Adrian Mateos

There are very few of the current crop of poker’s top youngsters who can rival Adrian Mateos’ rise to the top of the professional ranks – taking over the top all-time Spanish tournament winnings spot after only 5 years on the circuit.

The 23-year old, born on July 1st 1994, has managed to do this without a $multi-million victory as closest Spanish rival Carlos ‘El Matador’ Mortensen did back in 2007 with a close to $4million win in Las Vegas and his 2001 WSOP Main Event title.

Instead Mateos has consistently  appeared in the top echelons of tournaments, with 2017 having a remarkable 25 top ten finishes totalling almost $5.5million, including victories in Macau, the Caribbean, Monte Carlo and the WSOP Heads-up $10k Bracelet event in Las Vegas.

Along the way he broke records aplenty, including becoming the youngest Spaniard to win an EPT title (in Monte Carlo in 2015) and the youngest ever from anywhere to snag 3 WSOP bracelets – and started off the remarkable run by taking down the 2013 WSOP Europe Main Event for a cool €1,000,000 in 2013.

“At the beginning, it wasn’t easy,” Mateos explained to Calvin Ayre’s Lee Davy after becoming the GPI number 1 for his, by most standards, unbelievable heater in 2017. “My parents didn’t like my decision to quit university and leave Spain to live in London. It was the hardest decision of my life. I decided to go all-in for my dream, and now I am delighted I did, of course.”

By the end of 2017, having just cashed 4 times in Prague at the PokerStars Championship – including 3 final tables – he had hauled himself up to number 33 in the all-time tournament winners rankings worldwide, snuggled in between Joe Hachem and Jamie Gold, both WSOP Main Event winners.

Should Mateos find similar success money-wise in 2018 as he did in 2017, he would almost certainly enter the top 20 – and for a 23-year old that is simply incredible. Add to this his $2.9million winnings online under the name ‘Amadi_017’ and it already justifies talking about him as a future contender for GOAT, although that tag has quite a number of players vying for it.

In late 2017 Mateos also claimed another title, that of Winamax poker room ambassador, when he was signed up by the French online team alongside another young shooting star of the European poker scene, the Italian player Mustapha Kanit.