Aliaksei Boika Wins Maiden Triton Title in Jeju After Final-Hand Misread
He beat Philip Sternheimer for $761,000 and said he briefly thought his jack-six had made two pair.
Aliaksei Boika finally got over the line at Triton Jeju II, winning Event #5, the $25,000 NLHE 8-Handed, for $761,000 after beating 131 entries at Les A Casino in South Korea. The result gave him his first Triton title and his first trident trophy, and the event built a $3.275 million prize pool that paid 23 spots.
As covered in our earlier Jeju reports, the stop had already produced first Triton wins for Alexandros Theologis and Klemens Roiter before Boika added his name to that list, and PokerNews also noted Khoa Anh Ngo among the maiden winners in the same series run.
The final 17 returned for Day 2 with $46,000 locked up. Brandon Wilson had led after the Day 1 bubble burst, but he exited 11th when his pocket kings ran into Seth Davies’ ace-queen.
Boika then took control. He eliminated Jesse Lonis and Artur Martirosian to set the final table, then busted Vladas Tamasauskas in eighth when ace-queen cracked pocket queens, giving him three straight knockouts.
Davies had taken the chip lead into the final eight looking to add a second trident trophy, but his run ended after he first lost pocket eights to Yu Lei’s pocket aces and then fell with ace-deuce against Nevan Chang’s jack-ten. Boika sent both Chang and Yu to the rail and moved into heads-up play with a strong chip edge, described by Card Player as 5:3 and by PokerNews as almost 2:1 over Philip Sternheimer.
The last hand featured Sternheimer opening 9♥7♥ and Boika defending J♠6♦. Both players checked the 8♦5♥3♣ flop, Boika checked the J♥ turn, and Sternheimer bet before Boika raised and Sternheimer shoved.
Boika said he briefly thought he had two pair and wanted to snap-call, only to realize he had just one pair. He said the win meant a lot to him, called himself speechless, and said the tough fields are what make Triton the most interesting tournament in the world right now. He also said the tournament involved a lot of luck, pointing to the 30-minute levels and adding that sometimes being lucky is better than being skilled.
The result was also a major career marker. Card Player said it was Boika’s third-largest score, with his top three cashes all coming in Triton events at Les A Casino. It also pushed him past $10 million in lifetime tournament earnings, with more than half of that coming from Triton, while he collected 924 Player of the Year points to reach 2,715 and moved to 86th in the 2026 CoinPoker standings. It was his first win and fourth final-table finish so far.
