Getting knocked out on the money bubble once is annoying. Doing it three times in four tournaments is the sort of run that has you questioning every river card you have ever seen.
Adrian Mateos had that exact start to the 2026 Poker Masters, then managed to turn his week around with a $229,500 victory over Triton champion Nick Schulman in Las Vegas.
The Spanish high-stakes regular won Event #5, a $10,500 no-limit hold’em tournament at the PokerGO Studio, on October 17. He began the seven-handed final table with the chip lead and never really looked interested in giving it back. By the end of the night, he was also leading the race for the Poker Masters Purple Jacket.
Three bubbles, one runner-up finish, and another shot
Mateos’ tournament results make for some strange reading. In Event #1, his pocket aces were cracked by Craig Mason’s pocket nines when Mason flopped a set, sending Mateos out on the stone bubble. He followed that with a $151,200 runner-up finish behind Nick Palma in Event #2, then somehow found himself the last unpaid player in Events #3 and #4 as well.
That matters because these aren’t soft fields where surviving until the money is automatic. High rollers are full of opponents who understand bubble pressure, stack leverage and the difference between playing for a min-cash and playing to win. Getting deep repeatedly without collecting is painful, but it also suggests Mateos was consistently putting himself in a position to challenge.
Event #5: the numbers
- Game: No-limit hold’em
- Buy-in: $10,500
- Entries: 85, the biggest field of the series to that point
- Prize pool: $850,000
- Paid places: 13
- Bubble finisher: Joe McKeehen, 14th
- Winner: Adrian Mateos, $229,500 and 230 PGT points
- Runner-up: Nick Schulman, $148,750
Mateos made the final table uncomfortable
Mateos returned with 3.02 million chips, ahead of Schulman’s 2.195 million, and immediately put the other stacks under pressure. Matthew Wantman was first out in seventh, followed by Keith Lehr in sixth. Martin Zamani finished fifth when his ace-queen ran into Jeremy Becker’s ace-king, and Robert French took fourth after Schulman rivered a nine against his ace-king.
The hand that really sums up Mateos’ final table came three-handed. From the small blind, he raised with ten-four of hearts against Becker’s king-eight. On a ten-eight-three-ten-five board, Mateos kept betting, eventually shoving the river with trip tens. Becker paid him off with two pair and was eliminated for $106,250.
That left Mateos with more than four times Schulman’s stack. Heads-up lasted two hands, ending when Mateos held pocket aces against Schulman’s ten-nine of hearts. Schulman picked up a serious draw but missed the river, leaving Mateos with the trophy. It was a relatively quiet ending to a final table in which Mateos had done most of the heavy lifting earlier.
Adrian Mateos: player statistics
| Statistic | Figure |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Spain |
| Age | 32 |
| Recorded live tournament cashes | Approximately $70.6 million |
| Largest recorded live cash | $6,370,000 |
| All-time live money list | 4th |
| WSOP bracelets | 6 |
| PGT titles | 9 |
| 2026 Poker Masters cashes, first six events | 2 (1st and 2nd) |
| 2026 Poker Masters earnings | $380,700 |
| Poker Masters series points after Event #5 | 381 |
Career figures are based on reported live tournament payouts as of October 18, 2026. They are gross cashes, not profit after buy-ins, staking or expenses.
Then he bubbled again
There was one more cruel joke waiting. Mateos returned for Event #6 and ended up on the bubble for a fourth time, holding ace-queen against Robert Chorlian’s ace-six and Justin Vaysman’s pocket sevens. Vaysman’s sevens survived to eliminate both opponents, giving Mateos an almost absurd record: four bubbles, one second place and one victory from six starts.
The good news is that the win and runner-up finish were still worth $380,700 and 381 series points. That put Mateos ahead of Nick Palma on 339 in the Purple Jacket standings after Event #5. He has already featured in several major 2026 high rollers, including a fifth-place finish in Brandon Wilson’s Super High Roller Bowl win, and added a sixth WSOP bracelet earlier this year.
There’s a useful poker lesson buried in all this. Finishing just outside the payouts four times feels horrible, but a couple of top-two finishes in high-roller fields can do considerably more for your series leaderboard than a pile of min-cashes. Mateos is still very much in the Purple Jacket race, and the Poker Masters continues through October 23.
