a straight.

Kita was out, taking $314,000.

Bad time to pick up a premium for Shunjiro Kita

Zhou’s big win had put him top of the leader board at this stage, but Jeremy Ausmus came roaring back. Having picked up pocket kings and surviving against pocket aces when there were still 23 players left (check out this wild hand if you haven’t already), Ausmus again found cowboys and made the most with them this time.

Vaitiekunas had pocket fours and three-bet shoved his button after Ausmus’ early position raise. Ausmus called of course and stayed good to double into a sizeable six-handed chip lead. The average stack was 16 big blinds now, with only Zhou joining Ausmus with more than that.

The skirmish with Ausmus had left Vaitiekunas on the ropes, and it was a position from which he could not recover. Though he doubled up once with AK, he then shoved with 54 and ran into Zhou’s jacks. The big pocket pair ended up making a straight, but it was overkill. Vaitiekunas took $417,000 for sixth.

Paulius Vaitiekunas is knocked out in sixth

On the subject of overkill, the next elimination featured a little of that too, with Vaskresenski hitting the rail. Sim Kok Wai picked up pocket aces and made a standard raise, only then to see Vaskarenski jam his final six blinds in with Q9.

The big pair was streets ahead already, and four diamonds on the board filled a flush for Wai. That left Vaskarenski chasing Vaitiekunas to the payouts desk, picking up $532,000 (and giving poker reporters’ CTRL+C/CTRL+V keys a break).

Maksim Vaskresenski perished in fifth

Only a day after Tuck Wai Foo had claimed a title for Malaysia, his countryman Wai was now at the top of a four-handed chip count. The prospect of lightning striking twice was very real, though the two Americans, Ausmus and Seibt were hardly going to roll over, and Zhou was the only player left who already had a Triton title. So he wasn’t going down without a fight either.

Zhou doubled through Wai to get back into action and leave Seibt as the man most in peril. And after being forced to fold his big blind, leaving him exceptionally short, Seibt made a mandatory shove with A8 from the small blind after Ausmus raised the button.

Ausmus, with Q9, made the call to put Seibt under threat. The 9 on the flop was bleak for Seibt. The Q on the turn was terminal.

Nonetheless, the man known to millions of adoring fans as Wolfgang Poker Seibt pulled off the biggest achievement of his stellar career, picking up $680,000 for fourth place, approximately four times his previous documented tournament scores combined. No doubt plenty more attention is heading his way as well.

Alexander “Wolfgang” Seibt enjoyed his best tournament run to date

Ausmus now had another chance to turn the screw, sitting with a healthy three-handed chip lead. But it was Zhou who emerged from the shadows to knock out Wai and push himself back out front.

Despite a loud rail cheering his every move, and a pair of pocket kings, Wai ended up on the rail in third. He got very unlucky in his final hand as well, laying a trap from the small blind with those kings, and then calling Zhou’s shove. Zhou had only 53 but finished with a straight.

The kings were beaten, Wai’s last 10 blinds went to Zhou, and we were heads up. Wai finished with $855,000 to his name.

Sim Kok Wai points an accusatory finger as his kings are cracked

The table was reset for the final two, with 49 big blinds between them, 30 of which were in Zhou’s pile. Ausmus had probably learnt enough about Zhou’s game by this point to know not to underestimate him, and though stacks were relatively short, there was still the chance of a decent battle here.

Zhou and Ausmus left alone for the title

It nearly lasted only one hand. They got it in straight away, with Ausmus’ KQ marginally behind Zhou’s A5. Jason Koon and Ben Tollerene came over to sweat with their friend Ausmus, and their combined 12 titles helped pull a queen from the dealer on the turn, plus a king on the river to complete Ausmus’ double up.

Zhou Quan beaten into second

That then gave the American a two-to-one lead, and the next big flip was the decider. Ausmus had A 9 while Zhou had pocket threes. Ausmus flopped two pair and Zhou couldn’t catch up. Zhou took $1.193m for second, but the trophy is heading back to Vegas with Ausmus.