We don’t want to sell Spain’s Carlos Mortensen short, but we’re comfortable in saying that he is one of the top ten tournament poker players on the planet. He is the only player to win the World Poker Tour Championship and World Series of Poker Main Event and, therefore, is extremely well respected.

We’ll start with his WSOP Main Event title, which came in 2001 and was good for $1.5 million. Sure, it’s small by today’s standards and Mortensen only had to beat a field of 613 players for the win, but his final table opponents included the likes of Dewey Tomko, Phil Gordon, Phil Hellmuth, and Mike Matusow. Talk about a formidable lineup!

His WPT Championship victory came three years later in 2004 and was worth nearly $4 million. The field of the 2004 WPT Championship was actually larger than the 2001 Main Event by 25 players and Mortensen’s competition at the six-max final table this time around included Kirk Morrison and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte.

Mortensen is the top money-earner on the WPT on the strength of three titles and five final tables. His career WPT earnings clock in at $6.4 million.

One of Mortensen’s key hands down the stretch in the 2013 WSOP Main Event came on Day 6 against Jorn Walthaus, who snap-called Mortensen’s all-in pre-flop. When the cards were exposed, Mortensen showed A-K of diamonds and Walthaus tabled K-K. Mortensen was trailing when the first four cards ran out Q-10-2-6, but a miracle J on the river gave him Broadway and new life in the Main Event.

When 32 players remained in the 2013 Main Event, Mortensen was in ninth place with a stack of 7.4 million and was the only Spaniard left in the field.