PokerStars EPT Season: 179 Left Battling in the $500k GTD $22 EPT Mystery Special

Structure Breakdown: Why Players Loved This Format

In addition to the Mystery Bounty aspect of the tournament, one of the key draws was the generous structure it offered to players; four hours of late registration and fifteen-minute-long levels provided ample playing time across a range of stack depths and registration times. With tournaments like these, it is best to be in as early as possible to give yourself the best chance to build up your stack, so you then have ample chips for the mystery bounty phase.

Bounty Breakdown: $50K Briefcases and Massive Wins

With the staggering $500k GTD prize pool up for grabs, players could find scores in the traditional payout structure, and the potentially lucrative virtual Mystery Bounty briefcase. When the bubble burst, the payouts were released, and one player would be banking a cool $50,000 for the top bounty prize. Additionally, there were two $10,000 bounties and fifteen $2,000 bounties. Below is the table in full.

The big bounties didn’t make it to Day 2, and Estonian player “UMC_MJ” pulled the biggest bounty of them all, and he departed in 211th place, adding $105.02 to his total haul, winning over double first-place money. The two $10,000 bounties were added to the bankrolls of Ukrainian “FL_RAP” (1,018th – $53.97) and “shlemanas” of Denmark (296th – $75.30), who will be very thankful for firing a second bullet at this tournament. Of the $2,000 bounty recipients, only three remain in the field. Germany’s “$teve45” (145th – 2,490,318 chips), Canada’s “HARDPHIL77” (98th – 4,377,816), and Greece’s “Sharpblade91” (84th – 4,778,986) all pulled from the third biggest bounty selection, and all remain in contention to add more to their respective tallies. Of the 15, only one $2,000 remains, and so far, each one has all gone to a different player. “Kokomagelan” made his one bounty pull count before departing in 329th place for $75.30, as they pulled a $2,000.

Big Bounty Winners In Full

Player	Bounty Total
UMC_MJ	$50,104.10
FL_RAP	$10,288.50
shlemanas	$10,011.92
$teve45	$2,433.94
maxxe777	$2,264.66
Sharpblade91	$2,196.29
revenge1994	$2,184.39
HITman7682	$2,184.39
VNCSCS	$2,184.38
KingsnorthA	$2,184.38
smeralda87	$2,080.28
HARDPHIL77	$2,047.66
1461958	$2,047.65
manocaio	$2,035.73
sfinks01	$2,011.91
AllQuantic	$2,011.91
Kokomagelan	$2,000

Chip Leaders

Brazil have control of the podium as “burianjpb” leads the way with 24,459,244 chips. So far, they have racked up $1,440.23 in bounties, and their stack is worth 152 big blinds. Their bounty haul consists of 16 knockouts, and the bulk of which is made up of two $500 pulls. “bixotry” sits in second with 19,876,339, and has pulled $371.88 in bounties. This was from 14 knockouts, but unfortunately, their pulls all came from the lower end of the prize pool. “yuriVsa” rounds out the top three with 19,844,426 and $255.85 in bounties. They have scored 10 knockouts so far. Below is the top 10 chip counts and the total in bounties they have pulled.

Top 10 Chip Counts and Bounties

Place	Player	Bounty	Chips
1	burianjpb	$1,440.23	24,459,244
2	bixotry	$371.88	19,876,339
3	yuriVsa	$255.85	19,844,426
4	kostaslyon	$565.05	19,365,059
5	ElCarrasco1	$243.93	17,808,079
6	Zherminal	$127.92	17,200,180
7	tsikoz	$184.48	14,568,627
8	aleks207	$139.83	14,174,788
9	rodrigo2595	$770.17	14,002,248
10	DikDikDeKirk	$196.29	13,832,419

What’s Next?

Action will resume at 6 p.m. GMT with the blinds at 80,000/160,000 with five minutes left on the clock of Level 32. The average stack sits at 37.5 big blinds, which is 6,000,000 in chips. Good luck to those who remain in the tournament. The remaining players are guaranteed $105 plus bounties. Below are the remaining payouts.

That’s all for now, folks. Until next time.