Stephen Chidwick and Adrian Mateos were poker phenoms before they were old enough to play in Vegas. Chidwick famously won more than 100 WSOP Main Event satellites back when he was under 21 and Mateos won the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event for €1 million in 2013, when he was just 19.
Not surprisingly, each quickly became his country’s highest-earning player. At just 25, Mateos is Spain’s top earner with $19 million and Chidwick, now 30, tops the U.K. list with $33 million in live tournament earnings. Those numbers are incredible and always on the rise since both players can’t seem to stop winning poker tournaments.
Chidwick crowned Super High Roller Champ in EPT Prague
Despite seven separate cashes for more than $1 million, including high roller titles in Macau, at the WSOP and at the Sportsbook Millions Grand Final, Chidwick had yet to take down a Super High Roller on the European Poker Tour until yesterday. Now he joins the prestigious list of champions that includes Steve O’Dwyer, Justin Bonomo and Sam Greenwood.
Chidwick outlasted a field of 44 players in the €50,000 Super High Roller and won €725,710 for his first EPT Super High Roller trophy. The tournament was a rather lengthy three-day affair and on the last day, the final table consisted of six poker heavyweights. Aside from Chidwick, the final table also included Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Adrian Mateos, Steve O’Dwyer, Jean Noel-Thorel and Ben Heath.
The final table action went by fairly quickly and Heath, who started as the short stack, quickly hit the rail and was followed by Noel-Thorel and O’Dwyer. Mateos started the table as the chip leader, but fell to Chidwick, who went into the heads-up match with a massive lead.
Grospellier was able to double up and even things out, but according to live updates at the PokerStars Blog, he eventually fell with ace-king offsuit against Chidwick’s queen-ten suited. Chidwick hit a ten on the turn and took down his first EPT Super High Roller title.
More Money for Mateos
While Mateos’s €320,170 score for his third-place finish was his biggest score in Prague, he got another six-figure score and a first-place finish in his first tournament of the festival.
There were a total of 61 entries for the €10,300 buy-in event. Only about half of the field survived to make it to Day 2, but it was packed with players like Bryn Kenney, Sam Greenwood and Steve O’Dwyer.
Action went by fast and by the time they hit the final table, Anton Yakuba was in the lead and Mateos was in third. Mateos then knocked out a player and continued to climb, taking over the chip lead and starting three-handed play with nearly 50 percent more chips than second.
Mateos made quick work of his first opponent and then went heads-up against Yakuba, the start-of-day chip leader, with a 2-to-1 lead. Yakuba chipped up a little bit, but Mateos took it down when he moved all-in on the river with bottom pair. Yakuba called with a high card and finished in second while Mateos won €177,500 for the victory.
Main Event Underway
Prague is the final stop of the European Poker Tour this year and action kicked off last week. There’s been hundreds of players, millions of euros in prize money, a Christmas party and more than a handful of different champions. The €5,300 Main Event kicked off yesterday and will finish on Tuesday.
There’s also a €10,300 High Roller on Sunday that’ll finish playing down on Tuesday. If you want to follow all the action live, you can check out the PokerStars Blog for live updates.
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