Poker Hall of Fame member, John Juanda has beaten the young hotshot Fedor Holz in a tense heads-up match to win the $2.8m first prize at the Triton Super High Roller Series in Macau.
When the media begins waxing lyrical about the men who have stood the test of time in live tournament poker, it’s always the names of Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, and Phil Ivey that fall out of our lips like spuds rolling out of a broken sack of potatoes. It’s time we added another name to that list with more frequency.
John Juanda.
If there is a High Roller event in town, chances are, Juanda is in the game. The Poker Hall of Famer has been around for aeons and consistently finds himself in the money.
On Friday, he was once again in the game, this time the HK$1m buy-in Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event, and he won it, taking home his most substantial payday in over two decades of competing at the very top of his profession.
The event drew 57 unique entrants and 26 re-entries making it the largest-ever field for a Triton Super High Roller Main Event entering the till at HK$78,086,400 prize pool ($10,008,703).
Of course, John Juanda had to outfight Fedor Holz in a four and a half hour heads-up squabble to take the title. Juanda began with a 2:1 chip lead, stretched it out to 5:1 before the German came storming back to take the lead. Juanda is one of the coolest cats in the business and fought back to retake the lead before eventually finishing him off.
Juanda banked HK$22,410,400 ($2,872,299) for the win. It’s the fourth time he has earned a seven-figure score, but never anything as sizeable as the Triton win.
The win sees Juanda leapfrog Phil Hellmuth Jr and Scott Seiver to move into seventh place on the All-Time Money list and you can expect him to overtake Phil Ivey to move into sixth within a year if Ivey sticks to the cash games.
Holz picked up $2.1m for his runner-up finish, his sixth seven-figure score. Remarkably, the bounty was only the fourth highest score of his short and very succulent career.
Former winners of the Triton Super High Roller Main Event include Koray Aldemir (Manila – $1.3m), Manig Loeser (Montenegro – $2.1m), and Wai Kin Yong (Manila – $2m).
Juanda has two previous fourth-place finishes in Triton Super High Roller Main Event tournaments. Speaking to PokerNews, Juanda said the Triton Series is one of the best tournaments in the world citing the friendly atmosphere, no lines at the payout desk, and the best chow in the business.
Final Table Results
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
Also leaving with change were James Chen (9th), Michael Watson (10th), JC Alvarado (11th), and Manig Loeser (12th)
