Strong Turnout for €10,200 Mystery Bounty So Far; Heath Runs the Hottest on Day 1
The return of the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) presented by Monte-Carlo Casino® at Le Sporting on the French Riviera has seen a successful start of the series in the first high stakes competition. Event #4 €10,200 Mystery Bounty High Roller has attracted a field of 71 entries for a cash prize pool of €333,700 so far.
However, the late registration and re-entry period remains open for the first two levels on Day 2 which makes it all but guaranteed to see the field size grow further. Upon completion of eight levels of 30 minutes each, only 50 players remained and the UK's Ben Heath topped the leaderboard with a stack of 404,500. Heath was responsible for the first elimination of the day when he knocked out PokerStars ambassador Sam Grafton and stayed near the top of the leaderboard all day long.
Brazilian online regularLuciano De Hollanda follows in second place (340,500) while Spanish High Roller regular Sergi Reixach (300,500) rounds up the overnight podium. In a field filled with notable poker pros from near and far, other big names in the top ten include Sam Greenwood (277,000), Alex Kulev (269,000), Timothy Adams (264,000), and 2021 WSOP Europe bracelet winner Andriy Lyubovetskiy (227,000).
Top 10 Chip Counts Event #4 €10,200 Mystery Bounty
| Place | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds Day 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ben Heath | United Kingdom | 404,500 | 135 |
| 2 | Luciano De Hollanda | Brazil | 340,500 | 114 |
| 3 | Sergi Reixach | Spain | 300,500 | 100 |
| 4 | Sam Greenwood | Canada | 277,000 | 92 |
| 5 | Kayhan Mokri Roshanfekr | Norway | 274,000 | 91 |
| 6 | Alex Kulev | Bulgaria | 269,000 | 90 |
| 7 | Timothy Adams | Canada | 264,000 | 88 |
| 8 | Guram Andronikashvili | United Kingdom | 241,000 | 80 |
| 9 | Boris Kolev | Bulgaria | 233,500 | 78 |
| 10 | Andriy Lyubovetskiy | Ukraine | 227,000 | 76 |
Grafton was the only PokerStars ambassador to enter the field and upon returning for the second and final entry, the jovial Brit nearly doubled his stack before taking a late hit. He will have his work cut out in the opening stages of the final day as 28,500 in chips represents fewer than ten big blinds total for level nine, which recommences at blinds of 1,500-3,000 and a big blind ante of 3,000.
Among the returning players will also be Dario Sammartino, Gaelle Baumann, Daniel Dvoress, Joao Vieira, Jean-Noel Thorel, Koray Aldemir, Dimitar Danchev, recent 2022 Irish Open champion Steve O'Dwyer, Stephen Chidwick, Davidi Kitai and Adrian Mateos.
While it was a rather short day on the felt with just four hours of poker action, there were also some high caliber casualties. Andras Nemeth was eliminated twice and won't be returning for Day 2 while Erik Seidel, Byron Kaverman, Orpen Kisacikoglu, Christian Rudolph, and Pascal Lefrancois all just fired one bullet so far.
Ali Imsirovic was among the latest entries on Day 1 and lost his entire stack within two hands against Sammartino when he first missed a straight draw and then ran a suited jack into the aces of the Italian. The High Roller serial winner has one more shot at the action and is expected to return for the final day of the event.
Day 2 will recommence at 12.30 local time and the High Rollers return to their usual playing ground in the America's Room, a separate small building which typically hosted most high stakes competitions during previous EPT stops in Monte-Carlo. Two levels of late registration remain and entries at the very last minute for the start of level 11 will have 20 big blinds at their disposal.
The tournament also features a Mystery Bounty format, which comes into play when the cash money bubble has burst. Stay tuned for the conclusion of the event as the PokerNews team will be on the floor until a winner has been crowned.