Who’ll Become a Triton Poker Winner for Millions in The Bahamas?

The $250,000-entry Triton Poker Invitational event in The Bahamas this December promises to be one of the most exciting this year. With a 40-player field comprised equally of top-class professionals and invitees who represent the cream of the world of poker amateurs, who will win is anyone’s guess.

Fortunately for you, we’ve taken a look into our crystal ball and figured out who will survive from the mix of professional sharks and skilled big fish swimming and make it to the deep end of what will be a prize pool worth millions in The Bahamas.

Who Invited Who as Poker Stars Gather?

This year’s $250,000-entry Triton Invitational will be the largest buy-in event at the 2025 WSOP Paradise festival. With a talented field of 40 players only, in the event split equally between professionals and amateurs, each invitee (the amateur) has to invite one professional.

Each player has to then put up a $250,000 entry fee before play begins. This means that only professionals invited by the amateurs can take part.

Among the many players taking part are some of the game’s finest: the 11-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Ivey, The Hendon Mob All-Time Money List leader Bryn Kenney, and the Triton Poker Series all-time record trophy holder, Jason Koon.

Those are the highlights of the pro circuit, but the amateur pool is just as talented, with legends like Triton Poker Series co-creator Paul Phua joined in the draw by businessman David Einhorn and PokerGO owner Cary Katz, who won his first WSOP bracelet last summer in Las Vegas.

Here are all the players involved in the event:

Here’s what happened at the end of last year’s stunning final table:

Which Professionals Will Make the Final Table?

With such a strong line-up, which professionals will be toughest to beat? Let’s pick five crushers to make the final nine.

It’s easy to focus on Phil Ivey’s legendary career and take the man formerly known as ‘No Home Jerome’ for his dedication to the poker craft as the first pick.

However, Ivey is frequently in these events as a distraction from juicy cash games going on near the tournament area, and when those games get juicy, he knows that a decent night at the high stakes felt could net him the same money as four days in one of the most grueling tournaments of the year.

For that reason, I’m going to avoid Phil Ivey and instead make Jason Koon my first pick. Not only is the West Virginian the most successful player in Triton Poker history, but he rarely plays big events unless he is utterly fixated on winning them. Koon could well be king, and we’re sticking with him as the safest bet.

Another big player to back could be the Belarusian Mikita Badziakouski. Flying under the radar into the upper limits of The Hendon Mob’s All-Time Money List, Badziakouski often runs deep in super high rollers and has no fear about getting to the late stages.

Another player who lives and breathes the latter period of these types of events is the British player Ben Heath. He came second to Alejandro Lococo in the 2024 event, winning $8.16m in second place for his biggest ever tournament cash.

Heath used to travel the world with Charlie Carrel playing high rollers, and while the latter has semi-retired from the high roller circuit, his countryman has gone from strength to strength, only sitting behind Stephen Chidwick at the top of the All-Time England Money List.

Rounding out our top five professionals who’ll make the final nine are Kristen Foxen and David Coleman. Both players are coming into the action on the back of a year where they won the Global Poker Award for best female and male player, respectively.

Kristen Foxen has gone deep in massive events in recent years and will be ably supported between tournament days by easily the best other half of a poker couple.

Coleman likewise will have every chance of coming out on top, with vast experience in comparable events. He came second in a Poker Masters event this autumn for $355,000 and cashed three times in November, so he is coming into the race already warmed up.

Are the Amateurs Coming for the Title?

We’re picking four amateur players to make the final table cut instead of five, but such is the talent to choose from that it makes choosing those fab four even harder.

Philip Sternheimer is our first pick, as the man who invited Ben Heath into the fold as his partner looks to build on a spectacular summer in Las Vegas, where he won a WSOP bracelet and cashed for well clear of a million dollars. This may well be his breakthrough tournament that could disqualify him as an amateur in 2026.

German player Sirzat Hissou has won over $4.5m in poker tournaments over his career to date and will be a big threat in this star-studded event. With recent results in Cyprus, South Korea, the Czech Republic, and Monte Carlo in 2025, Hissou will thrive in the poker paradise that is Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas.

Talal Shakerchi has an excellent track record in super high rollers, and plenty of his $19.8 million in live tournament winnings have come from exactly this sort of event.

In fact, the British player’s top three scores totalling $9m have come in a trio of events averaging $218,000 to play, almost exactly this tournament’s buy-in. Shakerchi puts players under pressure and has the coolest demeanour in the game. The hedge fund manager could put his opponents to the sword on his way to the final nine.

Here’s Shakerchi between hands at the Big One for One Drop in 2014.

Finally, we rate Santhosh Suvarna incredibly highly, and the Indian super high roller bracelet winner has just the game that will thrive in The Bahamas.

A little like Cary Katz, Suvarna has a great knack for making key decisions correctly and is never under pressure at the highest stakes, being a multi-millionaire already.

The Indian player has won big in high rollers for years now, and his best cash of over $5m was the top prize he won in the $250,000-entry WSOP Super High Roller in Las Vegas last year.

Who Will Win the Triton Invitational?

We’ve picked a final nine, but who will go on to win, and what can we expect from the action?

Firstly, top, top quality. Everyone in play has a real touch of class, and this is a field with very few weak spots. Sure, the amateurs technically don’t play for their livings, but that’s only because they don’t need to. All of the four we mentioned could easily run a profitable personal empire based on their poker talent alone.

Of the four, though, we rate Talal Shakerchi and Santosh Suvarna as the best pair to run very deep. Shakerchi has a habit of playing his very best poker right at the death of events, and we can see him, if not winning, then coming runner-up. We’ll pick Santosh Suvarna to come fourth, just missing out on the podium places.

The conclusion of any event is hard to predict, but this one could go right to the wire. Of the five superstars we’ve highlighted, we feel like a calm, collected manner will play best, and while all of the professionals we think will run deep are capable of playing that game, both Ben Heath and David Coleman are elite at making key decisions in the heat of battle.

Of the two, Coleman might miss out on this occasion, purely because we think Ben Heath can go one better than last year and seal the deal, beating his compatriot Tala Shakerchi heads-up.