Jeremy Ausmus Takes Down Maiden Triton Title in Jeju for $1,892,000

Jeremy Ausmus has finally bagged his first Triton Super High Roller Series title after emerging victorious in Triton Jeju Event #3 – $25,000 NLH 8-Handed.

The American topped another record-breaking event that saw 391 entries build the biggest ever $25K tournament ever held in the Triton Series, with a prize pool of $9,775,000 paid out to the top 63 finishers.

Jeremy Ausmus is one of the most decorated live tournament players around today with almost $24 million in winnings and six WSOP gold bracelets.

So why doesn’t he play in more Triton events? Simply because he likes to stay close to home in Las Vegas.

“It’s amazing. It’s a lot for me to come overseas for a series, but I saw how big Jeju was last year and thought, ‘I’ve gotta go next time.’”

As for how travelling so far affected his poker, a live “misclick” actually ended up saving the day.

With 23 players left, Ausmus put out the wrong chips when he wanted to raise with pocket kings and was instructed that he could only call. Incredibly, his opponent had pocket aces and when the other two aces appeared on the board he was able to get away cheaply.

Action Recap

When 73 players returned for Day 2, it was clear that they would do all they could to avoid being eliminated in the group of ten that would leave without a prize.

But that’s a tough ask in such a field and it was names such as Dan Dvoress, Mikita Badziakouski and Alex Foxen would go home empty-handed.

Shunjiro Kita led the way with 53bb when the final table formed up, closely followed by Ausmus with 48bb.

YouTuber Alexander Seibt — AKA Wolfgang Poker — was making his debut in the high-stakes arena, putting in a fantastic performance to make it this far, albeit with only 17bb remaining.

Aliaksandr Shylko was down to only 7bb and he couldn’t repeat the pattern of the shorties making serious headway from the first two events.

Once the ice had broken, the aggression level increased significantly with the chip lead being passed between a few different players.

And then we saw one of the craziest hands of the event.  Zhou Quan picked up pocket aces as Shunjiro Kita looked down at A♦ K♦ and Matthias Eibinger found pocket nines.

Kita was now down to 2bb and three-time Triton winner Eibinger was heading to the exit.Kita followed him two hands later.

Zhou was now leading but Ausmus pulled him right back in after getting paid with pocket kings right after his “misclick” escape.

Paulius Vaitiekunas was making yet another deep run with a serious challenge for a title but eventually he was forced to risk the rest of his chips with 5♥ 4♦ only to run into Zhou’s  pocket jacks. The Lithuanian collected a $417,000 prize for his sixth place finish.

Maksim Vaskresenski was next to leave after seeing his Q♥ 9♥ jam called by Sim Kok Wai ‘s pocket aces.

That skirmish left four players in the hunt, including Alexander Seibt who must have been thinking his poker dream was coming true, but then it was all over as quick as a flash.

A standard shove with A♥ 8♣ in the small blind after Ausmus opened on the button with Q♣ 9♥ looked promising. But the 9♠ on the flop and Q♦ on the turn was enough to send Seibt home to leave us with three.

A prize of $680,000 for fourth place is a great achievement for the American and we’re sure that he’ll be back after quadrupling his live tournament record in one event.

By now, Wai had the rail cheering him on passionately and he set a perfect trap with pocket king in the small blind. Zhou played right into it too, jamming 5♠ 3♦. But a straight for Zhou by the river eliminated Wai with a $855,000 prize.

Zhou’s 30bb stack gave him some advantage against the 19bb of Ausmus, but the chips went in on the very first hand of heads-up anyway.

Zhou started in front with A♦ 5♥ but Ausmus’ K♣ Q♠ found two pair by the river to set him up nicely for the next hand.

In the end, it all came down to a flip between A♥ 9♦ and pocket threes. Ausmus flopped an ace and a nine to seal the win and his first ever Triton trophy, not to mention the $1,892,000 winner’s prize.

Triton Jeju Event #3 – $25,000 NLH 8-Handed Final Table Results