Adrian Mateos Wins 2017 Caribbean Poker Party $5,300 Finale For $250,000

It’s been a great and slightly unusual week for the high-rollers in Punta Cana at the 2017 Caribbean Poker Party, with Spain’s Adrian Mateos finishing off the impressive festival by taking down the $5,300 Finale for a cool $250,000 – the 23-year old joining Rainer Kempe and Sam Greenwood in winning non-high roller events in the Dominican Republic.

The 23-year old from San Martin de la Vega is already in 2nd place in the all-time tournament money winner’s list in his home country with $11,357,163 to his name, now less than $1million behind Carlos ‘El Matador’ Mortensen, and the gap was closed by Mateos winning his 4th tournament of the year – including the WSOP $10K heads-up title.

A total of 215 entries meant that the $1million was just surpassed for the closing event at the Melia Caribe tropical resort and Spa, and there were a lot of well-known names among the hopefuls looking for a final deep run to close out their Punta Cana trips.

Among those who made it into the 23 paid spots were Chris Hunichen – still on a high after his victory in the $25K Super High Roller last week – as well as the likes of Hendon Mob’s Barney Boatman, and the German duo of Koray Aldemir and Manig Loeser.

It was Mateos who struck first at the final table, sending Englishman James Walker to the rail to collect his biggest poker payday by far, and he also knocked out Manig Loeser in 5th spot by cracking the German’s kings.

The likeable Kenny Hallaert was still well in the mix, the former November Niner knocking out this year’s Barcelona Championship $1million winner Bartlomiej Machon – and PartyPoker Head of Poker Tom Waters’ fins run ended at the hand of one of his own ambassadors, Anatoly Filatov, who then disposed of Hallaert in 3rd to set up a classic showdown against Mateos for the tile.

As the PartyPokerLive blog reported, ‘Heads-up play between Filatov and Mateos lasted just over an hour’ and when the end came Filatov was short-stacked when he, ‘got his stack in the middle before the flop from the big blind and Adrian Mateos, who was on the button, had him covered by a wide margin.’

Filatov: 6♣ 5♣

Mateos: A♣ J♠

Mateos had the preflop advantage and Filatov needed help in order to survive. The board ran out 10♠ 10♣ 4♦ 2♠ Q♥ which was no help to Filatov, so Mateos took the pot to end the tournament, tweeting his success in Spanish of course.

Final table results: