Cold Deck Pushes Newest Triton Poker Champion to Glory in High Roller

Nine of the best players in Europe gathered this week, as Budva, Montenegro played host to the $200,000-entry Triton Poker Series Montenegro Invitational event. With a mammoth prizepool of $26.6m won at the final table alone, the drama as non-stop, as Aleksa Pavicevic beat American poker crusher Seth Davies heads-up to claim his first Triton trophy.

Independence Day Celebrated in Style

On what was the national Montenegrin Independence Day, the Maestral Resort & Casino in Budva, Montenegro was the scene for a new winner on the Triton Poker Series. As a record 133 players took part in the series, and when the chips settled, local player and passionate Montenegrin Aleksa Pavicevic was the champion, taking home an astonishing $6,180,000 top prize.

On the last day of the event, just 11 players had made the cut, as Montenegrin Dejan Kaladjurdjevic, who was runner-up in the 2024 Triton Montenegro Main Event, busted. He ran pocket jacks into the pocket kings of Azerbaijani player Ramin Hajiyev and the best hand held to reduce the field to 10 moments later when Hajiyev mopped up the loose change.

Kaladjurdjevic may have withered away, but the opposite happened for Seth Davies. The American bounced off the canvas when he doubled up through Joseph Oren not once but twice, including flopping a set to crack pocket aces. That double salvo from Davies all but slayed Oren, who busted in 10^th place moments later, setting the official nine-handed final table in place.

Quick, Quick, Slow

While the final table began slowly, once the action started, it raced to a finish in dramatic fashion. Both Javid Ismayilov – also from Azerbaijan – and the eventual winner Pavicevic, were in charge, with popular professional Eric Wasserson in third place on the leaderboard.

The French player Thomas Santerne couldn’t spin up his short stack and left with $617,000 in ninth when his ace-queen lost a crucial coiflip against the pocket jacks belonging to Tunisian player Maher Nouira. Out in eighth moments later was the Finnish superstar and European Poker Tour star Joni Jouhkimainen, who three-bet shoved ace-queen into Ismayilov’s ace-king. Jouhkimainen was offered false hope when a queen landed on the flop only for a king on the turn to doom him to a finish worth $774,000.

Wasserson started to build a chip mountain after eliminating Hajiyev in seventh for $1,053,000, before the aforementioned Nouira departed in sixth place for $1,423,000. Three out of the remaining five players were American, but two Stateside players exited in quick succession as first Taylor von Kriegenbergh busted in fifth for $1,835,000 then Wasserson himself exited in fourth for $2,287,000.

Cooler Crowns a Champion

“It’s 1% this happens. But it seemed like destiny.”

With three players left, the defining hand played out. All-in with pocket aces, Ismayilov was delighted to see Pavicevic call with pocket kings. That was until a king on the turn dealt the Azerbaijan player the cruellest of bad beats, sending him to the rail in third for $2,793,000.

Seth Davies couldn’t believe his luck. Down 10:1 in the counts, he was freerolling for the title and even drew level. But Pavicevic’ name was on the trophy, and Davies’ flopped two-pair kings and threes were no good when the chips went in on a board of K-7-3-A-T. ‘Pavi’ held two hearts to go with three on the board and flushed out his more decorated opponent. Seth Davies still won his biggest-ever score of $4.19m but the title went to Pavicevic for $6.18 million as the newly-crowned winner embraced his fans.

“I decided a week ago that I was going to play,” Pavicevic told Triton after victory. “I just came for kind of a vacation, and honestly expected to bust maybe four levels in! I come here every summer. I love this resort, and I love the people here. It’s 1% this happens. But it seemed like destiny.”

Watch all the Triton invitational action play out in Budva right here: