Danny Tang Runs Pure to Scoop Triton $50k Short Deck Title and $750,000

Hong Kong’s Danny Tang landed himself a $750,000 payday and his third Triton Poker title by taking down the $50k Short Deck Main Event title in North Cyprus...

Tang, fresh from success in the $50k NLH Turbo, took his seat alongside 19 others, in the traditional 36-card flagship Triton tournament, played as an ante-only event..

The $2.2million prizepool was due to be shared out between the top six and that number was reached when Tang picked up aces at exactly the right time...

$154k sewn up, and plenty more on the line, there was a side story taking place too, with Jason Koon battling for the Ivan Leow Player of the Year trophy. His main rival, Stephen Chidwick, had already bust short of the money and hopped into the $25k Short Deck.

Meanwhile Tang was running roughshod through the field, helped by a very friendly deck which produced this double KO at the final table...

Tang: A♣ Q♦
Greenwood: K♦ K♣
Kiat Lee: A♠ 9♠

Flop: Q♠ 9♥ J♠
Turn: 8♥
River: A♦

Koon then took out Yong, but his hopes of adding to his NLH Main Event win and an 8th Triton title were dashed by Tang, the English-born pro’s big slick holding up against AQ.

Heads-up saw Tang facing another Triton titan, Mikita Badziakouski, who boasts 4 Triton trophies, including the 2019 Montenegro stop version of the same Short Deck Main Event title.

A long battle ensued but eventually Tang got his reward when they finally got it all-in, Tang’s A♥ 9♥ holding up against the Belarus pro’s K♥ 10♠.

Final results

Tang, who lost out to Badziakouski heads-up at the Triton Madrid stop last year said afterwards: “Revenge is sweet but this is different.”

“This is the Main Event. This is my seventh stop, it took me a while to get one under my belt. I got it in Vietnam, but that was a small field, smaller buy-in. This is the Main Event. Against these two three-way. It was a very tough final table.”

Tang said of Ivan Leow, who tragically died during last year’s North Cyprus stop: “He’s here. I can feel his presence. I walk through these corridors every day and I look at the two-time champion banner, all these pictures of him. He will always, forever be with us, and part of the Triton family.”

With the North Cyprus stop, and indeed the Triton season, finished – Daniel Dvoress taking down the final $25k Short Deck title – the trophy named in Leow’s honour for the Player of the Year went to Jason Koon, who edged out Stephen Chidwick and will receive his trophy in London...