Played one, won one! That is the remarkable stat Artem Kobylynskyi set last night when he scooped the Triton Jeju $30k Short Deck title and with it $492,000.
The return of the 36-card variant to Triton’s schedule saw 56 entries to the $30k buy-in tournament, 27 of those re-entries. That created a prizepool of $1,680,000, the top nine players picking up a paycheck.
Short Deck Rules
For those new to Short Deck (or those with short memories!) the 2’s, 3’s, 4’s and 5’s are removed from the standard 52-card deck. That leaves 36 cards and an ace can be high or low, meaning it can count as a 5 in a straight (A/6/7/8/9). Also worth noting is that rule that a flush now beats a full house, in Triton’s version at least.
Onto the action and the bubble was a curious affair, Sam Greenwood fresh from a runner-up spot in the Bounty Quattro staking his tournament life on A♠ J♠ by calling Mike Watson’s 4-bet jam. That move was upended by “SirWatts” tabling A♥ K♣ and we were in the money.
Death by quads
Seven players returned for day 2’s final table, absolute beasts such as Jason Koon, Stephen Chidwick, Daniel Dvoress and Watson still in the mix. It was Triton Poker founder Paul Phua who would exit first and in spectacular fashion…
Sometimes the race is over before it even begins… 🐇⚡@DDvoress @paulphuapoker pic.twitter.com/6y8YyFoKvP
— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) March 14, 2025
That was followed by Watson KO’ing Chidwick with AK, his third big slick knockout having also disposed of Danny Tang in 9th spot by cracking pocket kings.
Ten-time Triton champ Jason Koon hasn’t had the best of trips this time round and his 5th place for $134k likely wouldn’t have been satisfying enough to change that. His end came courtesy of Dvoress…
Koon: A♣ 10♠
Dvoress: A♥ 10♥
Flop: 6♣ 10♦ 8♠
All the chips went in on the flop but the runout was cruel to Koon…
Turn: 9♦
River: Q♠
Lun Loon had to be content with an 18th Triton cash but still no win after he was eliminated by Kobylynskyi, who found himself up against grizzled veterans in Dvoress and Watson.
Fly in for the Win
However, the 34-year-old Ukrainian had flown in especially for the Short Deck stages of the Jeju stop and took out Dvoress just a hand later, leaving him heads-up with Watson for the crown.
Flopping a straight gave the Ukrainian the lead and then big slick came back to remind Watson that nothing in poker can be taken for granted…
Watson: A♥ 8♠
Kobylynskyi: A♦ K♣
Flop: J♠ 9♥ 7♦
Turn: Q♠
River: Q♥
With that, Artem Kobylynskyi had picked up a Triton title at his very first attempt telling Ali Nejad in his post-game interview: “It was not easy.”
The winner added: “When you play Hold’em, it’s not so interesting. I’m very happy that Triton keeps treating short deck well, I hope it will stay.”
Event #18 $30k SHORT DECK
Final results
| 1 | Artem Kobylynskyi | Ukraine | $492,000 |
| 2 | Mike Watson | Canada | $353,000 |
| 3 | Dan Dvoress | Canada | $229,000 |
| 4 | Lun Loon | Malaysia | $173,000 |
| 5 | Jason Koon | USA | $134,000 |
| 6 | Stephen Chidwick | UK | $104,000 |
| 7 | Paul Phua | Malaysia | $82,000 |
| 8 | Danny Tang | Hong Kong | $64,000 |
| 9 | Winfred Yu | Hong Kong | $49,000 |
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