Ricardo De Andrade Wins €3,000 Mystery Bounty at his First-Ever EPT

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Sep 02, 2023 4 min read Last updated Sep 03, 2023

The PokerStars European Poker Tour €3,000 Mystery Bounty event, running at Casino Barcelona, has now wrapped up. There were a total of 1,339 entries to the event, which created a prize pool of €2,297,724. After three days of action, a champion has been crowned.

Ricardo De Andrade of Portugal emerged as the outright winner, locking up a top prize of €374,064, which along with €21,000 in bounties, made for a total of €395,064. He beat Armin Rezaei heads-up to win the tournament. Rezaei, who had been the big stack for much of the final table, had to settle for second place and €233,890.

Jan Bronkhorst made the final table and finished in seventh place for €58,480. He also pulled one of the €200,000 bounties, so came out as one of the top winners in terms of overall prize money.

Final Table Payouts

Epic Bounty Prizes

Bounties came into play at the start of Day 2, with €1,000 of the entry fee going into the bounty pool. Incredible mystery prizes were up for grabs, including one €100,000 prize and two top prizes of €200,000.

Along with Bronkhorst, Samy Boujmala was the other player to draw a €200,000 prize.

Klas Lofberg won the €100,000 prize early in Day 2. Ahmed Ibrahimi, Anthony Michel Cruz, Zlatin Penev and Michel Dattani each claimed €50,000 bounty prizes.

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By the time action reached the final table, only one €5,000 ticket remained in the box, along with the €1,000 tickets. This meant the tournament reverted to more of a regular format, with players aiming to increase their position for the maximum prize money rather than bust opponents.

Day 3 and Final Table

There were 22 players who returned for the final day, with Ismet Oral the chip leader and Razvan Belea second in chips. Stacks were fairly even between second and fifth place, so it was still anyone’s game.

Dan Heimiller was the first to bust on Day 3, but he was seen pulling seven bounty tickets out of the box, including one of the remaining €5,000 prizes.

A double bust soon followed, with De Andrade knocking out both Peter Tordai and Belea in one hand, the start of a run that would see him go all the way. The bustouts came thick and fast until the final table was reached around three-and-a-half hours into the day’s play.

By the time action went four handed, Rezaei had gained a massive chip lead. He then knocked out Kenne in fourth and accumulated 26,500,000 chips as the game went three-handed. He then eliminated Nakdali in third and went into heads-up with a near 8:1 chip advantage over his opponent.

That all changed when play resumed. De Andrade doubled up, won a few pots, and then doubled up again to take the chip lead. After less than one hour of heads-up action, De Andrade called Rezaei’s river bluff in the final pot of the night, winning the tournament and earning himself an EPT trophy.

Winner’s Reaction

“Yesterday, around the bubble, I was running really, really good. I was chip leading on the bubble. I couldn’t lose a pot, it was insane. Today things started quiet, nothing too important. I lost a huge pot at the final table against the guy who went heads-up with me.”

“Heads-up started with an almost ten-to-one disadvantage, but I regained my focus. I got lucky also, but first I doubled up and next I won two pots, three pots. When that happened, I felt like I’m going to take this down. The momentum was there and I was confident.”

“I mostly play online. Live, this is my second event. My first one was in March at Estrellas Madrid. This is my first time coming to an EPT and yeah, huge score.”

“My hands are shaking man, I don’t even know how to express it. Just to play an EPT is a dream come true, but to win an event is crazy. It’s crazy.”

“The money is important obviously, but I think the most important thing is the trophy and winning an EPT event.”

That wraps up the PokerNews coverage of the €3,000 Mystery Bounty. Stay tuned as live reporters follow the Main Event and others as the series concludes this weekend.

• Tags EPT European Poker Tour EPTBarcelona23 Dan Heimiller Frederic Breton Ismet Oral Jan Bronkhorst Klas Lofberg Marcos Kenne Michel Dattani Mikel Unanue Peter Tordai Razvan Belea Ricardo De Andrade Samy Boujmala Vladislav Solovev Yaman Nakdali Zlatin
• Related Tournaments European Poker Tour
• Related Players Dan HeimillerSimon LofbergMichel DattaniFrederic BretonSamy BoujmalaVladislav Solovev