Day 7 of the Triton Super High Roller Series London kicked off with Day 2 of the $200,000 NLH 8-Handed Event #7. A total of 81 entries (including 30 re-entries) generated a eye-watering prize pool of $16,200,000, with 13 places supposed to pay out in amounts ranging from $325,000 for a min-cash to $4.3 million for first place. The actual payouts at the end of the day reflected a three-way deal; eventual winner David Yan actually took home $3,052,002 – less than Jose “Nacho” Barbero got for second place, but still Yan’s biggest ever live score.
Day 2 began with Barbero maintaining the chip lead he’d held since early on Day 1. Barbero stayed in the top spot for the first few hours of Day 2, but eventually David Yan caught up with him and the two of them spent several hours swapping the chip lead back and forth.
The bubble was an especially drawn-out affair – not particularly surprising with $325,000 at stake for a min-cash. Particularly fortunate to make it into the money was Daniel Dvoress, whose stack at one point dwindled to just a single big blind when he doubled up – or technically tripled up, taking the blinds into account – with pocket aces.
The bubble eventually burst when Espen Jørstad’s ace-king outflipped Mikita Badziakouski’s pocket sevens to send the latter to the rail in 14th place. This also propelled Jørstad into the chip lead as the ITM eliminations began:
| 9 | Seth Davies | $400,500 |
| 10 | Seth Gottlieb | $400,500 |
| 11 | Sam Grafton | $348,000 |
| 12 | Daniel Dvoress | $325,000 |
| 13 | Christoph Vogelsang | $325,000 |
Jørstad had only consolidated his chip lead by the time they reached the final table:
Juan Pardo, having nursed a micro-stack for some time, was the first to bust in 8th place for $600,000. Chris Brewer made an incredible fold with a flopped flush against Jørstad’s turned quads, but he couldn’t recover and exited in 7th place ($770,000) a short while later.
Jørstad soon found his chip lead threatened by David Yang, who busted Aleksejs Ponakovs in 6th place ($970,000). And soon Barbero was also back in contention for the chip lead after busting Danny Tang in 5th place ($1,247,000).
With the stacks relatively even and the blinds creeping upwards, the four remaining players came close to a deal, but not close enough. They decided to play on, and when Timothy Adams was eliminated by Nacho Barbero in 4th place, he picked up just the advertised $1,550,000.
Barbero now had half the chips in play, and after a bit of back-and-forth, the final three players agreed a deal shortly after 2am – $100,000 and the trophy would be set aside for the winner, with the rest of the prize money awarded like so:
| Nacho Barbero | $3,445,807 |
| David Yan | $2,952,002 |
| Espen Jørstad | $2,766,191 |
Jørstad got unlucky and had his pocket queens busted by David Yan’s pocket nines for 3rd place. Yan consequently went into the heads up with a slight chip lead over Nacho Barbero, but the chip lead would change hands several times over the course of a lengthy heads-up battle. Deal be damned – both these players clearly wanted the title, and both fought hard for it.
Eventually Yan found his spot with a big chip lead and ace-four on the button. Barbero called all in with king-six, and it was all over. Barbero got the biggest payout – $3,445,807 – but Yan got his first Triton title and the trophy, along with a not-too-shabby $3,052,002.
Thus concluded the second highest buy-in event of this Triton series. Tomorrow we dive straight into the priciest event of all – the $250k LuxonPay Invitational. Tune in to poker.org Instant for coverage and live streaming from 2pm.
