Bernhard Binder Wins Epic Triton Poker Event in Jeju, South Korea

Triton have put on a superb festival of poker in Jeju, South Korea this month. With the newly formed Triton ONE series, they’ve appealed to players with smaller bankrolls. Now they’ve proved once again that Triton Poker are the masters of the super high roller series, with 114 total entries in the $125,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em 7-Max Event.

* after three-way heads-up deal

Painful Bubble Leaves Ye Saying No

With 114 entries, only 14 would make the money and 15^th place was extra painful for the unfortunate ‘bubble boy’ Wang Ye. Having reached the podium in three previous $100,000+ buy-in Triton events, the Chinese player lost a massive flip for 90% of his stack with pocket fives overtaken by Eelis Parssinen’s ace-king before losing the loose change to Yosuke Miki shortly afterwards, putting the remaining 14 players into the money.

Former Triton champions and other big names perished as two tables played down to a final one of seven players, with Daniel Rezaei, Kayhan Mokri and record 12-time Triton winner Jason Koon all crashing out before the lights and cameras prepared to bring the final battle to life.

When the final table was reached, Wai Kiat Lee was the chip leader and by some distance, with 85 big blinds well clear of Binder’s stack of 51 bigs. The short stack at the table was the Lithuanian player Paulius Vaitiekunas and they couldn’t spin nine big blinds into a playable stack, his pocket tens unlucky not to double through Binder’s ace-ten, as two jacks and two queens coming on the board to counterfeit the Lithuanian’s hand in the cruellest way possible, sending him home with $493,000 from his third final table of the week.

Tang and Lonis Lose Out

With six players left, Japan lost one of their two representatives at the final table felt in Jeju. Yosuke Miki lost half of his stack to Binder when the Austrian flopped trips and soon, the Japanese had the roundest number of all, his ace-ten unable to hit against the pocket eights of Lee, as the Malaysian player eliminated his friend for a score of $628,000 and the field was down to five.

British-based Hong Kong player Danny Tang has become one of the biggest names in the world at high stakes and his transformation in recent years has been a success story that Triton events have played a huge part in. He cashed for $804,000 in fifth place when his king-three was unable to hold against the queen-ten of Lee, a cruel board of J-6-6-7-3 producing three diamonds to go with the two in the Malaysian player’s hand, one each coming on turn and river for a runner-runner flush.

Four became three when Jesse Lonis cashed for his latest seven-figure score. The Stateside professional earned $1,001,000 when he three-bet shoved ace-jack over the top of Binder’s opening bet. The Austrian made the call with the dominating ace-queen and rode out the board to out-kick Lonis, sending play three-handed.

Deal Done Before Binder Binks

“This is a dream come true.”

With Velasevic on 39 big blinds, Lee stacking 46 bigs and Binder marginally ahead on 49 big blinds, the three remaining players saw fit to discuss an ICM deal with the chips evenly matched. That deal was agreed and left $200,000 and the trophy still to play for. Soon, Wai Kiat Lee was delighted to have done that deal, missing out in third for just over $1.9m. The Malaysian lost almost all of his chips folding to a river raise from Binder before the Austrian claimed the scraps in the next hand.

Heads-up, that pot as crucial, giving the Austrian a commanding chip lead. Velasevic called off his chips correctly holding ace-king to Binder’s shove with a suited jack-seven but the Poker Gods were behind the Austrian, who turned a seven to become a Triton champion and claim the top prize of $2.13m to Velasevic’s runner-score of $1,825,000.

After winning the $10m top prize when he took down the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event, Bernhard Binder’s latest win was the second biggest of his career and incredibly, came just three months after that epic result in The Bahamas when he beat Frenchman Jean-Noel Thorel heads-up for his first WSOP bracelet.

“This is super special,” Binder admitted after victory, before turning to his Austrian rail. “When I was a kid, I remember my parents used to buy me Triton bedsheets and I was dreaming of playing Triton one time in my life. And now I win the title, so this is a dream come true.”

Cue much laughter from his partisan supporters, but Binder did say how much the win truly meant to him.

“Honestly it was never on my mind that this was my game but a lot of things went my way.”