The Triton Cash Game Invitational I continued Day 4 action from Montenegro on Wednesday, and Antanas 'Tony G' Guoga just lost the biggest pot of the week in a setup hand that saw nearly $1,500,000 in the middle.
Yesterday, the minimum buy-in for the game jumped up to $500,000 and, with the blinds at $1,000/$2,000 with a $5,000 big blind ante, the big pots were destined to come at some point.
In the course of just two hands against Elton Tsang, Guoga's two $500,000 bullets would turn to dust.
The knockdown
It was a blind vs. blind scenario that saw Tony G's first buy-in shipped Tsang's way. From the small blind, Tsang raised to $8,000 with 
. Guoga looked down at 
in the big blind and made it $32,000 to go. Both players started the hand with plenty to play for — both about $445,000 effective — and, perhaps due to this, Tsang opted to call the re-raise from out of position.
The dealer spread the 
flop to give Tsang a stranglehold on the hand with trips. Guoga's continuation bet of $20,000 was met with a small check-raise to $50,000. With absolutely no hesitation, Guoga made the call and the 
on the turn spelled disaster for the Lithuanian. A $75,000 bet from Tsang and a call from Guoga saw the pot bloat even further.
The 
river changed nothing and Tsang shipped in the rest of his $289,000. Guoga didn't like it, and he took his time to make a decision, but eventually he verbally announced a call and was shown the bad news.
Ali Nejad on the comms summed up the hand well, saying, "Goodnight, first bullet. Hello, $900k pot."
The knockout
In true 'Tony G' fashion, Guoga immediately reloaded another $500,000 bullet and went to work. Over the course of the next hour or so, he managed to build his stack up, even eclipsing the $1,000,000 mark for a brief time.
Guoga's hard work was all for naught, however, as he ran into poker's most brutal cooler in a game where you really don't want that to happen.
With the $4,000 straddle in play, Tsang limped in from the button with 
and $1,200,000 behind. Guoga, in the small blind, took a peek at 
and quickly threw out a raise, $20,000 from his $736,000 stack. Tan Xuan reluctantly folded his seven-high holding from the straddle and, with the action back on him, Tsang re-raised to $70,000. Guoga, confident in his hand, put in another raise, up to $245,000.
The Chinese professional opted for the slow play and simply flatted the four-bet and with $501,000 in the middle, the 
flop drew a check from Guoga and then a $150,000 bet from Tsang. Rather than see the board grow any worse for his holding, Guoga moved all in over the top for the rest of his $492,000. Tsang made a quick call and the two players decided to run the board out just once.
The 
turn provided Guoga with four additional outs to a straight, but the 
improved only Tsang's hand. Before the dealer could muck his hand, Guoga was out the door and on his bike.
From the commentary booth, Randy Lew summed up the two hands in straightforward fashion, all numbers: "Queen-ten vs. ace-king for $500,000, there $750,000 more, he’s won $1.5M off Tony G in two hands.”
Nejad, on the other hand, took a more flowery approach to Guoga's demise, saying, "Like a bully in the playground, Elton relieving Tony G of all of his lunch money… he took breakfast money, dinner money, desert money, lunch money, all the monies. If Tony happens to be behind the wheel of a car now, I wouldn’t go making assumptions that he’s going to be abiding by red lights and stop signs right now.”
The Triton Cash Game Invitational I is streaming live right now on the Triton YouTube channel.
