First-Ever All-Mystery Festival Breaks Guarantees
It was the first time a multi-table poker tournament series was all mystery bounties, all the time, and the first running ended up exceeding the pre-series estimates by a small margin.
The first-ever all mystery bounty series is now in the books for 888poker and at the end of the two weeks of action, the event was a success. There was more than $2 million guaranteed in all the events which included 31 tracked events plus multiple side events.
With 30 numbered events plus the Main Event there were a total of 31 big games this series with a bit more than $1.1 million guaranteed between them. When the dust settled on the series nearly 34,000 entries were recorded for the big games with more than 24,000 unique entries across the poker games.
That put the total money collected at just shy of $1.175 million, about $50k higher than the guarantees for those games. There were a few overlays through the series as well, with the total prizes awarded at just over $1.2 million.
Almost two-thirds of the main games hit their guarantee, with 18 games collecting more money than promised. That did mean there was about $33.5k of overlay that had to be covered, but fees from the two biggest games alone covered that shortfall, with more than $65k of extra fees left over from the rest of the events.
888poker’s Mystery Bounty Festival Results Summary
| Tracked Games | 31 | Total Prizes | $1,208,250 |
| Beat Gtd | 19 | Total Overlay | -$33,465 |
| Missed Gtd | 12 | Total Gtd | $1,123,000 |
| Total Entries | 33,895 | Fees | $102,386.50 |
| Entries | 24,277 | Over Gtd | $51,785 |
| Rebuys | 9,618 | % Gtd Increase | 4.61% |
Players Love the Mystery
One thing was clear when the dust settled on the first-ever Mystery Bounty Festival on 888poker – players clearly love the mystery format. Given the popularity of the daily Mystery Bounty schedule on the client, that was no surprise, but the operator should still be pleased with the results.
There were more than 33,000 total entries across the two-week series with 24,277 unique entries. That meant $1,174,785 was collected over the 31 games, which was an increase of almost 5% over the pre-series guarantees of $1,123,000.
The average entries across the series was more than 1,000 per game, including rebuys, so it was pretty clear that players were all in on the mystery. While there were 12 games that missed their guarantees, the final numbers show a clear profit for the operator in addition to big prizes for players.
Two Big Winners From the Main
As always, the Main Event was the big draw in this series. With the opportunity to win $30k in a single hand on Day 2 and 3 of this big game, the Main Event appeal was a pretty easy mystery to solve.
As the series capper, it had the biggest guarantee and was almost certainly always going to be the biggest game in terms of prizes. That turned out to be the case with more than 2,000 entries and a guarantee-busting prize pool of $310,050.
The big appeal of the mystery format is the bounty phase as it is often the case that the winner of a Mystery Bounty tournament isn’t the player who makes the most money. That was the case this time around as well with Costa Rica’s “Charles3rd” ending their run in 14th place but walking away with the biggest payday of the game.
They picked up the biggest bounty of the series, $30k, plus a couple of others for a total bounty haul of $33,979.61, and a final prize total of $35,228. That was almost $10k more than the $25,262.88 won by the winner of the Main Event, “pivnoypuzec” from Montenegro, which included more than $3,100 in bounties.
2023 Mystery Bounty Festival Main Event Results
- “pivnoypuzec” (Montenegro) … $22,103.65 + $3,159.23 in bounties = $25,262.88
- “Ibet1X2” (Sweden) … $16,133.04 + $1,359.21 in bounties = $17,492.25
- “2pacnrw16” (N/A) … $11,859.70 + $7,749.53 in bounties = $19,609.23
- “schimpfer” (Germany) … $8,786.74 + $679.60 in bounties = $9,466.34
- “AntonTsi” (Ukraine) … $6,498.03 + $3,329.14 in bounties = $9,827.17
- “BritiyLobok” (Kazakhstan) … $4,849.51 + $3,068.93 in bounties = $7,918.44
- “Panxetillo” (Andorra) … $3,633.13 + $979.61 in bounties = $4,612.74
- “VladRon13” (Ukraine) … $2,752.86 + $339.80 in bounties = $3,092.66
- “Zebest7r” (Canada) … $2,096.65 + $1,829.13 in bounties = $3,925.78
14. “Charles3rd” (Costa Rica) … $1,248.39 + $33,979.61 in bounties = $35,228
Brazil Wins Most Titles but Montenegro Punches Above its Weight
In the national race, it was poker powerhouse Brazil that took down the most titles in this series with ten total wins. The South American nation of 214 million people is one of the fastest growing poker markets in the world, so it was little surprise to see them top the list.
Montenegro, with four titles and tied with the UK for second place, was more of a dark horse. The tiny nation of less than 650,000 people captured four titles in this series, including the top spot in the Main Event.
To put that into perspective, the 10 titles for Brazil works out to about one title for every 21 million people, while UK’s four was a trophy for every 16.75 million people. Montenegro, on the other hand, took home one trophy for every 155,000 people, about 100x better than the UK’s trophy rate.
There had never been an online MTT festival that was exclusively Mystery Bounty games before this recent series from 888poker. After the success of this first running however, it will almost certainly not be the last Mystery Bounty Festival players see.
