Canada’s Xuan Liu today became Triton Poker’s first-ever female champion, lifting the opening $25k event of the Triton Poker Montenegro SHR festival for a monster $860,000 cash.
The WPT Global ambassador was one of 155 entries, 99 of them unique, for the series opener. Aptly, it was the $25k buy-in WTP Global Slam and the $3,875,000 prizepool promised some huge payouts to kick off the action. And if that buy-in seems rather high, it is the lowest of all 16 tournaments on the schedule.
First port of call of course was the money bubble, and with 27 players paid it looked like Orpen “Orp the Turk” Kisacikoglu would walk away empty-handed.
Fortunately, his two opponents didn’t dare re-open the betting put him all-in for his final chip and it was local hero Dejan Kaladjurdjevic who instead took the bubble-boy spot, running his final chips in the big blind into David Peters’ A♠ A♣
With $39k locked up, the plan was to crown a winner, but they didn’t make it that far on day 2. Among the fallen in the money were Alex Foxen, Ike Haxton, Sosia Jiang and, to end the day, Michael “Sir Watts” Watson in 6th spot.
When the five returned to battle for the title, there were three Canadians, two women, and one each American and German chasing the trophy.
The stacks ranged from Dvoress’ 41 bigs to Fuchs on 16, which presaged plenty of action, and Fuchs was first to fall, though he had a good sweat…
Fuchs: K♣ J♣
Dvoress: 7♥ 7♣
Flop: Q♠ Q♣ 8♥
Turn: 5♣
River: 6♠
Kristen Foxen was next to run short, shoving all but one chip blind-on-blind against Liu but getting snap-called…
Liu asked for Foxen’s last chip on the flop and when the run-out blanked, Foxen was out in 4th for $325,000.
David Peters would have been happy just to find himself in the money, bricking 7 times for a $500k+ hole at the previous Triton stop in Jeju. He didn’t quite balance the books today but he put a chunk into it by taking 3rd spot for $398,000. His end came at the hands of Dvoress…
Peters: K♠ 4♦
Dvoress: 10♣ 7♣
Dvoress called Peters pre-flop raise and they took a flop…
Flop: 5♥ K♣ 9♣
… and all the chips inevitably went in. The turn decided to favour the Canadian …
Turn: 6♣
River: 2♦
That left Dvoress heads-up with Liu, history made by Liu at her very first Triton event…
Heads-Up for the Title! @DDvoress vs @xxl23
One will kick off Triton Poker SHRS Montenegro 2025 with the WPT Global Slam crown.
Who’s your pick?@wpt_global pic.twitter.com/WnZuyTgec2
— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) May 15, 2025
It was a notable moment for Dvoress too, the chance to pick up a commemorative “Triton Trident” for his third win under the highstakes tournament banner developed Paul Phua and Richard Yong back in 2015.
Heads-up was a long and cagey affair, that description “helped” by lack of hands, with Liu fighting her way back slowly. It all changed when they finally found hands at the same time…
Dvoress: A♣ Q♦
Liu: 5♦ 5♥
Flop: 8♠ 8♣ 10♥
Turn: 2♦
River: 4♣
Now with a 10:1 chip lead, Liu could almost taste victory, and the very next hand saw her dream come true…
Final results
| 1 | Xuan Liu | Canada | $860,000 |
| 2 | Daniel Dvoress | Canada | $579,000 |
| 3 | David Peters | USA | $398,000 |
| 4 | Kristen Foxen | Canada | $325,00 |
| 5 | Tom Fuchs | Germany | $259,000 |
| 6 | Michael Watson | Canada | $199,000 |
| 7 | Zhang Yu | China | $144,500 |
| 8 | Paulius Plausinaitis | Lithuania | $105,000 |
| 9 | Theodore McQuilkin | France | $86,500 |
Event #2 on the Triton Montenegro schedule has already reached its final table, with Alex Foxen leading the chip counts. We’ll bring you all the best of the action from that tournament right here on VIP Grinders, so be sure to check in regularly!
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