Originally slated to be an invitational live-streamed cash game, Jason Koon and the rest of the super-pros at EPT Monte Carlo instead opted to play a winner-takes-all sit-and-go (SNG) tournament instead. Nine of the greatest players in the world put up €100,000, with PokerStars ponying up another €100,000, to create a €1,000,000 prize pool.
No deals. No gimmicks. No ICM. Just nine of the greatest players in the world with nearly $430 million in earnings between them playing balls to the wall for a seven-figure payday.
In the end, it would be PokerStars Team Pro, the winningest player in the history of the Triton Poker Series, and the third-winningest player in poker history, Jason Koon, to celebrate victory.
Koon topped a field that included the likes of Stephen Chidwick, Mikita Badziakouski, Daniel Dvoress, Aleksejs Ponakovs, Ben Tollerene, Patrik Antonius, Artur Martirosian, and Kayhan Mokri.
It’s unclear whether or not Jason Koon will see this score added to his impressive $72,117,655 in career live tournament earnings, as it may not be considered an official competition. He is currently $6.4 million behind Chidwick and $12.7 million behind Bryn Kenney in the race to become poker’s winningest player.
Jason Koon’s road to victory
Every player started with a healthy 1,000,000-chip stack with the blinds at 3,000/6,000 with a 6,000 big blind ante. With roughly 167 big blinds and no ICM pressure whatsoever, high-stakes superstar and commentator Sam Grafton confirmed that everyone had enough ammunition and incentive to play a super action-heavy game of poker. That’s exactly what we saw on Wednesday afternoon.
Over the seven-hour stream, we saw a number of memorable hands. In fact, from the very first hand of the day, we knew it was going to be incredible, seeing Ben Tollerene raise on the river to 600,000 in a three-bet pot with on into Mikita Badziakouski, who was block-betting 60,000 into a 250,000-chip pot with .
9th place: Mikita Badziakouski
Badziakouski would be the first one eliminated from the invitational, roughly two hours into the session, in incredibly brutal fashion.
With the blinds up to 6,000/12,000, Tollerene opened to 26,000 from under the gun with . Patrik Antonius flatted from UTG+1 and Ponakovs three-bet to 100,000 from UTG+2 with . Badziakouski cold four-bet from the big blind to 250,000 with . Action folded back to Ponakovs, who called with his pocket tens.
With 570,000 already in the middle, the flop came , giving Ponakovs middle set. It’s worth mentioning that Tollerene would have flopped top set. Badziakouski c-bet for 185,000 and Ponakovs called.
The turn was a complete brick, the . With 940,000 in the middle and 852,000 behind, Badziakouski continued betting for 325,000. Ponakovs used a time bank before jamming. Badziakouski snap-called and saw that he was in terrible shape, with just one out as one of the kings had been folded by Antonius.
The river was a clean , and Ponakovs’ stack went up to a massive 2,820,000, nearly a third of the chips in play. With the blinds going up to 10,000/15,000 after the hand, Ponakovs had 110 big blinds more than his closest competitor, Stephen Chidwick. Funny enough, Jason Koon was living in the basement with just 500,000 chips.
8th place: Daniel Dvoress
Dvoress couldn’t really get anything going all day and was the second to go, busting in eighth place. While everyone seemed to be going up in chips, Dvoress continued to bleed and had to cockroach for quite a long time. Eventually, he ran pocket nines into the pocket aces of Ponakovs. It took nearly five hours and 85 hands to reduce the field from nine to seven.
7th place: Ben Tollerene
With seven players in the mix and the blinds already up to 25,000/50,000, players were only playing with a 26 big blind average, which meant the dominoes would likely start falling at a rapid pace. Unfortunately, for Ben Tollerene, he was the next to go, as a mistimed three-bet jam would be his fate.
Chidwick opened to 100,000 with and Tollerne jammed for 815,000 with . Chidwick called and Tollerene only had a 17% chance to survive and double up.
The flop came , boosting Tollerene to 23% after flopping a pair and double backdoors. However, the was virtually the worst card in the deck, and Tollerene was drawing to just five outs. The river was the , and just six players remained.
6th place: Aleksejs Ponakovs
A few hands later, Jason Koon won a massive flip against Ponakovs. Koon opened pocket eights off 15 big blinds, and Ponakovs jammed with a slightly covering stack. Koon called held, doubling up while Ponakovs went down to five bigs.
A couple of hands later, Ponakovs lost a flip with pocket deuces against Chidwick’s ace-queen suited.
Jason Koon’s unreal hero call
With five left, Stephen Chidwick and Jason Koon played the hand of the tournament. With the blinds at 40,000/80,000, Chidwick opened to 160,000 with from the button. Koon three-bet to 480,000 from the small blind with and Chidwick decided to peel.
With 1,120,000 in the middle, the flop came , giving Chidwick bottom pair while Koon flopped a lot of backdoor equity. Koon continued for 275,000, and Chidwick called.
The turn brought the , and both players had roughly 90-100% pot behind. Koon continued again for 320,000, and Chidwick opted for another call.
The river was the , counterfeiting Chidwick and giving Koon the best hand. Koon checked over to Chidwick, who shoved for 1,075,000 effective into the 2,320,000-chip pot. Koon was noticeably uncomfortable and, after some serious headscratching and a time bank, made the incredible call. Koon vaulted up to 4,470,000, about 50% of the chips in play, while Chidwick was left with less than three big blinds. Despite this, Chidwick would not go easily and was back over the 1.2 million-chip mark in a single orbit.
5th place: Patrik Antonius
After a short break, the blinds increased to 50,000/100,000, which gave the game some real pace. The battle would last for less than an hour, with seemingly every other hand being an all in.
Antonius was on the shorter side for much of the day and, like Dvoress, never really got anything going. He jammed his 475,000 with from the button and was called by Artur Martirosian in the small blind, who had .
While Antonius turned a flush draw, ace-high remained good on the ten-high runout. Martirosian, meanwhile, moved up to just under 2.5 million. At this stage, all four remaining players were between 16 and 28 big blinds.
4th place: Artur Martirosian
The very next hand, Kayhan Mokri opened to 200,000 from the cutoff with . Martirosian flatted the button with , and Koon defended the big blind with .
The flop came and action checked to Martirosian, who bet 200,000 into the 750,000-chip pot. Koon called, and Mokri folded.
The turn was the , giving Martirosian a fateful top pair against Koon’s two pair on a very dynamic board. Martirosian continued for 650,000 into 1,150,000. Koon jammed over the top of the Russian, who went in the tank before calling off. The river was the , and Koon eliminated Martirosian, covering by just 50,000 chips.
Jason Koon chipped up to 5,350,000, giving him nearly 60% of the chips in play, with just him, Mokri, and Chidwick remaining.
3rd place: Stephen Chidwick
A few hands later, with the blinds at 50,000/125,000, Mokri shoved from the small blind with and Chidwick called off for about seven big blinds with , much to the surprise of the commentators and fans around the world.
Chidwick rivered the eight and doubled up. However, his joy was short-lived as Mokri would get him back a few hands later with against Chidwick’s , leaving Chidwick with just three blinds.
Mokri would finish him off two hands later, winning a flip with against Chidwick’s , setting up heads-up play.
Jason Koon wins it all
Koon went in with a two-to-one chip lead, and ahead of heads-up play, Mokri said: “May the luckiest guy win.” Unbelievably, the two players only needed one hand and acted like it was a five-dollar flip.
Mokri went all in with and Koon unbelievably called off with . It looked like we were going to be headed for a chop, especially after the flop.
However, the gave Koon a flush draw and had him on his feet. The ended it, and Koon got to celebrate his unbelievable fortune with €1,000,000 and a glitzy trophy ceremony.
He told the cameras, “I can’t do a backflip in Berkenstocks after sitting in a chair for eight hours. Cool. That was a really hard SNG to win, I gotta say.
“A tournament like this would never be able to get off the ground, even with the smallest fees. Even if players were winning a little bit (in the long-run), they would just say ‘I’ve got something better to do with my time’, like a cash game or a tournament.
“So shoutout to PokerStars for making this happen. Without that slight rebate (€100K added), no one would show up and do this. It’s a huge win for us as players and cool for the viewers at home to see the best guys just show up and try to kill each other.
“It’s something really different and unique. I’ve always been an extreme competitor. Some people would say that they’ve found their pocket, the stakes that they like to play, and that they make a good living doing that. For me, it was always the exact opposite. I wanted to play the best players in the world, I got my ass kicked by these guys over and over and over again at the beginning of my career. This is year 20 for me, and for the last 12, I’ve been playing the biggest games.
“I think everyone at the table really wanted to win today. It was a bit of an out-of-body experience, especially in some of these big moments… especially when it’s all-in preflop or you’re making a big bluff/call for your tournament life on the river. It felt like I was watching myself do it.”
