Germany’s Manig Loeser took down the Triton Super High Roller Series Montengro last night after an hour-long heads-up battle against Macau businessman Richard Yong. The two players exchanged the lead several times, before their final all-in confrontation.
Loeser collected HK$16,877,600 ($2,161,520) for his triumph, thus doubling up his total live poker earnings to almost $4.7 million.
The German poker pro entered the final day of the three-day high roller tournament as the chip leader, holding a substantial advantage over his eight remaining fellow players. The event’s final table saw international presence with participants from Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Greece, and Belarus. The winner of the 2008 WSOP Europe Main Event, John Juanda, was among the notables to enter the Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event final table.
Although all remaining hopefuls put a lot of effort into surviving the final table and hopefully scoop the title, Loeser and Yong were the ones to put up a particularly good show throughout the day. Yong won several key pots and eliminated several fellow players to establish himself as the chip leader at some point.
However, Loeser was not trailing far behind him. During three-handed play, the German lured Peter Chan into an all-in confrontation that ended with the Hong Kong-based player surrendering his chips to Loeser and leaving the tournament in third place for HK$6,849,000.
The hand was huge enough to improve Loeser’s position significantly and the player entered heads-up against Yong as the chip leader, holding 6.7 million against his opponent’s 6.5 million. As mentioned above, two-handed match lasted for about an hour, during which the chip lead exchanged hands on several occasions.
Yong gained momentum and took the lead after winning a key pot. Loeser then waited patiently for an opportunity to improve and when one finally emerged, he did not hesitate to take the best possible advantage out of it. The eventual champion never looked back from that point on.
By the time the final hand occurred, Yong had dropped to just 50,000. The player needed to win that hand desperately but it was not meant to be. He was forced all in pre-flop, which Loeser called with his [Jc][2c]. Yong tabled [Ah][4s]. The board ran out [6c][Jh][8d][6h][9d] to lock the victory for Loeser. Yong, who was actually among the founders of the Triton Super High Roller Series, collected HK$11,252,000 for his runner-up finish.
Commenting on his first major poker accomplishment, Loeser told interviewers that he was happy to have won a tournament with such a high buy-in and so much pressure. Each of the 52 tournament entries had to pay the amount of HK$1,000,000 ($128,000), in order to be able to participate in it.
