The 13th time was the charm for American poker pro Sean Winter. After a dozen in-the-money finishes in Triton Poker high roller events without an outright win, the 34-year-old Florida native finally broke through to take down the 2025 Triton Jeju $40,000 mystery bounty seven-max no-limit hold’em event.
“This feels particularly good because it’s 3x as long as it’s been since I won a poker tournament,” Winter told Triton reporters after closing out the event. “It’s been bothering me. I’ve had a lot of seconds and thirds. It’s a monkey off my back.”
The last title that Winter earned did come all the way back in January of 2023, when he took down the kickoff event of that year’s PokerGO Cup. He earned $935,000 from the main prize pool as the champion in this event, with the mystery bounty payouts still yet to be drawn. Winter will have three envelopes to open the day after play ended, with each worth a minimum of $40,000 and possibly much more. Half of the $8,920,000 prize pool ($4,460,000) will be paid out via bounties.
This victory increased Winter’s career earnings to nearly $34.8 million. The 1,344 Card Player Player of the Year points that accompanied the title moved him inside the top 20 in the 2025 POY standings presented by Global Poker. This was his second final-table finish of the year already, with a fourth-place showing in a $10,000 event at the PGT Last Chance series.
The final heads-up match for the title saw Winter overcome five-time Triton champion Mikita Badziakouski, who came ever so close to breaking his three-way tie with Phil Ivey and Danny Tang for the second-most wins on the high-stakes-centric tour. Jason Koon remains well out ahead of that group with ten Triton trophies in his collection.
This event drew 223 entries, with 34 making the money to earn part of the main prize pool. Badziakouski was out in front when the unofficial final table of eight was set, with Winter in the middle of the pack.
Final Table Set for Event #7 $40K Mystery Bounty!
Eight players remain in the hunt for the $935K top prize, with bounties still in play. Every knockout is worth at least $40K, but lurking in the mix is the $500K golden bounty.
Final Table Lineup:
Mikita Badziakouski… pic.twitter.com/3rze70b4OQ— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) March 4, 2025
Two-time bracelet winner Kahle Burns (8th – $115,000) was the first to hit the rail, with six-time bracelet winner and recent record-setting $25,000 buy-in event champion Jeremy Ausmus soon following. Ausmus got all-in with pocket jacks on a six-high flop and was up against top pair and an open-ended straight draw for Badziakouski. The turn and the river gave the Belarusian star running cards towards a full house, with sixes full of threes sending Ausmus packing in seventh place ($157,000). The American already sat in first place in the 2025 POY standings, but now has an even larger lead on the rest of the field. He has already cashed for more than $2.3 million in POY earnings across four final table finishes, including the $1,892,000 he secured just a few days earlier at this festival.
Winter managed the next knockout, with his flopped two pair holding up against the open-ended straight draw of Biao Ding (6th – $218,000). Ben Tollerene’s run came to an end in fifth place ($287,000) when his Q
J was unable to hold against the 
10
of Klemens Roiter, who found an all-diamond runout to give him a winning flush. Tollerene grew his career tournament earnings to nearly $20.9 million thanks to this latest score.
Matthias Eibinger was the shortest stack heading into four-handed play despite having accumulated 11 bounties in this event. He ended up losing a key preflop race with K-Q against the pocket fours of Roiter to finish fourth for $363,000. The three-time Triton champion has $24.6 million in lifetime cashes, with more than $11.1 million of that coming from his success on this tour.
Roiter was guaranteed his largest Triton score yet by making the final three. He wound up finishing third for $441,000 when his A-J ran into the A-Q of Badziakouski. This was the second-largest payday ever for the Austrian, trailing only the $463,700 he earned as the sixth-place finisher in a $25,000 event at the 2023 WSOP Paradise.
The final showdown for the title began with Badziakouski holding a slight lead. Winter took a big lead thanks to winning a massive pot with trip fives. Badziakouski was left with fewer than ten big blinds after that clash. He was able to grow his stack a bit ahead of the next raise in stakes. That resulted in him being able to open shove for 10 big blinds with J6 from the button. Winter called with A
6 and the board came down KQ1053 to see him claim the final pot of the tournament with ace high.
Badziakouski added $630,000 to his tally with this runner-up showing. He now has $62,769,146 in career earnings, good for fourth on poker’s all-time money list. Nearly $25.3 million of that has come from his 39 cashes in Triton tournaments.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
| 1 | Sean Winter | $935,000 | 1344 |
| 2 | Mikita Badziakouski | $630,000 | 1120 |
| 3 | Klemens Roiter | $441,000 | 896 |
| 4 | Matthias Eibinger | $363,000 | 672 |
| 5 | Benjamin Tollerene | $287,000 | 560 |
| 6 | Biao Ding | $218,000 | 448 |
| 7 | Jeremy Ausmus | $157,000 | 336 |
Photo credits: Triton Poker.