19-year-old Spanish professional player Adrian Mateos may be too young to play in Vegas, but this week he has shown he has the ability to tangle with the best by emerging victorious – and a million Euros wealthier – in the Euro 10,450 buy-in World Series of Poker Europe main event.
It was the young pro’s first WSOP bracelet….but probably not his last.
Playing against a field of 374 that included some of the top players in the world, the young Spaniard, who plays under a 888Poker patch, showed remarkable maturity and talent as he worked his way through the field and on to the final table as chip leader, where he faced an international selection of opponents:
Fabrice Soulier and Jerome Huge of France; Andrei Konopelko from Belarus; German aces Benny Spindler and Dominik Nitsche; and Ravi Raghavan and Shannon Shorr from the United States.
The final table was a hard-fought, long affair that ran a little ahead of schedule, with Shannon Shorr and Andrei Konopelko falling on Wednesday, leaving the remaining six players to battle it out on Friday.
Dominik Nitsche’s departure at third for Euro 400,000 set the scene for a heads up of Mateos vs. Fabrice Soulier, an epic struggle that was to go on for four hours. Mateos held a 4 to 1 chip lead at the outset, but his determined French opponent never let up, hammering away at the Spaniard’s advantage to at one point seize the lead.
His dominance was brief, however, as Mateos fought back fiercely to regain the lead at hand 200 and build on it to ultimate victory…but it took another hundred hands for him to secure the bracelet and the big money.
Fabrice Soulier played professionally and well, but had to be satisfied on this occasion with a runner up check for Euro 610,000.