Aleks Ponakovs Gets The Monkey Off His Back With His First Triton Title

Aleks Ponakovs’ Triton statistics

• 1060+ tournaments played
• 32 ITM finishes
• 20 final tables

Biggest results:

• $2.54M — 4th place, $250K NLH Luxon Invitational London 2023
• $2.2M — 3rd place, $125K NLH Main Event Montenegro 2024
• $3.1M — 2nd place, $150K NLH 8-handed Jeju 2025

Finally, Ponakovs got his title.

“I was not even planning to go here”

The Main Event attracted a total of 237 entries. In the heads-up, Ponakovs faced Pedro Padilha. Watch the final hand in Twitter:

Ponakovs shared his thoughts and emotions in a post-win interview:

“I don’t know where to start. I was not even planning to go here, and I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad my wife is here to support me. The curse is broken. We had a laugh that when your partner comes to support you, no chance. But now it’s great. I also heard that if you have a baby, you get a good run. And eventually I got it.”

$100K NLH Main Event – Final Table Payouts (237 total entries)

Place	Country	Player	Prize
1		Aleks Ponakovs	$4,750,000
2		Pedro Padilha	$3,160,000
3		Manuel Fritz	$2,311,000
4		Wang Ye	$1,865,000
5		Klemens Roiter	$1,462,000
6		Eelis Pärssinen	$1,107,000
7		Wang Yang	$813,000
8		Jean-Noel Thorel	$597,000
9		Adrian Mateos	$495,000

Three Brazilians in the top 3 of the $150K NLH

Brazilians often reach final tables together online, but on Triton this is an unprecedented case. The top 3 finished as follows (77 total entries):

Place	Contry	Player	Prize
1		Joao Simao	$3,067,000
2		Felipe Boianovsky	$2,131,000
3		Yuri Dzivielevski	$1,409,000

Simao shared his thoughts after the win:

“It was a dream to win a Triton. Actually, it was a dream to play a Triton. I think this is the main goal of a poker player. I know how good the Brazilian players are. It’s kind of difficult for us to play these stakes because the Brazilian economy is different. Finding investors is not easy, and traveling is tough. We don’t have that much live poker to gain experience… This is just the first step for the Brazilian community. We are at the beginning. I think we’re here to stay.”

Triton announces upcoming series

Triton Paradise has come to an end. The organizers have announced the dates of the next series:

• March 5-15 — Triton ONE Jeju
• March 15 – April 1 — Triton Jeju
• May 13-28 — Triton Montenegro