The 33-year-old American pro Jason Koon, who also scored a win at the 2018 Triton Montenegro, is back in news, this time for taking down the Event #5 HKD 1 million Short Deck NLHE at the ongoing 2019 Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Jeju. The popular poker pro outlasted a field of 81 entries in this event to claim his 2nd Triton title and earn a hefty HKD 22.3 million in top prize.
This victory was the second best score of Koon’s career, behind his win in the same event at the 2018 Triton Montenegro festival for $3.6 million. Koon’s total live earnings have now reached $26,938,517.
Koon has been running well at the 2019 Triton Jeju series. This was his third final table finish out of the first four events held at the series . Previously, he had finished 4th in the 500K HKD short deck event for HKD 3,435,000 and 6th in the 500K HKD six-max NLH event for HKD 2,360,000.
Talking about his 2nd Triton title, Koon said, “I wanted to come in and just stay focused and adapt on the fly and stick with what good strategies are. It worked out for me. I had great cards, it’s really what it comes down to a lot of the time in these tournaments. A lot of good things happened to me at this final table. If anybody else would have been in my seat, it would have happened to them.”
The turning point for Koon was when he knocked out Jun in fourth place, shoving it all-in with Jh Js against Qs 10s. A few hands later, Paul Phua scored his second elimination of the day when his As Jh beat Furkat Rakhimov’s Js 10d on the runout of Qs Js 7s 9d 7c. Rakhimov exited in third place.
The heads-up was between Triton Series Ambassador Jason Koon and Paul Phua, a Malaysian businessman and Triton Co-Founder. Koon got a good start and was able to take control early on. By the time the final hand arrived, Koon had over a 5-to-1 chip advantage. On the final hand, Phua shoved all-in with Ad 9h and Koon called with Kh Qh. The board ran As Kd 7c Kc Qs where Koon made a full house to win the title.
Final Table Payouts (HKD):
1 – Jason Koon, USA, HK$22,300,000
2 – Paul Phua, Malaysia, HK$15,900,000
3 – Furkat Rakhimov, Russia, HK$10,440,000
4 – Jun Wang, China, HK$7,900,000
5 – Gabe Patgorski, USA, – HK$6,100,000
6 – Richard Yong, Malaysia – HK$4,700,000
7 – John Juanda, Indonesia – HK$3,700,000
8 – Wai Kin Yong, Malaysia – HK$2,900,000
9 – Devan Tang, Hong Kong – HK$2,200,000
