When your job is to share mugs of hot chocolate with the best poker players on the planet, it’s nice to chalk up seven-figure scores, and Event #2 HKD 500,000 (USD 64,000) No-Limit Hold’em Short-Deck turned up another one of those beauties.
Devan Tang has been a regular on the Triton Poker Series ever since Richard Yong and Paul Phua decided to turn their idea into something more tangible.
Super scribe, Howards Swains, called Tang’s final table performance in Event #2: HKD 500,000 (USD 64,000) No-Limit Hold’em Short-Deck ‘dominating.’
Tang preferred to use the word, ‘lucky.’
“I was lucky the whole way,” said Tang.
69-entrants (24-re-entries) created a prize pool of HKD 32,430,000 (USD 4,132,105), and 14 players made it through to the final day. The final table took shape after Paul Phua left in eighth, and the hand of the series left us with six after Tang hit a one-outer on the river to find quads against Mikita Badziakouski. The Belarusian back-to-back Triton Poker Series Main Event winner then ran pocket eights into Jason Koon’s kings for his remaining few plastic bits.
It was at this time that the Poker Gods decided that Tang should only receive pocket aces. Chan Wai Leong exited in sixth place when his AK hit Tang’s two black bad boys, and then Isaac Haxton also fell to the same hand-person combo.
Four players remained, and Tang’s stack was so big you could barely see the man. Jetten tried to make a fist of things when his rivered a straight to end Koon’s tournament in fourth, but Tang picked up aces again to vanquish Romain Arnaud to take a 3:1 chip lead into the heads-up phase. Jetten clung on for an hour before Tang’s JTcc hit a straight to beat the AsJd of the Canadian.
The win was Tang’s fifth of his career and the first for three years. His personal best score remains the $1,405,500 he earned for finishing third in a $200,000 buy-in Triton Series Event held in Manila back in 2016. It was Jetten’s fourth Triton Poker Series Main Event, and the second highest score of his career after picking up a million for a third-place finish in the HKD 1m Main Event in Montenegro last season.
Final Table Results
1. Devan Tang – $1,239,758
2. Peter Jetten – $897,009
3. Arnaud Romain – $578,469
4. Jason Koon – $437,674
5. Isaac Haxton – $338,926
6. Leong Wai – $264,388
7. Mikita Badziakouski – $210,236
