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TRITON: Lucky seven for Koon, Ramin Hajiyev winner of massive Luxon Invitational
In May, the world's most luxurious poker tour docked at the Merit Royal Diamond Resort in Cyprus, where it has traditionally attracted the poker elite from around the world. Day after day, we could watch interesting poker fights and beautiful stories, of which the name of Jason Koon stood out the most already on May 13. The record holder of this series in the $20k GG NLH 7-handed event already reached his sixth Triton title, while no one else has more than four titles!
But this record lasted only 9 days, after which it was Koon who surpassed himself again! The 37-year-old from West Virginia reigned supreme in the $100k Main Event, where, in addition to the aforementioned seventh title and $2,451,082 prize, he also earned valuable points for the Ivan Leow Player of the Year ranking, in which he will most likely take first place after the end of the last event!
"I was here a year ago when Ivan left us forever. He was a great friend, every time I walk around the tournament hall, everything reminds me of him. And the fact that I lead the ranking named after him really touches me," declared the recent winner and unsurpassed record holder Koon with tears in his eyes.
The path to the title was not easy at all, names like Stephen Chidwick, Mike Watson, Sean Winter, Steve O'Dwyer, Henrik Hecklen and Sam Greenwood awaited Koon at the final table. But none of them could stop Koon, and after a heads-up deal with Sam Greenwood, he claimed the largest part of the 10 million prize pool - $2,451,082. He also won the aforementioned trophy and a unique Triton watch from Jacob & Co. In addition, Triton series director Paul Phua promised him after the tournament that if he won the PoY, he would give him one of the watches from his private collection!
An even bigger and more expensive tournament than the mentioned Koon Main Event was the unique Luxon Pay Invitational event with a price tag of $200,000. This tournament featured 32 professionals, each of whom invited one amateur/entrepreneur to the game, resulting in an interestingly mixed field of players. In it, players took care of up to 86 entries, meaning a massive prizepool worth $17,200,000.
Prize money starting at $350,000 awaited the top 13 players, but a massive $4,560,000 was reserved for the champion. Although there were many famous names among the candidates for winning this title (Sean Winter, Ben Heat and Patrik Antonius fought for the final table, for example), the trophy ended up in the hands of the former Azerbaijani tennis player Ramin Hajiyev. Today, the 35-year-old entrepreneur is engaged in the restaurant business, which will certainly be helped by the $4,122,554 financial injection he received after a heads-up deal with Tobias Duthweiler.
Michael Soyza, who managed to win the $75k NLH event, closes the trio of resounding champions of the Cypriot Triton. Among 87 entries, the current two-time champion took home a $1,735,000 bonus and the first win of this calendar year from the 6.5 million prize pool."We are here to battle. And I'm glad that I managed to bring this battle to a victorious end!"
Source: Triton-Series, Twitter, HighStakesDB