All-Stars for Starlight Champion: Mathieu Fontaine Raposo

After 3 full days of poker, the starting field of 1,109 players has been reduced to just one single player: Mathieu Fontaine Raposo.

Mathieu arrived into Day 3 as a healthy stack, but a few levels in he started considerably building his stack. By the time the stage was set for the final table, he was inches behind chip leader Nick-Real Seide, and a clear threat to his opponents. As play continued, he remained quite passive, yet maintained his healthy chip stack.

The clock was paused when action fell to 6 players, and a deal was negotiated. Given that stacks were relatively even, with no real short stack in play, the 6 players agreed to lock in $12,000 each, and leave an additional bonus to the eventual first and second place finishers. Although this normally leads to a more aggressive style of play, given the money pressure is no longer a big factor, the players actually seemed to maintain their strong play, showing that every one of them wanted the win.

It took a few levels before play reached heads-up, and Mathieu was faced with Michael Moussis for the grand finale. Mathieu started with the chip lead, and increased his lead fairly quickly before Michael staged his first comeback. Michael then took over the chip lead before the tipping point of heads-up play occurred. Holding , he called Mathieu’s all-in on a board, but couldn’t improve on his straight or flush draws, and lost to . He was left with only 675,000, but then staged his second comeback. He doubled up on three hands in a row, and became once again a threat in this heads-up match. Play continued for several more hands before Michael found what he was hoping to be his big chance to take over the lead, as he was faced with a 3bet all-in holding the ultimate hand, . Mathieu tabled , but somehow managed to run a straight on the board to win the pot, the tournament, the big cash prize, the TonyBet Winter Festival Champion’s Trophy, and bragging rights!