Champion Jun Obara
The Triton Poker Super High Roller Series has its first Japanese champion — and this tournament win was so emphatic from Jun Obara that it was as if he unleashed a decade of national frustration on to his unwitting opponents in Jeju.
Obara absolutely crushed the $40,000 Mystery Bounty tournament at the Landing Casino & Resort on Friday, not only winning the $699,000 first prize and the Triton trophy, but also earning 17 bounties, each worth a minimum of $40,000.
He opened them during the now-traditional bounty ceremony the following night, and added a further $1,040,000 to his earnings. It gave him a combined $1,739,000.
"Every time lucky. Lucky only!" a humble Obara said when asked to describe his event.
Obara always enjoys his poker. There are few players who laugh so much while playing, whether things are going his way or not. And in this tournament, things really went his way, which meant this was a joy to watch for everyone.
"There's a Japanese poker movement," he said. "In one year, two year, maybe we'll see more Japanese come."
Jun Obara leading the Japanese movement
It was utterly one sided from several tables out, with Obara cruising to a stack of more than 100 big blinds and almost never dipping below that total. He knocked out every single person from the final table, picking up bounty after bounty as he did.
Obara's last opponent was the Moroccan rising star Mehdi Chaoui, who won $473,000 for second. Though he was powerless to stop a blazing sun-run from the man from the Land of the Rising Sun, Chaoui ended up having an amazing stroke of good fortune himself at the bounty draw. Despite holding only one bounty token, he found the $400,000 top bounty prize and ended the event with $873,000.
TOURNAMENT ACTION
The Mystery Bounty is one of the tournaments that has two kind of bubble periods. The first comes at the point that 25 percent of the field is left, which is when the bounty tokens come into play. The second is the more conventional bubble and adheres to the regular payout schedule.
Twenty-five percent of a 158-entry field is 40 (rounding up), so technically whenever the player in 41st place was knocked out, the bounties would come into play. However, this one added a layer of complication as two players bust on the same hand, meaning Aram Oganyan and Duan Bin split the first bounty. When they came to draw it on the following night, they found a $100,000 envelope, which gave them $50,000 apiece.
After that they played through the money on Day 1, a point reached when Yan Jingyao took the last of Aren Bezhanyan's chips. From that point on, it became a mission to make it to the final table of seven. It was a mission that took several hours on the second and final day.
Aren Bezhanyan was the bubble boy
Ultimately, it was that man Duan who played a big part in completing this search too. He was knocked out in eighth, taking the players to the last seven at around 6pm. The following found a seat:
Jun Obara - 9,490,000 (119 BBs)
Tobias Schwecht - 7,955,000 (99 BBs)
Weiran Pu - 5,590,000 (70 BBs)
Huu Dung Nguyen - 3,325,000 (42 BBs)
David Peters - 1,820,000 (23 BBs)
Mehdi Chaoui - 1,810,000 (23 BBs)
Aram Oganyan - 1,610,000 (20 BBs)
Event 3 final table players (clockwise from back left): Jun Obara, David Peters, Mehdi Chaoui, Huu Dung Nguyen, Weiran Pu, Tobias Schwecht, Aram Oganyan.
The early stages of the final table seemed like this one was going to drag. Chips were moved around without any really significant fluctuations. However, it then went bang.
First, Weiran Pu's full house (with pocket jacks) all but doubled his stack and left Tobias Schwecht short. Then David Peters perished with AQ, three-bet shoving into Jun Obara's K3. It looked good for Peters until turn and river brought two threes, which ended his tournament. Peters won $118,000, plus $40,000 for his
David Peters can only smile as his fate is sealed
There quickly then followed a big three-way all-in, with two players ended on the rail at the same time. Obara took them both out, picking up pocket sixes UTG+1 and limping in. Schwecht found A9 on the button and jammed his last 16 blinds in. But Huu Dung Nguyen then picked up AK in the big blind and re-jammed for 25 blinds.
Obara called and watched the dealer put nothing on the board that could help either Schwecht or Nguyen. Schwecht had the smaller stack and finished sixth for $162,400. Nguyen earned $211,000 for fifth, and added another $40K for a single bounty.
Tobias Schwecht came third of three in a huge pot
Huu Dung Nguyen gave Obara another envelope pull
Obara's stack was now absolutely enormous, and it only grew further the next time he looked down at a pocket pair. This time it was queens and he saw Aram Oganyan open from under the gun from an 18-blind stack. Obara shoved and Oganyan called. But Oganyan's pocket sixes never troubled the queens.
Oganyan finished fourth for $265,000, but added that $50,000 from his only shared bounty.
Aram Ognanyan couldn't get past Obara either
Obara had already amassed 10 bounties before he arrived to the final, and he had added four more in a hurry. His stack was now absolutely enormous: 211 BBs versus Pu's 29 BBs and Chaoui's 14 BBs. The three of them went to dinner with no indication that anybody would be able to stop Obara.
If it was going to happen, it would need to start with a double-up. And that's what Chaoui managed shortly after dinner. His 86 made a flush to beat Obara's KQ and he got the maximum thanks to Obara flopping top pair, then Chaoui check-raise-jamming the river, by which point he had the goods.
Weiran Pu then doubled with six blinds, winning with Q5 against Obara's 93. And after he slipped back to six once more, he doubled them again. This time he had A7 versus A5 in Chaoui's hand. The dealer refused to give Chaoui the bounty.
Obara had had no such trouble picking up bounties, and lo and behold, he picked up Pu's as well. Pu jammed with Q3 and Obara had KJ. This time a blank board gave yet another scalp to Obara. Pu earned $325,000 for third, and scored a decent return on his three bounties, adding another $240,000.
Weiran Pu sees the funny side as he busts
They prepared the table for heads-up play. Obara had 139 blinds to Chaoui's 19 so this was exceptionally lop-sided. But 19 blinds is still a playable stack, and Chaoui had no choice but to try and play it.
The deck refused to cooperate, however. On only the fifth hand of heads up play, all the chips went in pre-flop. Obara had Q9 to Chaoui's A4, but Obara's sun-run continued. The full flop read Q4109J, and that was that for this tournament.
"Well done, you deserved it," Chaoui said as he embraced his final opponent. He certainly did. And Chaoui's good grace was rewarded too with that big bounty pull.
Mehdi Chaoui pulls the biggest bounty
Obara knocked out every single player at the final, finishing the tournament with 17 bounties, including his own. He duly delivered himself another million bucks in his two-handed performance with Ali Nejad on the following night's bounty draw.
Mehdi Chaoui embraces Jun Obama at the conclusion of this one
