The quiet assassin, Mikita Badziakouski, has done it again, winning his second straight Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event, this time for $5.25 million.
Silent Assassin
Mikita, who also uses the name “Nikita,” has quietly become one of poker’s top high rollers on the cash game and tournament circuits.
Justin Bonomo has been desevedly getting most of the attention from the poker media in 2018 for the insane heater he’s been on. But with this win in Jeju, South Korea, Badziakouski now deserves his time in the spotlight.
The Belarussian has cashed for more than $7.4 million this summer. His rungood began in mid-May with his first Triton Super High Roller Main Event title in Montenegro, which netted the young pro $2.5 million, which he followed with a 4th place finish in the Super High Roller Bowl in Las Vegas in May ($1.6 million) and a 5th place finish in a short-deck tournament last weekend at the Triton series in South Korea ($588,692).
Badziakouski now has $16.6 million in lifetime tournament winnings, far and away the most for anyone from Belarus, with $10.5 million earned this year. He’s an up-and-coming star but the poker world likely won’t get to know much about him other than his poker abilities any time soon.
Who Is This Guy?
After winning his first Main Event title in the spring, he refused to do interviews with the media. On Wednesday, following his second victory, he told a reporter that interviews are “not my thing,” but said he would do “a short one, no more than a few minutes.”
In that brief interview, we learned he also likes chess and sports betting and can’t imagine life without poker. That’s about it. When old-school poker players who enjoy watching and playing with charismatic people mention the younger, robotic players are ruining the game, this is what they’re talking about.
Badziakouski rarely speaks at the poker table or gives off much emotion. To some, that style of play is dull and scares away the casual poker fans. But you can’t question his results.
He beat a brutal final table that included high stakes giants such as Jason Koon, Sam Greenwood, and Sergio Aido. And he’s done that twice in just three months. It’s safe to say that “boring” style of play suits him well.
Triton Super High Roller Main Event Final Table Results
- Mikita Badziakouski (Belarus) $5,255,456
- Chan Wai Leong (Malaysia) $3,251,376
- Richard Yong (Malaysia) $2,130,212
- Sam Greenwood (Canada) $1,471,528
- Jason Koon (United States) $1,079,120
- Sergio Aido (Spain) $826,858
After winning a race against Leong to finish off the tournament, Badziakouski briefly smiled and shook his opponent’s hand. That was about the most emotion he showed the entire tournament.
With that, the summer version of the Triton Super High Roller Series has come to an end.
