A round-up of the action on Day 3 of the Triton Poker Series at the Maestral Casino in Montenegro including the founder, Richard Yong, beating Steve O’Dwyer, heads-up, to take down the Six-Max title.
I’m listening to 1982 by Liima. As the synthesisers melt the icicles hanging from my bones, I think about Patrick Battiston, Michel Platini and my black and white tv.
I stick my thumb out and hitchhike back to reality. Hardened bird poo on my tab
le. The dance of the swallows. The sea is angrily frothing at the mouth. A cross hangs on the wall like the bones of a butterfly. And I think of the Yong’s.
Wai Kin Yong looks like a Mario Cart World Champion. His slender frame walking around the tournament room, hands scratching around in the fluff of his pockets, flip-flops slip-slapping.
Typically, this is the way Wai Kin hunts his prey. Walking around the periphery of the cash game area, nose in the air, searching for the scent of fish. Today, he’s having a day off. The twenty something old has switched off his pager. Ivey and co will not be beeping him, today. Today, Wai Kin is a fan.
There are four people left in the HKD 250,000 (USD 32,000) No-Limit Hold’em Six-Max and one of them is his father, Richard Yong. The Poker King Club founder, Winfred Yu, has a seat, dressed like a Formula One Racing Car driver. Yu’s race in this one ends in fourth place.
Isaac Haxton has a pew.
The partypoker ambassador stands up and walks around as Steve O’Dwyer and Yong get into a tussle. I walk to his side and make small talk.
“How do you do it?”
He shrugs his shoulders; looks at his phone.
“You must be the most consistent player in the world?”
I can’t remember the response, but it went something along the lines ‘maybe recently?’
I throw one more in about the weather and leave him to run back to his thoughts. Of the 97 times Ike Haxton has registered on the Hendon Mob scale, 23% of them have ended up with a Top 3 finish, including this one. The man goes deeper and more frequently than Dirk Diggler used to.
Haxton hit the rail in third.
O’Dwyer would face Yong for the title with a slight chip lead. The script said that the pro would go on to beat the businessman, but this is poker. Yong took a big lead after catching O’Dwyer with his fingers in the cookie jar, and he never conceded it again.
“He {O’Dwyer} is ten times better than me,” Yong told PokerNews after his win, “I win through luck.”
It was a sweet victory for the man who created this series back in 2016. Last year, Yong lost to Manig Loeser in the final of the Montenegro Main Event, so he feels comfortable in this setting. His resume also shows a 2015 Aussie Millions AUD 100,000 Challenge victory, and eighth in the inaugural $1m buy-in Big One for One Drop.
The event attracted 35 entrants.
Final Table Results
1. Richard Yong – $388,030
2. Steve O’Dwyer – $251,723
3. Isaac Haxton – $157,327
4. Winfred Yu – $110,065
5. Cheong Cheok Leng – $78,600
6. Chan Wai Leong – $62,931
The HKD 1,000,000 (USD 127,000) Main Event begins at 1 pm (Local Time). Expect the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and the Yong family to get involved, pagers on standby.
