Aren Bezhanyan had just a handful of small live poker tournament results to his name prior to the live circuit shutdown of 2020. In the post-pandemic era, he has taken his game to a whole new level. The Armenian player has accumulated nearly $4 million in total earnings in the past half-decade, with his latest score being the largest yet.
In March of 2026, he emerged victorious from a field of 247 entries in the Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju $20,000 no-limit hold’em event, earning his first trident trophy and $990,000 as the champion.
“I have dreamt of winning such a tournament for such a long time,” Bezhanyan told Triton staff after coming out on top. “Many times I got close to winning, but only now I have done it. It’s hard to put into words all the emotions I am feeling.”
This was Bezhanyan’s fourth final table of 2026, including a runner-up showing in a Onyx High Roller Series $10,000 pot-limit Omaha event ($312,000) and seventh-place finish in the $15,000 high roller ($214,000) that brought the recent Triton One Jeju series to a close. His latest run came with 1,224 Card Player Player of the Year points, growing his total to 2,624 for the year. As a result, he has surged up the standings and into second place on the POY leaderboard presented by CoinPoker.
Bringing Home The Breakthrough
The prize pool swelled to $4,940,000 in this event, with that sum split amongst the top 39 finishers. Plenty of big names ran deep, including Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates (26th), Daniel Dvoress (25th), Samuel Mullur (23rd), Thomas Eychenne (21st), Khoa Anh Ngo (20th), Stephen Chidwick (19th), Alex Kulev (18th), Juan Pardo (17th), Artur Martirosian (14th), and Sergio Aido (11th).
Bezhanyan was closer to the bottom of the chip counts when the final nine combined onto a single table. He survived to the final four, then eliminated 2025 World Series of Poker main event fifth-place finisher Luka Bojovic (4th – $389,000) with J♥10♣ besting 8♥7♥.
Norwegian high-stakes star Kayhan Mokri was the next to fall at Bezhanyan’s hands. The preflop race pitted A♣6♠ against pocket fives. The pair held up, and Mokri was eliminated in third place ($482,000). He now boasts recorded earnings of more than $22.2 million after adding this latest score.
Three-time bracelet winner Aleksejs Ponakovs held almost a 2:1 chip lead going into heads-up play. That dynamic soon shifted, though, as Bezhanyan took down several early pots in a row to seize the advantage and then expand it. Ponakovs was able to bounce back from the brink a couple of times, but was eventually all-in at risk with J♦8♦ trailing the A♣3♣ of Bezhanyan. The board came down A♠4♥2♣J♠K♠ to give Bezhanyan top pair and the title. Ponakovs walked away with $658,000 as the runner-up, growing his career haul to more than $37.9 million in the process.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Aren Bezhanyan | $990,000 | 1224 |
| 2 | Aleksejs Ponakovs | $658,000 | 1020 |
| 3 | Kayhan Mokri | $482,000 | 816 |
| 4 | Luka Bojovic | $389,000 | 612 |
| 5 | Wu Jun Hao | $305,000 | 510 |
| 6 | Calvin Lee | $231,000 | 408 |
| 7 | Sebastian Gaehl | $170,000 | 306 |
| 8 | Xinjing Li | $125,000 | 204 |
Photo credit: Triton Poker.
