Danny Tang Defeats Isaac Haxton Heads-Up To Earn His Fifth Career Triton Poker Title (2024)

Danny Tang had plenty of success on the Triton Poker series prior to 2023, with more than $4.7 million in earnings across 11 cashes. What the Hong Kong resident had not managed, up to this year, was to close out the win. Tang had twice finished as the runner-up, with multiple other top-five finishes.

That all changed when he broke through to take down a $25,000 short deck event at the Triton Vietnam stop. Since then, Tang has been on a tear, winning four more titles to enter into a tie with Phil Ivey for the second-most wins on the high-stakes-centric tour with five. Only Jason Koon, with nine victories, has more Triton hardware to his name.

Tang’s Triton Titles:

Vietnam 2023 – $25,000 Short Deck (427,000)
North Cyprus 2023 – $50,000 NLH Turbo ($545,000)
North Cyprus 2023 – $50,000 Short Deck Main Event ($750,000)
London 2023 – $60,000 NLH ($1,600,000)
Monte Carlo 2023 – $50,000 NLH Seven-Handed ($1,580,000)

Tang’s most recent win saw him best a field of 136 entries in the 2023 Triton Super High Roller Series Monte Carlo $53,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em eight-max event. The 30-year-old poke player walked away with $1,580,000 as the champion, the fourth-largest payday of his career.

This was Tang’s 14th Triton cash of 2023, with five titles secured along the way. He has accumulated $9,003,200 across those scores, bringing his total earnings on the tour to more than $13.7 million. That means that Tang’s results on this tour account for nearly 60 percent of his $22,915,529 in total career tournament earnings.

In addition to the title and the money, Tang was also awarded 1,122 Card Player Player of the Year points for this latest victory. This was his seventh title and 18th final-table finish of the year. With 7,121 total points, Tang has climbed into seventh place in the 2023 POY race standings presented by Global Poker.

Tang was far from the only top POY competitor in contention down the stretch of this event. He was joined in the final four by Isaac Haxton and Chris Brewer, the two players outside of World Series of Poker main event champion Daniel Weinman who have already cashed for eight figures on the live tournament circuit this year.

The final table began with Brewer while both Tang and Haxton were in the middle of the pack. Bracelet winner and two-time World Poker Tour champion Ole Schemion was knocked out by Haxton in eighth place ($198,000). Haxton then won a race with A-K against the pocket jacks of Rodrigo Selouan (7th – $270,000) to further narrow the field.

Tang scored his first knockout of the final table when his ace high held against the open-ended straight draw of Thomas Muehloecker (6th – $363,000). Pedro Garagnani (5th – $469,000) soon followed, with his K-Q suited unable to outrun the A-9 suited of Brewer.

Despite scoring that elimination, Brewer was ultimately the next to hit the rail. He lost a huge chunk of his stack with K9 on a 1010959 board in a battle of the blinds with Tang, who had 102. Brewer bet-folded the river correctly after Tang check-shoved, but was left on fumes nonetheless.

The same two players soon clashed again, with Tang shoving from the small blind with J-6 and Brewer calling with A-8 from the big blind. Tang flopped trip sixes and held from there to send Brewer home with $585,000. This was the American’s 24th final-table finish of the year, with five titles won including two WSOP bracelets. With 9,101 total points and more than $13.2 million in to-date POY earnings, Brewer now sits in third place in the 2023 POY rankings.

Fahredin Mustafov soon found himself tangled up in a big pot against Tang, with Mustafov holding a pair of kings and the nut flush draw against Tang’s jacks and eights. The chips went in on the turn with Mustafov in need of a spade, king, nine, or ace on the river. The 4 on the help was of no help, though, and Mustafov was knocked out in third place ($715,000).

With that, Tang took 19,125,000 into heads-up play with Haxton, who had 8,075,000. It didn’t take too long for Tang to convert his chip advantage into the title.

On just the second hand of the match, Tang limped in from the button with KJ and Haxton moved all-in from the big blind with Q3. Tang called the 18 big blind shove and the board ran out 1062J8 to earn him the pot and the title.

Haxton was awarded $1,070,000 and 935 POY points as the runner-up. This was his 22 final-table finish, with seven titles won and more than $14.4 million in POY earnings accrued along the way. With 9,467 total points, Haxton now sits in second place in the POY standings. He trails current leader Bin Weng (10,180 points) by just 713 points.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Photo credits: Triton Poker / Joe Giron.