Poker News Roundup: Roger Teska, Roberto Romanello, Filipe Oliveira

online poker Caribbean Poker Party

This week’s poker news focuses in on partypoker’s Caribbean Poker Party series of tournaments, which wrapped up this week. There were a number of big winners from the events and we’ll recap three of the biggest headliners:

Teska Wins Caribbean Poker Party $25,000 Buy-In Event 

As the weather turns frigid, the Caribbean is the place to be. The Caribbean Poker Party has come and gone, and a couple of players enjoyed much more than just the warm sun and turquoise waters.  

Roger Teska won the MILLIONS World $25,000 buy-in event, which hosted a field of 394 entries. Although the field was medium-sized, it still took four days to whittle things down to a winner. Teska ended up surviving the field and won a prize of a cool $2 million.

Steve O’Dwyer barely lost to Teska in heads-up play in a vigorous competition. He didn’t get the top prize, but he did walk away with $1.3 million as well as 1,750 Card Player’s Player of the Year points. That moves him into the top 10 on the 2018 POY race leaderboard. Other notables at the final money table included seventh-place finisher Rainer Kempe, whose 525 POY points put him in seventh on that list. 

Rounding out the top five, Charles La Boissonniere was third and won $1 million, Paul Tedeschi finished fourth and collected $700,000, and Andras Nemeth was fifth and picked up $550,000.

Romanello Wins $10,000 High Roller 

One of the other key tournaments in the Caribbean Poker Party was the $10,000 High Roller event and Roberto Romanello earned the title. He ended up topping a field of 195 other entrants to win the $450,000 prize. Although Romanello has had a number of big wins in his career, this was a significant one and boosted his career earnings to nearly $3.5 million.  

Mustapha Kanit was the runner-up and won $271,200. Their final heads-up match lasted just over an hour and ended after midnight this past Sunday. Daniel Dvoress was third with $210,000, Justin Bonomo was fourth with $160,000 and Garik Tamasian was fifth with $125,000.

Oliveira Wins Main Event 

Capping off partypoker’s Caribbean Poker Party festivities was the showcase tournament: the $5,300 Main Event. Filipe Oliveira was crowned champion as he outlasted a field of 1,815 players. He actually had a low-chip position late in the tournament at one point but caught fire down the stretch to win it in a stunning turn of events. Oliveira entered the final table with the third-fewest chips of the last seven players but made the most of it. 

With $140,000 in career winnings entering this event, Oliveira jumped into another realm of success with the $1.5-million prize.  

Craig Mason was the runner-up and won $1.2 million while Marc MacDonnell was third with $1 million.