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Adrian Mateos Wins 2017 GPI Player of The Year Award

It was a tight finish for the race to who would finish as the 2017 Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of The Year. Ultimately, it was the Spanish Poker Pro Adrian Mateos, aged just 23, who edged out American Bryn Kenney for the title.

The Spaniard started the year with two WSOP bracelets and later won a third, becoming the youngest ever to three WSOP bracelets. It was actually Kenney who held the lead for the Player of the Year race for over four months in 2017, with Mateos overtaking him only in mid-December. “For a second straight year the GPI Player of the Year race went down to the final major event of the season,” said GPI Head of Poker Content, Eric Danis.

It all boiled down to the final major event of the year – PokerStars Championship Prague, where both players were out searching for precious points. Mateos cashed several times at Prague, winning 196.18 points for finishing 3rd in the €50K Super High Roller and 202.17 points for finishing 4th in the €25K NLHE 8-Handed event.

With this, Mateos became the first ever European player to win the GPI Player of The Year award. Incidentally, he also won the ‘Spanish Player of the Year’ award this year, for the fifth consecutive time.

Mateos is number one on Spain’s all-time money list and is certainly one who could make it very high on the world all-time list, given his age. Kenney, on the other hand, has had a pretty great year himself, cashing more than anyone else in poker tournaments in 2017 – $8.5 million, which is even more than WSOP Main Event winner Scott Blumstein.

Here are top 5 final 2017 GPI POY standings:

1 Adrian Mateos (Spain) 3,504.71 pts
2 Bryn Kenney (USA) 3,478.06 pts
3 Stephen Chidwick (UK) 3,341.89 pts
4 Koray Aldemir (Germany) 3,266.11 pts
5 Stefan Schillhabel (Germany) 3,236.48 pts

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