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Raul Mestre, 24-Year-Old Spanish Chemist, Wins PartyPoker Tourney

24-year-old chemist Raul Mestre won the 2nd PartyPoker.com Late Night Poker Ace, winning for himself $50,000. The tournament was aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, and ended this year's search for the world's best amateur poker player.

Mestre a resident of Valencia, Spain eliminated scores of other contestants to bag the top spot. The chemistry student said he is elated with his win, and acknowledged that luck played a huge part in his victory.

"There were two times when I went all-in with just a 50% chance of winning and luckily I won both times. This is the way poker works, it is a game of skill but sometimes you cannot avoid taking risks. Avoiding too many unnecessary risks is the key."

It was the biggest win for Mestre by far, and he is now empowered to play in future live tournaments.

"I mainly play cash games, usually with small stakes, with my biggest win to date being around $16,000 in an online tournament. I do intend to play in some more big tournaments in the coming months but will have to see how it goes."

A spokesman for PartyPoker.com said: "Raul played an excellent game throughout and also had some interesting duels with Simon Ehne, who he eventually beat into second place. The standard of poker we saw in the tournament was incredibly high and again emphasises the ever decreasing gap between the professional and amateur game."

"Raul made a huge impact on everybody at the tournament. He made some truly breathtaking plays and clearly has a big future on the circuit. This Raul is not king of the Bernabeu, he's king of the green baize."