Aaron Zang lifts Triton Vietnam Short Deck Title for $1,544,000

Aaron Zang lifted the triton Vietnam Short Deck Main Event, scooping the $1,544,000 top prize after downing England’s Michael Zhang heads-up...

Chinese businessman and poker fanatic Zang may be best known for his monster win in the Triton Million charity event in 2019, in which runner-up Bryn Kenney took a bigger share of the prizefund that vaulted him to all-time leading moneywinner status.

In the $100k buy-in flagship version of the 36-card format in Vietnam, however, he was just one of 49 entries at the outset - 26 unique players and 23 re-entries making the prizepool $4.9million.

First order of play on day two was to reduce 21 players to the seven paid spots, and Daniel Dvoress was the unlucky bubble boy...

Dvoress: A♦ Q♠
Zang: K♣ J♥

Flop: 8♥ A♣ 10♦
Turn: Q♦
River: 10♣

With $257,000 locked up, the remaining seven could breathe more easily, although Triton Poker ambassador Jason Koon had promised he’d win two events this stop, and was running out of time to add the second.

He fell short when he lost big pots to Zhang and Zang, the last of his chips going to Kiat Lee, but he had still set a new record of five Triton wins with one more event to go.

Paul Phua, who has more Triton cashes than anyone else, fell in 6th place, and then it was the turn of Mikita Badziakouski to depart. Chasing Koon’s five wins, the Belarus crusher saw a rivered straight crack his pocket queens, out in 5th for $416,000.

Phil Chiu followed him to the rail courtesy of Zang, another strai8ght appearing to crack a big pocket pair, and then Lee’s hopes of a debut win were shattered by Zhang.

Heads-up and Zang versus Zhang had a Triton title, the trophy, a luxury Jacob & Co watch, and more than $400k difference between winner and runner-up riding on the outcome.

An hour of play saw Zang pull clear and the end came in the following hand...

Final results