Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Monte-Carlo started off in memorable fashion with one player busting on the stone bubble in a cruel manner in a $25,000 buy-in tournament.
The no-limit hold'em event, dubbed the WPT Global Ultimate Slam, attracted 170 entrants, paying 27 players at least $43,000.
The 28th place finisher, however, went home with nothing but memories and a $25,000 loss. Jeremy Zouari left the Salle de Etoiles Monte Carlo on Sunday with some really bad memories.
Zouari was in desperate need of either doubling up or hoping another player busted with 28 players remaining. He was sitting on just 10 big blinds one spot away from the money.
He'd pick up a premium hand — A♦K♦— in the big blind. Xu Liang, who had over 100 big blinds, raised from an early position to 125,000 (2.5 times the big blind) with J♣3♥, which got a bit of a chuckle out of Triton Poker commentator Ali Nejad.
Zouari, who had just 400,00 on top of his big blind and ante (325,000 beyond the raise), opted to call instead of jamming his small stack into the big stack. The flop came out Q♦5♥K♣, pretty much exactly what the small stack was hoping to see. He checked and then snap-called an all in bet well ahead.
Liang was drawing to either a runner-runner straight or some sort of two pair or trips, meaning his odds of winning the hand were about 4%, or 1 in 25. But the low percentage chances do hit sometimes.
"You need to at least have a sweat," Triton Poker announcer and Poker Hall of Famer Brian Rast said before the turn card was dealt.
The 9♠on the turn did give Zouari a sweat as his opponent picked up a gutshot straight draw. And then the 10♦on the river completed the straight and sent Zouari home in 28th place, right on the stone bubble.
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"An absolutely violent bursting of the bubble here in event number one," Nejad said as Zouari exited the livestreamed feature table.
Rast, a six-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, then spoke some truth when he said, "there's just going to be too many people who are happy about that in the tournament."
Zouari's bad beat was to the benefit of 27 other players who all picked up a cash to add to their The Hendon Mob resumes. Liang would go on to finish in 12th place for $71,000. Brian Kim, the only American at the final table, won the tournament for $941,000. He defeated Italy's Enrico Camosci heads-up for the title. The runner-up took home $634,000.
Kim now has over $10 million in live tournament cashes. He won his first Triton Poker event to go along with a 2022 WSOP bracelet and 2022 PokerGO Tour victory. The new poker champion finished in seventh place this summer in the WSOP Main Event for a career-best $1.5 million.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brian Kim | $941,000 |
| 2 | Enrico Camosci | $634,000 |
| 3 | Alex Theologis | $436,000 |
| 4 | Robert Perez | $356,000 |
| 5 | Tom Fuchs | $284,000 |
| 6 | Dominykas Mikolaitis | $218,000 |
