Ethan “Rampage” Yau faced A4 with AK at the final table of the Triton Montenegro tournament, but was defeated by his opponent's four consecutive shots, finishing in eighth place. Anatoly Zlotnikov ultimately won the tournament, while Daniel Dvoress took the opening event title.
Ethan “Rampage” Yau suffered a bad beat at the Triton Poker Montenegro final table on Friday, losing in eighth place to an opponent who had seemingly secured the victory with a runner-runner run. The poker video blogger could only watch helplessly as his opponent pulled off the comeback.
The player who benefited from this bad beat—Anatoly Zlotnikov—went heads-up to defeat Maher Nouira and win the No-Limit Hold'em event for $715,000. A total of 119 entries (including some of the loudest names in poker) participated in the second event of the series. Triton's livestream showcased many big pots and insane bad beats, but none were as brutal as the one Rampage suffered.
The tragic end of a poker video blogger led to the championship.
Rampage has a reputation for punting at cash games and tournaments, but that's not always fair. His current goal is to become the most-winning tournament player in his home state of Massachusetts. So far, he's on the right track for 2026, having had a strong start to the year.
This solid performance carried over to the $25,000 No-Limit Hold'em event in Montenegro, where he made it to the final eight and had a chance to double up his chips. Rampage opened with A♠K♥ and raised to 450,000, then called Zlotnikov's all-in with A♣4♣, who had a larger chip stack.
The flop couldn't have been better for Rampage, opening with K♣Q♦J♠, forcing his opponent to rely on runner-runners to recover. Zlotnikov saw a glimmer of hope when the turn brought 4♦, but the future champion was left with only two outs, and he hit one on the river—4♥—making a set of fours.
Rampage calmly left the circuit to collect his $92,000 prize for eighth place. He had almost won four times his buy-in, but if he had doubled it, he would have had the chance to win even more.
Final table results
| Ranking | player | bonus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anatoly Zlotnikov | $715,000 |
| 2 | Maher Nouira | $486,000 |
| 3 | Yu Zhang | $321,000 |
| 4 | Curtis Knight | $265,000 |
| 5 | Jason Koon | $212,500 |
| 6 | Hannes Jeschka | $166,000 |
| 7 | Mikita Badziakouski | $125,000 |
| 8 | Ethan Yau | $92,000 |
To make matters worse for Yau, Mikita Badziakouski had only two big blinds when she called the all-in. Badziakouski was eliminated shortly after, finishing in seventh place and earning $125,000, but had received a bonus jump due to that bad beat on the consecutive hands.
Hannes Jeschka was then eliminated in sixth place ($166,000), followed by PokerStars and Triton Poker Ambassador Jason Koon ($5th, $212,500), Curtis Knight ($4th, $265,000), and Yu Zhang ($3rd, $321,000).
This created a heads-up situation where Zlotnikov had a 2:1 chip lead. However, Nouira didn't back down against the chip leader, putting the Russian player through a tough battle. Ultimately, the match ended with Nouira going all-in with A♥5♣, leading his opponent's 10♦9♣, but the community cards revealed 5♥3♠9♠8♠7♥, ending the event.
Nouira finished as runner-up, earning $486,000, while Zlotnikov took home the trophy and a champion's prize of $715,000.
Dvoress wins the first race of the Triton Montenegro event.
Zlotnikov wasn't the only winner at the Montenegro event so far. Canadian star Daniel Dvoress accomplished an extraordinary triple crown, taking home $849,000 in the series' opening event—the $25,000 buy-in "Golden Decade" No-Limit Hold'em event. Dvoress, who recently surpassed the $50 million mark in live tournament winnings, won the largest share of the $3,650,000 prize pool from a field of 146 players.
His victory was impressive in itself, but with this win, the champion has now won titles in three Triton events: No-Limit Texas Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, and Short Deck.
Final table results
| Ranking | player | country | bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Dvoress | Canada | $849,000 |
| 2 | Dejan Kaladjurdjevic | Montenegro | $575,000 |
| 3 | Paul Phua | Malaysia | $384,000 |
| 4 | Samuel Muller | Austria | $314,000 |
| 5 | Ding Biao | China | $252,000 |
| 6 | Fabian Niederreiter | Germany | $195,000 |
| 7 | Mikhail Soltanov | Russia | $145,000 |
| 8 | Danilo Velasevic | Serbia | $106,000 |
| 9 | Ben Tollerene | United States | $85,000 |
Shortly after defeating Dejan Kaladjurdjevic heads-up to complete his Triton Triple Crown achievement, Dvoress said: “I’m very proud. It’s definitely great. It’s funny how it took me so long to win my first Triton trophy, and then they came one after another from short deck, PLO, and then short deck again. I’m usually a No-Limit Hold’em specialist. I don’t play the other two games for very long. So, it feels really good to finally win this (No-Limit Hold’em) title.”
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