Seiji Leads the Way After Day 1 of �10,200 Mystery Bounty Event; Greenwood and Van Hoof Among the big Stacks
The 2022 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague festival has officially commenced at the King's Casino Prague. Four tournaments were listed for the first day of the popular series in the Czech capital and the most expensive tournament was Event #3: �10,200 Mystery Bounty.
Upon completion of eight levels of 30 minutes each, a cash prize pool of �244,400 has been created thanks to 52 entries. The slightly bigger slice of �260,000 is allocated for the Mystery Bounty portion and all cash prizes are still up for grabs. The field was whittled down to 32 survivors.
Brazil's Rodrigo Seiji Sirichuk finished atop the leaderboard with a stack of 370,500, followed by Sam Greenwood (310,000), Jorryt van Hoof (293,500), Jamil Wakil (292,000) and Mark Hammond. Greenwood and Wakil were among the nine players who opted to take advantage of the single re-entry option and did so successfully as they finished inside the top five.
Top 10 Chip Counts After Day 1
| Position | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rodrigo Seiji | Brazil | 370,500 | 124 |
| 2 | Sam Greenwood | Canada | 310,000 | 103 |
| 3 | Jorryt van Hoof | Netherlands | 293,500 | 98 |
| 4 | Jamil Wakil | Canada | 292,000 | 97 |
| 5 | Mark Hammond | United Kingdom | 269,000 | 90 |
| 6 | Hwany Lee | South Korea | 250,000 | 83 |
| 7 | Stoyan Obreshkov | Bulgaria | 212,500 | 71 |
| 8 | Steve O'Dwyer | Ireland | 208,500 | 70 |
| 9 | Juan Pardo | Spain | 208,000 | 69 |
| 10 | Petr Svoboda | Czech Republic | 204,000 | 68 |
Seiji was the first player to win an EPT Mystery Bounty tournament at this very venue earlier in 2022 during the rescheduled 2021 EPT Prague festival. He took down a �2,700 buy-in after coming out on top of a 655-entry strong field and will be aiming to add another PokerStars spadie trophy to his collection. Juan Pardo (208,000) and Jean-Noel Thorel (195,000) also advanced with healthy stacks and will aim to win the �10,200 buy-in version of this tournament for the second time in the fourth edition.
Among a slate of well-known high-stakes regulars to make it through Day 1 were also Steve O'Dwyer, recent WSOP Europe bracelet winner Orpen Kisacikoglu, Juha Helppi, Conor Beresford, Adrian Mateos, and Daniel Dvoress. Not as fortunate were Mike Watson, Gab Yong Kim, Motoyoshi Okamura, Dawid Smolka and Yasuhiro Waki as both ran out of chips once. Santhosh Suvarna and Ondrej Goetz were the only two players to exhaust two entries already and won't be eligible top buy into the tournament anymore.
Thailand's Phachara Wongwichit was also among the late casualties after he lost all but a single chip with a bluff against Hwany Lee. Waki was among the early chip leaders only to see his fortune turn around swiftly. Within two hands, Waki lost his entire stack to Greenwood when he first ran kings into aces and then couldn't beat trips queens of the Canadian.
2022 EPT Monte-Carlo Mystery Bounty winner Thorel joined the big stacks after earning two knockouts in very short succession. Especially the clash with Paul Newey was a memorable one when he spiked a very fortunate river to eliminate his opponent.
However, neither knockout for the French businessman was worth any cash prize yet as the drawings for the Mystery Bounty prizes only commence as of level 13 after the first break on Day 2. By then, the late registration will have closed by 1.30 pm local time in the main tournament room at King's Casino Prague.
The second and final day of the first High Roller event here at 2022 PokerStars EPT Prague gets underway at 12.30 pm local time. Two levels remain for players to join the action and the blinds recommence at 1,500-3,000 with a big blind ante of 3,000.
Stay tuned to find out right here on PokerNews who earns the biggest bounty prizes and a portion of the cash prize pool.