The $5,300 buy-in 2018 PartyPoker Caribbean Poker Party Main Event concluded in the Bahamas over the weekend in a $1.5 million victory for the young Portuguese player Filipe Oliveira. It was his biggest career tournament win by almost an order of magnitude.
Oliviera was one of 11 players who entered the final day of the event, the survivors of an original field of 1,815. It did not take long to reach a final table of eight, led by Russian player Konstantin Maslak, who ultimately busted in fifth position for $600,000.
At the six-handed stage Oliviera did not appear to be in the running at all after losing a series of hands which left him with a sparse chip stack, however he kept his head and managed to salvage the situation so well over the next hour that he found himself in the heads up after Ireland’s Marc MacDonnell departed at third with $1 million after declining an earlier invitation to a three-way chop.
Heads up, Oliviera faced US ace Craig Mason with the chip stacks almost evenly matched; the two manoeuvred for some time seeking an advantage before Oliviera pulled off an audacious bluff on a major pot which put him firmly in the lead, enabling him to dispatch a tough opponent after about another hour of play;
Mason’s runner-up reward was worth $1.2 million.
German player Pascal Hartmann finished fourth for $800,000; trailed by Diogo Veiga of Portugal ($400,000) and Alex Turyansky ($300,000) in sixth and seventh places, with US player Joe Kuethe the low man on $218,500.