Dao Minh Phu wins 50K for first Triton Poker trophy
Congratulations to Dao Minh Phu, winner of Event #6: 50,000 NLH 8-Handed for 1,670,000 and his first ever Triton Poker trophy.
Phu defeated Biao Ding heads up and he took home 1,135,000 for his runner-up finish. Ding began heads up play with a 2:1 lead and Phu kept pressing.
Phu began the match by jamming with a spicy nine-eight suited and the rest was history.
The defining hand was when Ding limped with ace-eight and Phu jammed with ace-jack suited. Ding basically snap-called and Phu held with no real sweat. Ding doubled once with the few chips he had left, but was no match for Phu's red hot run.
A slow start to Day 2
A total of 49 players moved on to Day 2 in the 50K and 20 would eventually make they money. It took almost four hours to get to the bubble after a slow start to the day.
Chris Brewer, Ben Heath and Karl Chappe-Gatien (KCG) were all at risk on the bubble and all three of them survived.
Eventually it was Viktor Kudinov who called off a jam from Lun Loon with nines but ran into queens, bursting the bubble after 90 minutes of hand-for-hand play.
Players started to drop and all eyes were on Linus Loeliger who was busting players left, right and center. The online phenom, also known as LLinusLLove, got his chips in the middle ahead with ace-jack against the ace-ten of Henrik Hecklen and king-eight suited of Johannes Straver. The flop came ace high and just like that two more players were dropped.
Biao Ding decided to get sneaky with aces and limped in from the cutoff. Loeliger peeled ace-nine on the button and jammed it in the middle. Mario Mosbock analyzed the situation and decided to call it off with two nines from the blinds, having Ding almost double in chips should he have a monster and at least have a shot at the side pot.
Sure enough he saw the bad news but was well ahead of Loeliger who was dominated by both. The board ran out with an ace on the river and Ding scooped the main for a triple, but binked a one-outer on the river with the case ace to eliminate Mosbock.
From there big names continued to drop including Tommy Kim and Bryn Kenney, falling just shy of the final table.
Final table action
By the time the final table came together, Ding had a massive lead with 70 big blinds and Loeliger was second with 50 big blinds. The rest of the players had 20 big blinds or less and the blood bath began.
Ding began the final table by doubling up both Viacheslav Buldygin and Patrik Antonius and just like that stacks were shallow and the top of the counts were closer than ever.
Phu started his climb to the top by doubling with ace-queen to Ding's king-queen suited and was animated in his celebration. This was followed by Sam Greewood running into Heath's pocket aces, sending him out in 9th place.
Loeliger followed in 8th place after an insane hand. He got his stack in the middle with two queens and was flipping against Dan Smith for a big pot. Loeliger flopped a set while Smith made top pair. It was an unlikely scenario but Smith turned and rivered two aces to make aces full and eliminate the online wizard.
Heath was next and lost a big flip himself, calling a jam with jacks when faced with an open jam from Ding with ace queen. The queen came in the window and it was all over for the Brit in 7th.
Businessman and fan favorite KCG was next to go. He was patient with his short stack and eventually found jack-ten in the cutoff. Unfortunately for him Ding woke up with aces on the button and he was dispatched in 6th place.
Antonius was extremely short for a while and found a couple of ladders before he got it in with king jack. Phu had a couple of sixes and won the flip, sending the Fin to the rail in 5th place for 497,000.
The final four players were all close in chips with the biggest stack, Ding, sitting on 24 big blinds.
Smith three-bet jammed with king-queen suited and flipped with Ding's tens. He was unable to sniff even a sweat and was left with just a few big blinds.
Lucky for him, and unlucky for Buldygin, Ding open jammed with queen jack and Buldygin called with kings. Ding flopped top pair and backed into a straight to send him to the rail in 4th, locking up a ladder for Smith with three big blinds.
Smith got his chips in the middle with king high shortly after and couldn't improve, busting in 3rd place for an impressive 750,500.
Results from the 50K can be found here.
