When Jason Koon was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame on Monday, it came as little surprise to anyone who has followed the game over the past two decades.
Third on poker’s all-time money list, the runaway leader on the Triton Poker tour, a winner across the world’s biggest live and online stages, and one of the game’s most respected ambassadors, Koon’s Hall of Fame credentials were impossible to ignore.
But what does the career of poker’s 34th living Hall of Fame member actually look like? Let’s take a quick trip through the numbers, milestones and defining moments that took the man from Weston, West Virginia, to join poker’s most exclusive club in Las Vegas.
Poker Hall of Fame: Jason Koon Named Sole Inductee in First Year of Eligibility
2006-2011: The Early Years
Like Doyle Brunson before him, Koon’s poker career began after a sports injury changed his path. A talented athlete, he discovered the game while recovering in college and spent the next few years grinding online before his first big breakthrough arrived in 2009.
That year, Koon won PokerStars’ Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) Event 17-H, a $2,100 No-Limit Hold’em tournament, for more than $300,000. He also picked up his first two World Series of Poker (WSOP) cashes, laying the foundations for what would become one of poker’s most decorated careers.
Major live results soon followed. In October 2010, Koon reached the final table of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Festa Al Lago, finishing fourth for $225,680, before later that year making another strong showing in the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Online was where the bulk of Koon’s early success would come, though, and in February 2011 he chopped up Full Tilt’s 11,343-runner FTOPS Event #24 three ways for the largest share of the prize pool and $458,550.
2012-2015: Horizons and High Rollers
By now an emerging force in the poker world, Koon really started to make his mark on the live circuit in the chaos that followed Black Friday in 2011. He began 2012 with a deep run in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller, finishing fourth, before coming agonisingly close to his first WSOP bracelet just a few months later, finishing runner-up to Leif Force in the 2012 $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha Heads-Up event for $128,660.
More final tables followed at the PCA in 2013 and the 2013 WSOP, before Koon recorded the biggest score of his career at the time with a second-place finish in the $10,300 Bellagio Cup for $316,000. Further deep runs came across the globe, including at WSOP Europe in Enghien-les-Bains and the WPT Alpha8 stop in Saint Kitts, but despite consistently putting himself in contention, Koon repeatedly found himself falling just short of lifting the trophy.
That would change in 2015 when Koon finally got over the line, winning the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo High Roller at the L.A. Poker Classic for $436,344. The victory marked the start of a breakthrough period, with Koon going on to enjoy two of the biggest years of his career in 2016 and 2017.
2016-17: Breakout Scores
In July 2016, Koon entered a golden stretch of his career, winning the $25,000 NLHE Bellagio High Roller VII for $514,080 before following it up just a month later with his first seven-figure score at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship, defeating Seth Davies heads-up to claim the $1,000,000 first-place prize.
The results kept coming throughout the year, with more deep runs at EPT Barcelona and the Aria High Roller 44 before Koon closed out 2016 in style by winning the $25,000 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic for another six-figure payday of $412,800.
And, he wouldn’t have to wait long for his next million-dollar victory. After several near misses at the PCA in January 2017, Koon finally broke through by taking down the $100,000 PokerStars Championship Super High Roller for $1,650,300, defeating a final table that featured Charlie Carrel, Dan Colman, Daniel Dvoress and Bryn Kenney.
Why Jason Koon Is Reshaping His Poker Life
2018-19: Welcome to Triton
When you’re one of the most established high rollers in the world, where do you go to play? For Koon, the answer was Triton Poker. In May 2018, he began a long affair with the high-stakes tour that would eventually see him become the most successful player in the series’ history as well as a Triton Poker ambassador.
At the Triton Super High Roller Series in Montenegro, Koon recorded his first Triton cash before following it up with the biggest result of his career to date, winning the HKD1,000,000 ($127,000) Short Deck Ante-Only Event for a staggering $3,579,914, knocking out both Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan en route to victory.
Further multi-million-dollar success followed away from Triton, with Koon winning the WPT Tournament of Champions ARIA $100,000 High Roller in May 2018 and then finishing runner-up in the $300,000 Super High Roller Bowl IV in Las Vegas later that month. However, it wouldn’t be long before he returned to the Triton winner’s circle, adding two more titles at the Super High Roller Series in Jeju in March 2019 for huge scores.
2020-21: Focus on Las Vegas and Maiden Bracelet
With the world on lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, poker, like everything else, moved online. It was hardly unfamiliar territory for Koon. In April 2020, he won the $10,000 Poker Masters Online event for $549,000, while also reaching the virtual final table of the 2020 WSOP $25,000 Poker Players Championship Online.
More deep runs followed on the US Poker Open, Wynn Summer Classic and PokerGO Tour, but one piece of silverware remained noticeably absent from one of poker’s most glittering trophy cabinets: a WSOP bracelet.
That finally changed at the 2021 WSOP, and fittingly it came in one of the series’ most prestigious events, the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship as Koon defeated Hungary’s Gabor Szabo to claim his first WSOP title and $243,981.
2022-23: Back on the Tour
With live poker back and booming after COVID, Koon wasted little time adding to his growing bank balance in the live arena. At Triton Poker Cyprus in April 2022, he put together a remarkable run of seven cashes, all of them six-figure scores, in a matter of weeks before following it up with more success at Triton Madrid the following month. There, he returned to the Short Deck winner’s circle, taking down the €150,000 No-Limit Short Deck Hold’em event for $1,863,228.
Another PGT Poker Masters title followed later that year, before Koon took on Phil Hellmuth in High Stakes Duel III on the PokerGO Tour, defeating the 17-time WSOP bracelet winner for $1.6 million in December.
If 2022 was impressive, 2023 was on another level. Koon produced one of the greatest high roller campaigns in poker history, winning a scarcely believable six Triton titles in a single year, including a Main Event victory in Cyprus and another Short Deck triumph at Triton London.
2024-2025: Twelfth Triton Title + Bracelet #2
More hefty cashes followed for the Team PokerStars Pro at Triton and WSOP Paradise throughout 2024, before 2025 would see Koon enjoy one of the great summers, with double Triton victories at the Montenegro SHRS in May taking him to 12 titles, before returning to Vegas for a second WSOP success at the 2025 series.
Koon took down the $50,000 NLHE High Roller for $1,968,927, moving to third on the all-time money list and staying there ever since, telling PokerNews in the aftermath of his second bracelet victory. “I’ve dedicated my entire life to being very good at this game.”
A runner-up finish at the EPT Barcelona PLO High Roller followed later in the summer, before poker’s newest Hall of Famer closed out the year in familiar fashion, continuing to make final tables at Triton events and WSOP Paradise.
2026: The Hall of Fame
After turning 40, the minimum age required to enter the Hall of Fame, in August 2025, Koon became poker’s latest inductee in his first year of eligibility in 2026, a reflection of the regard in which one of the game’s greatest players is held by his peers.
Ten Triton final tables in 2026 continued to prove that Koon could still mix it with the very best, although unlucky number 13, at least for the time being, has remained elusive. Success away from Triton has not eluded Koon, however, with a $1,173,378 victory in the €100,000 EPT High Rollers Invitational Freezeout in Monte Carlo in May before he added another deep run at the 2026 WSOP, finishing fifth in the $250,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller.
On August 3, 2026, in a ceremony held at Horseshoe & Paris Las Vegas on the same day the 2026 WSOP Main Event final table got underway, Jason Koon was welcomed into the Hall of Fame in recognition of an astonishing career and the respect he has earned throughout the game of poker.
| Year | Venue | Event | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Montenegro | $30,000 PLO Bounty Quattro | $385,176 |
| 2025 | Montenegro | $150,000 NLH | $3,393,656 |
| 2023 | Monte Carlo | $25,000 PLO | $365,000 |
| 2023 | London | $60,000 NLH | $1,570,000 |
| 2023 | London | $60,000 Short Deck Main Event | $828,000 |
| 2023 | North Cyprus | $20,000 NLH | $663,000 |
| 2023 | North Cyprus | $100,000 NLH Main Event | $2,451,082 |
| 2023 | Vietnam | $50,000 NLH Turbo | $574,000 |
| 2022 | Madrid | €150,000 Short Deck | € 1,750,000 |
| 2019 | Jeju | HK$1,000,000 Short Deck | $2,899,000 |
| 2019 | Jeju | HK$1,000,000 NLH | $993,221 |
| 2018 | Montenegro | HK$1,000,000 Short Deck | $3,579,836 |
With 12 Triton titles, Koon is the sixth former Triton champion inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. Can you name the other five?
The other five Hall of Famers who have won Triton titles are: Phil Ivey (5), Patrik Antonius, John Juanda (2), Nick Schulman and Chris Moneymaker (1)
*Photos courtesy of WSOP
Eliot Thomas
Editor, Poker & Casino