John Juanda Wins Triton Macau Main Event for $2.8m

The Triton Super High Roller Series was held at the Galaxy Macau Hotel, with 57 entries and 26 re-entries into its HK $1 million (US$128,160) High Roller Main Event helping to create a prize pool of HK $78,086,400 (US$10,000,499). At the end of three days, it was John Juanda who would subsequently overcome the field, including German prodigy Fedor Holz heads-up, to claim the title, and its HK$22,410,400 (US$2,870,092) first place prize.
Juanda’s latest win pushes his career earnings to $23,645,182, leapfrogging him past Scott Seiver and Phil Hellmuth to reach number 7 on poker’s “All Time Money List”. Commenting upon his massive victory, the 5-times WSOP bracelet winner said:
“Well, obviously it feels great anytime you win a tournament of this magnitude. First, you have to play pretty well and you also have to get lucky. Especially nowadays with the tough fields we have. For example, the final table, I mean, looks like everybody is an amazing player.”
Amongst the players seeing a return on their buy-ins, but falling short of a final table appearance was Manig Loeser in 12th (US$270,157), JC Alvarado in 11th (US $280,154), Mike Watson in 10th (US$290,263), and James Chen in 9th (US$300,278).
By the time the final table had been reached, John Juanda was the smallest stack in contention, while Fedor Holz had the second biggest chip count to Adrian Mateos. On their way to a final showdown, Fedor Holz then eliminated Stephen Chidwick in 6th, while Juanda did likewise to Adrian Mateos (4th), and Kahle Burns (3rd) to take a 13.5m to 7.25m lead over Holz into the final phase of the competition.
Three and a half hours later, and the final hand was played with Holz moving all-in preflop holding A-3, and receiving a call from Juanda with A-5. A 5 dealt on the river then sealed the victory for Juanda, although Holz still collected $2,101,674 for his impressive run. Commenting upon his heads-up opponent, Juanda said:
“Playing against Fedor was really tough. He’s a really awesome player and obviously, he’s the guy winning all the super high rollers. I’m really fortunate to play heads up and come out on top. I think we have a different style of playing. It was a good long match and I’m pretty sure he enjoyed it too.”
Final Table Result (US$):
1: John Juanda $2,872,299
2: Fedor Holz $2,101,674
3: Kahle Burns $1,301,018
4: Adrian Mateos $890,757
5: Dietrich Fast $590,425
6: Stephen Chidwick $440,380
7: Timothy Adams $360,257
8: Isaac Haxton $310,271