Champion Ben Tollerene

One of tournament poker's generational talents, Ben Tollerene, took another step toward immortality in Jeju tonight when he won the $100K Main Event on the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series for nearly $3.8 million. It was a new high score on a resume that was already among the very best.

In doing so, Tollerene matched his good friend Jason Koon in acquiring a second Jacob & Co timepiece, offered only to winners of Main Events on the Triton Poker Series. Koon has won a hold'em and a short deck Main Event; Tollerene adds this NLH crown to the PLO title he won in Montenegro last year.

"I'm obviously very pleased," Tollerene said, preparing to collect his fourth trophy. "I had no cashes going into today on this trip so I was feeling not so great about how everything was going. And then everything aligned today and yesterday and I somehow did it again."

Ben Tollerene receives his second Jacob & Co timepiece from company representative Cecilia Wang

It's easy to forget that Tollerene, 39, only visited this tour for the first time in 2022, eventually persuaded by Koon to show his skills on the grandest stage. He won a title at his first stop in Cyprus, added another in Monte Carlo a year later, then added number three with that huge win in Montenegro.

This result outstrips them all, however, and gives him more than $16 million in earnings on the tour.

Ben Tollerene was in a different class in this event

Over and above the raw statistics — Tollerene beat a field of 178 entries including most of the best players in the world — this was a performance of exceptional grit. After racing into a chip lead on Day 1, he spiralled seemingly out of contention following a huge cooler against the UK-based private equity professional Philip Sternheimer.

But Tollerene ground back from the brink of elimination, seized the chip lead again on the second day, and returned to the final at the top of the pack. Alongside him was none other than Sternheimer again, with the pair staying neck-and-neck at the top of the counts until it was just the two of them left.

Philip Sternheimer had almost finished Tollerene's event on Day 2

Referencing the massive pot with Sternheimer, where Tollerene flopped trips but was behind Sternheimer's flopped boat, the eventual champion said: "I just did my best the whole tournament when something was happening to me. After that hand I thought, OK I have nine big blinds now, how do we play nine big blinds? Try to just reset and stay focused because it's not going to do me any good to do anything else."

The fact that Sternheimer was the final opponent as well set up a grudge match at the tournament's conclusion, with Tollerene finally able to exact revenge. Sternheimer was ably compensated for his fine tournament with a prize of $2.535 million — also a new career high for him.

Sternheimer was the first to congratulate Tollerene

It was, as always, a star-studded final, with Canadian pro Kristen Foxen also chasing a host of landmarks. Already top of the money list for women in poker, Foxen's appearance at this final put her in with a shot of landing the biggest cash by a woman in any tournament, and elevating her to the top of Triton's female money list. But fourth place, worth $1.449 million, kept her narrowly behind Sosia Jiang.

The brilliant Kristen Foxen

Triton cash-game crusher Elton Tsang was third, with Punnat Punsri's quest for a second Main Event title ending in fifth.

But ultimately this was all about Tollerene, a player who still refers to himself as more of a PLO expert thanks to his extraordinary abilities during the online boom era, but who is more than a match for absolutely anybody.

"I think playing really big gets my focus up," Tollerene said. "These are the biggest tournaments in the world. I also think just having all the best players in the world here, it kind of lifts me up. I want to show them I'm on that level and that I can compete against them. That motivates me."

Soon enough it will dawn on Tollerene that everyone just wants to be able to compete on his level.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

In keeping with its billing as the Main Event, the tournament was a three-day affair with big starting stacks (250,000) and long levels (50 minutes), which laid the foundation for a real test of the best.

When registration closed at the start of Day 2, there had been 178 entries through the cash desk, including 61 re-entries. From that point, the field only grew smaller, until the inevitable pre-bubble slowdown.

With titans Ben Tollerene, Stephen Chidwick, Matthias Eibinger and Punnat Punsri sitting comfortably in the top 10, alongside Jeju-exclusives Xu Yang and Chen Dong, there was more of a scrap going on near the bottom of the leaderboard, where players of the caliber of Nick Petrangelo, Ren Lin and Igor Yaroshevskyy perished close to the cutoff line of 31.

Then it was the biggest scalp of them all who fell on the stone bubble: Triton (and global) Money List leader Bryn Kenney three-bet jammed his last 10 blinds from the small blind after Punsri's button open. It wasn't Punsri that Kenney needed to be wary of, however. Lun Loon, in the big blind, four-bet jammed to isolate Kenney. Punsri folded.

Bryn Kenney, the No 1 player in the world, bursts the bubble

Kenney: AJ

Loon: AQ

The dealer offered Kenney no assistance and he was out in 32nd place, which meant he'd be seeing "Did not cash" beneath his name on the Triton Poker Plus app record for this event. The remaining 31 were in the black, however. And now they started thinking about the final.

Lun Loon builds as Kenney departs

There were still plenty of chips in play across the field, and plenty of time for a big shake-up among the leaders. Tollerene and Chidwick tumbled down the counts. Tollerene lost a huge cooler against Philip Sternheimer (these two would go on to meet again), while Chidwick it the rail in 21st. By contrast, Tollerene managed to hold on despite the buffeting and started building back.

Loon, Chen and Eibinger perished, but Punsri and Xu survived the day. And when Eelis Parssinen was knocked out in 10th at around 2 a.m., the remaining nine could bag ahead of the final. And remarkably Tollerene had managed to bounce all the way back, taking his customary place at the very summit of the overnight counts.

Eelis Parssinen was knocked out in 10th to set the final

Final table line-up:

Ben Tollerene - 10,875,000 (73 BBs)

Xu Yang - 6,625,000 (44 BBs)

Elton Tsang - 5,400,000 (36 BBs)

Punnat Punsri - 5,150,000 (34 BBs)

Sean Winter - 4,175,000 (28 BBs)

Kristen Foxen - 3,825,000 (26 BBs)

Philip Sternheimer - 3,775,000 (25 BBs)

Tom Fuchs - 3,550,000 (24 BBs)

Felipe Ketzer - 1,150,000 (8 BBs)

Main Event final table players (clockwise from back left): Ben Tollerene, Felipe Ketzer, Xu Yang, Sean Winter, Kristen Foxen, Tom Fuchs, Philip Sternheimer, Punnat Punsri, Elton Tsang.

FINAL TABLE ACTION

After introductions and photos on the third and final day, the nine players settled down for what had the potential to be another long session. But for the players in the lower echelons of the leaderboard, there was considerably less time to make themselves comfortable.

In particular, Brazil's Felipe Ketzer needed to get busy straight away, but he wasn't able to get the early double up he needed.

A Triton first-timer here in Jeju, Ketzer picked up two small cashes at Triton ONE, followed by two more in the Super High Roller Series. But this was not only his first Triton final, it was already his biggest career score to date. The only question was how high he could go.

The answer came early on the final day, when Ketzer found QJ UTG and committed his last eight blinds. Elton Tsang called the shove, holding what was later revealed on the stream to be pocket 10s, but then Philip Sternheimer had JJ and shoved to isolate.

Little did Sternheimer know, but Kristen Foxen had pocket kings. However, in a punishing ICM spot, Foxen opted to let them go. Tsang also folded his pocket pair. With the "isolation" part of Sternheimer's plan successful, the absence of a queen on the board kept his hand ahead.

Ketzer was out in ninth for $385,000.

A first final ended in ninth for Felipe Ketzer

Sternheimer was in the groove and after winning another decent pot from Tom Fuchs, he pulled up close to Tollerene at the top. Meanwhile it was getting congested further down the counts, where Fuchs and Kristen Foxen were joined by Xu Yang, who lost a big one to Tollerene.

It was time for the first really significant pot of the final, and the first significant outdraw too. Foxen three-bet jammed her last 17 blinds over the early-position open of Sternheimer. She had pocket nines, but things began to look bleak for her when Tollerene found pocket queens in the small blind and called. Sternheimer shied away.

The dealer this time was shining on Foxen. There was a nine on the flop and another on the river to give her quads and earn some breathing space between her stack an four player behind her. There were implications at the top of the leaderboard too, where Sternheimer defaulted into the lead as Tollerene's stack suffered a dent.

Where Foxen prospered, Fuchs diminished. In fairness, the German pro's eventual elimination in eighth would have played out similarly in any tournament: it was kings against aces in the ultimate hold'em cooler.

Elton Tsang opened the pot from the cutoff, with Sternheimer then looking at AA in the small blind. He didn't do anything cute. He raised. Fuchs then found KK in the big blind and made the obvious jam for his last 12 blinds. And after Tsang folded, Sternheimer snapped.

This time, the under-pair found nothing of assistance. Fuchs took $464,000 and headed away. He is visiting Triton final tables with regularity these days and a breakthrough win is surely not too far away.

Tom Fuchs keeps on getting close

Sternheimer assumed the lead, but it lasted only a couple of orbits, until he doubled up Punnat Punsri with pocket eights staying good against AK. Most of Punsri's 11 blinds went in pre-flop, with the remaining shrapnel heading in when Sternheimer bet the 10Q5 flop. Punsri was committed and his eights were good.

The tournament was now at a familiar stage where the average stack was only 25 blinds and ICM implications were huge. Foxen slipped back down to the foot of the counts, but pulled off another double up, this time with AQ beating Sternheimer's KQ. It now meant that Xu, Tsang and Punsri were the all but equal short-stacks.

The tournament went on a break, and players returned to find a big blind of 400K. That left the chip counts seeming even more limited. Tollerene's chip-lead was only 34 blinds, Sternheimer had 21, and the other five had 16 or fewer. But just as had happened before, the next hand would have played out in similar fashion had the stacks been twice the size.

Xu Yang, a Chinese player who joins the Triton Poker Series exclusively in Jeju, was enjoying his best ever run. And what a tournament to do it in. And he likely thought things were looking even rosier when he found QQ in mid-position and put in a raise, only then seeing Tollerene three-bet from one seat around.

Everyone else folded, and Xu put the rest of his 17 blinds in the middle. Xu had a big pair, but Tollerene had better. The American's pocket kings were never threatened, and that was the end of Yu's tournament. His previous career earnings on the Triton Poker Series weighed in at $278,100, but this event alone added another $635,000.

A new star on the Triton Poker Series: Xu Yang

Things now started moving quickly. In back-to-back hands Tollerene and then Sternheimer sent two opponents to the rail, trimming the field to its final four. If the first was fairly standard -- Winter getting his nine blinds in with A10 to lose to Tollerene's AQ -- the second was a doozy.

Winter was barely off the stage, signing for his $870,000 sixth-place prize, when Punsri was moving his last 12 blinds over the line holding 44 in the small blind. Sternheimer looked him up in the big blind, with QJ, and this was a flip for Punsri's life.

Sean Winter's elimination in sixth was the first of back-to-back busts

The flop gave him every reason to believe he'd be doubling. It came J47. But the frankly extraordinary J turn followed by the J river gave Sternheimer quads to beat the boat. Punsri, already a Main Event champion on the tour, fell short of claiming a second timepiece.

He took $1,146,000 for fifth.

Punnat Punsri had double Main Event aspirations of his own

When Kristen Foxen took a seat at this final table, plenty of new records for women players were in sight. Foxen, who is already top of the women's money list in world poker, had the chance to win the biggest single prize for woman in tournament poker (currently held by Liv Boeree) and the biggest prize for a woman on the Triton Poker Series (currently held by Ebony Kenney).

She could also supplant Sosia Jiang as the highest-earning woman on the tour.

In order to do any of that, she first had to get into the top three of this event. But Foxen's run fell agonisingly short in fourth.

Foxen had 17 blinds and looked at A6 in the big blind. Ahead of her, chip-leading Tollerene opened from the cutoff. Foxen moved in, but Tollerene wasn't just big-stack bullying. His AK was way ahead at the start and it stayed that way through the full run out.

Foxen was out in fourth for $1,449,000.

Kristen Foxen is only marginally behind Sosia Jiang in the Triton women's money list

For the record, Foxen now has $4,673,360 in Triton earnings, only very slightly behind Jiang's $4,717,552. A min-cash in the $150K will be enough to put her top. The biggest single cash by a woman on the Triton Series remains Kenney's $1,700,000 at the invitational in Cyprus in 2022.

Tollerene now had 98 blinds, while Sternheimer had 33 and Tsang 18. It was seemingly Tollerene's to lose.

As a well-known slayer of the biggest cash games in the world, Elton Tsang is rarely content when the shackles are on. He's an action player, happiest when he's pushing people around from an enormous stack, which resultantly just keeps on getting bigger.

Although he's also no slouch on the tournament scene, with two Triton titles among other accolades, this final table had been tough for Tsang. He hadn't really manage to build a stack to threaten the two table captains, and had slipped to only 15 blinds as a result.

Tsang tried to get things moving, calling for all of his chips after Tollerene jammed the small blind. But although Tsang was ahead with A3 against Tollerene's K6, a six on the flop span things around.

The 4 turn gave him plenty of outs, but the 7 river was not what he needed. That was the end of the road for the man from Hong Kong. He won $1,787,000.

Elton Tsang never amassed the chips to play his usual aggressive game

And so the heads-up battle was confirmed. Tollerene and Sternheimer sat once again opposite one another, with the American's 91 blinds dwarfing the Brit's 20. And these two had history to settle.

The early exchanges mostly went to Sternheimer, with stacks getting somewhat closer. But then with Tollerene still leading 58 blinds to 31, the big, tournament-ending hand began brewing.

Sternheimer and Tollerene renew their acquaintance

Tolleren was in the small blind and just completed, holding 102. Sternheimer checked his K7 and they went to the flop for the minimum.

It was very good for Tollerene, coming 2A10.

Sternheimer check/called Tollerene's bet and the 6 fell on the turn. Sternheimer picked up the nut-flush draw and check/called another bet from Tollerene.

The 2 missed Sternheimer but made Tollerene's hand into a full house. Now he had to work out a way to get all of it. He bet 5.5 million into 6.5 million, and Sternheimer did the work for his opponent. He bluff jammed for the 12 million he had back.

Tollerene didn't need to think too long before snapping him off, showing the boat and taking it down.

Dan Dvoress and Jason Koon join the champ