The largest sum of money that Marty Mathis managed to win in a poker tournament was $87,500 when he managed to finish in the 17th place during the 2011 PCA Main Event. Until his latest victory, that sum was his biggest poker win ever. All of that changed when Mathis managed to win the 2019 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS South America Main Event, where he took the trophy along with a hefty sum of $873,700.
The Main Event was the last event in this tournament, and it saw a total of 439 players taking part in it. There was a guaranteed prize pool of $5 million which was shared to the 55 players who made the best score. Some of the players that managed to receive a slice of the cake but did not make it to the final table are Jack Sinclair, Bryan Piccioli, Patrick Leonard, Tom Middleton, Richard Trigg, and Manig Loeser. All of these poker legends managed to win some money after applying for this $10,300 buy-in event.
The Final Table Play
The event reached its conclusion on Day 4, with the eight best players taking their seats by the final table. The nationalities from the players were pretty colorful as there were a total of three Brazilians, a Lithuanian, a Czechian, and Lithuanian, a Canadian, and a US resident. The last one was Marty Mathis, and he managed to win the title. The first one to go out during the final table was Andre de Oliviera from Brazil, who managed to win $150,000 (the original prizes were awarded in Brazilian reals, but we converted them to US dollars to make it easier for the US readers to gain insight into their prizes).
The next one to follow de Oliviera was Michael Sklenicka from the Czech Republic, who won approximately $200,000 and ended up in seventh place. Another Brazilian hit the rail in sixth place, and that was Caio Hey, who managed to win $250,000. The fifth place was reserved for Vlada Stojanović, a player from Serbia who managed to win a total of $300,000. Finally, Samuel Gagnon from Canada was the last one to go out on the fourth place for $370,000 before the three-handed play started. At this time, the three best players made a three-handed deal to split the money and then continued playing to determine the winner.
Matas Cimbolas from Lithuania was the first to hit the rail, and he had to settle for $559,200. The heads-up play was between Bruno Volkmann from Brazil and Marty Mathis. At the point of entering the last part of the event, Mathis had 96 big blinds and Volkman had 80. The heads-up lasted for three hours before Mathis finally managed to outsmart his opponent and win the event.