The Russian is one of the most highly-rated players among the elite at the Triton Super High Roller Series, but boy was he surrounded by top talent as the event closed out.
This will go down as one of the proudest moments in Maritosian’s career, not least because it was possibly the best PLO players in history who he defeated heads-up to claim the title — Ben Tollerene, who was also aiming to extend his own trio of Triton Wins.
The event attracted 60 entries, paying out $421,000 for the winner and $298,000 for the runner-up.
Maritosian spoke after his win about how much the Ivan Leow Player of the Year award means to him personally, and how it’s been a major aim during his career. This victory gives the Russian a healthy lead over fellow three-time winner Alex Foxen.
“It means a lot for me. When I started to play PLO, my first goal was to win POY. I said on at the first stop of this series that I would win POY. It means more than any titles. I’m very happy.
“We have a lot of tournaments, so sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But this award, it’s for your whole life.”
The 28-year-old added that luck played an important role at a particularly short-stacked final table.
“Battling for 20 BBs is not like real battling. It’s more about luck. But I’m happy to beat one of the best…The table was quite tough. It’s not a big tournament, but it was a very tough final table.”
Action Recap
The small field was down to this event being played alongside the $100K PLO Main Event, won by Ike Haxton.
But there were still a total of 18 Triton titles between the returnees on Day 2, with many of them PLO specialists or top draw names.
Alex Foxen, Punnat Punsri, and Artur Martirosian were also duelling over the Player of the Year race.
When the final nine sat down, there would still be two more eliminations necessary before the official final table of seven was called.
Sean Rafael was bumped out in ninth place, closely followed by Brit Stephen Chidwick who’d won the $200,000 Short Deck a couple of weeks ago.
Final Table Chip Counts
| Player | Chips | BBs |
| Ben Tollerene | 4,195,000 | 105 |
| Santhosh Suvarna | 2,830,000 | 71 |
| Alex Foxen | 1,345,000 | 34 |
| Dirk Gerritse | 1,295,000 | 32 |
| Punnat Punsri | 915,000 | 23 |
| Kosei Ichinose | 715,000 | 18 |
| Artur Martirosian | 705,000 | 18 |
The final seven chip counts didn’t paint a pretty picture for Artur Maritosian; there he sat with only 18 blinds at the bottom of the table. Meanwhile, PLO ninja Ben Tollerene was stretching away at the top of the counts with 105.
High-stakes cash game player Santhosh Suvarna was the first man to make some moves. First he reduced Punnat Punsri’s chips down to five blinds, and then sent Kosei Ichinose out in seventh for $73,000.
Punsri was obviously happy to see that, but he too was on his way out a few hands later. First he doubled up against Alex Foxen, and then clashed with Ben Tollerene.
The Thai opened on the button with A♥ J♦ 10♥ 3♦ and Tollerene called in the big blind holding 9♥ 8♦ 7♠ 5♠.
Punsri was going with it, whatever dropped on the flop, and the board rolled out 4♦ J♠ 8♠ Q♦ 2♠ to leave him heading to the exit in sixth for $93,000.
Alex Foxen was now making waves and accumulating chips. His run started with Maritosian doubling through him but he got those chips back and went past Tollerene and Suvarna to the head of the field.
But this is PLO and rungood rarely lasts long. Dirk Gerritse — AKA VeniVidi1993 who once completed a $1 million bankroll challenge on CoinPoker — doubled twice through Foxen before Survana took a bunch of those chips to lead.
Absolute madness ensued and it was Foxen who ultimately dipped out as he left in fifth place for $120,000.
By now, Survana’s lead had dwindled and after surviving a couple of all-in confrontations he went up against Maritosian with A♦ 9♥ 9♣ 7♦ and the Russian triumphed with his Q♥ Q♣ J♠ 10♦ good enough.
Gerritse followed the Indian to the rail minutes later and collected $201,000 for third.
As heads-up began Martirosian held 60 blinds to Tollerene’s 21. The American is capable of many great things in the four-card variant but he couldn’t do anything in this match.
In the final hand Tollerene went with A♣ K♣ J♥ 7♦ and Maritosian was happy to play ball for 29 big blinds with K♥ K♦ 10♦ 9♦.
Two tens on the flop saw Maritosian claim the title and $421,000.
Event #13: Triton Jeju $25,000 PLO 6-Handed Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1st | Artur Martirosian | Russia | $421,000 |
| 2nd | Ben Tollerene | United States | $298,000 |
| 3rd | Dirk Gerritse | Netherlands | $201,000 |
| 4th | Santhosh Suvarna | India | $152,000 |
| 5th | Alex Foxen | United States | $120,000 |
| 6th | Punnat Punsri | Thailand | $93,000 |
| 7th | Kosei Ichinose | Japan | $73,000 |
| 8th | Stephen Chidwick | England | $57,000 |
| 9th | Sean Rafael | United States | $46,000 |
