The number one British tournament player was in imperious form during this event, noticing up his first Triton win since March 2024.
The $3,455,000 winner’s prize also takes him within $7 million of Bryn Kenney’s top spot on the all-time money list.
Chidwick put on a performance that was error-free and which cements his place among the elites in the game, building a lead on the second day which was never lost until the title was his.
The Brit explained the subtleties of the dynamic Short Deck format in a tournament setting:
“Someone decided I was going to win this tournament. In Short Deck especially, the chip leader has a big leverage to just play a lot of hands.
“The pot limit aspect does negate that a little bit, but when the chip lead is so large, and the pay-jumps are so big, it doesn’t really matter. They can’t really do very much against it.
“It’s less pressure because they know pretty much what I’m going to do with that stack, and it’s hard to make much of a mistake. I didn’t have too many difficult decisions.”
He added that he didn’t prepare to play any Short Deck events on this trip, which is strange considering all three of his Triton Series wins are in the format.
Malaysian Triton reg Kiat Lee was the final obstacle for Chidwick. He had to settle for $2,465,000 which is a new career-best score. Rene Van Krevelen bagged $1,591,000 for third.
Action Recap
Last night we learned that the $200K Short Deck event was a late addition to the schedule, corresponding to the demands of the players.
Of course what this really meant was that due to the series taking place in Asia, the Asian Short Deck fanatics were all out in force, demanding more tournaments in the format.
In total there were 32 players happy to stump up the huge $200,000 entry fee, with another 29 buy-ins coming from re-entries. That made a prize pool of $12,200,000 to play for.
Ten players would share the prize money, making for a big, old bubble that would make your eyes water if you missed out. Wai Kin Yong was the unfortunate soul who walked away with nothing, his two two pair losing to Chidwick’s straight.
Ike Haxton, Danny Tang, and Richard Yong, who won a Short Deck event earlier this week, all left the table soon after, leaving an official final table of seven.
Dan Dvoress dished out the first elimination, sending Winfred Yu packing with a dominated ace. His fellow Hong Kong compatriot Elton Tsang, fresh from his own Short Deck win a couple of nights ago, followed him out after running his pocket queens into the aces of Rene Van Krevelen.
Dvoress and Esti Wang weren’t far behind them, too, but all eyes were on Chidwick who was constantly extending his lead, looking untouchable.
With three left in contention, Chidwick still held most of the chips. Van Krevelen did win a single double-up but he was soon knocked out by the Brit whose 10♠ 9♦ turned a straight to beat the Dutchman’s A♦ 10♦.
Kiat Lee was well behind coming into heads-up: only 19 blinds to Chidwick’s 152, and there was little that could be done to stop the English juggernaut.
It was all over when Chidwick made a straight with 10♠ 9♣ on a board of K♣ Q♦ 7♦ J♠ 7♠, leaving Lee to collect his runner-up prize of $2,465,000.
