Oral Holds Chip Lead Going Into Day 3 of �3,000 EPT Mystery Bounty
The PokerStars European Poker Tour (ESPT) at Casino Barcelona continued today with an action-filled Day 2 of �3,000 EPT Mystery Bounty. Over the Day 1 flight yesterday and an additional cohort of late registers this morning, a massive 1,339 entrants made up this record-breaking Mystery Bounty tournament. Of those, 461 players found their seats this morning to battle it out over the felt, as the Mystery Bounty tokens were introduced. After 10 hours of play, only 22 remain.
As the dust settled it was Ismet Oral who bagged the chip lead having accumulated 4,750,000 by the end of Level 27 tonight. Oral remains nearly 2,000,000 chips in front of his nearest competitors EPT Paris Main Event Champion Razvan Belea and Sven Stok who managed to amass 2,920,000 and 2,700,000 respectively.
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ismet Oral | Turkey | 4,750,000 | 59 |
| 2 | Razvan Belea | Romania | 2,920,000 | 37 |
| 3 | Sven Stok | Netherlands | 2,700,000 | 34 |
| 4 | Marcos Kenne | Brazil | 2,635,000 | 33 |
| 5 | Dzhavad Abdolvand | Ukraine | 2,600,000 | 33 |
| 6 | Jan Bronkhorst | Netherlands | 2,295,000 | 29 |
| 7 | Alberto Stegeman | Netherlands | 2,055,000 | 26 |
| 8 | Romain Le Dantec | France | 1,905,000 | 24 |
| 9 | Ricardo De Andrade | Portugal | 1,825,000 | 23 |
| 10 | Mikel Unanue | Mexico | 1,760,000 | 22 |
Day 2 Action
As Day 2 got underway, the focal point for every player quickly became the Mystery Bounties on offer. For each opponent they managed to eliminate, the player would be able to claim a token that would grant them the opportunity to pull a mystery bounty. While there was plenty of fortune on offer, it was the two �200,000 bounties that captivated the attention of the field.
Jan Bronkhorst was the first player to lay claim to the elusive �200,000 bounty on the seventh level of the day. With $71,814 in live recorded tournament cashes, this singular bounty exceeded over double Bronkhort��s lifetime earnings. Bronkhorst is also a top-ten stack heading into Day 3.
It wasn��t until Level 21 that the second �200,000 would picked by Samy Boujmala; this grand bounty is almost equivalent to Boujmala��s biggest live tournament cash to date.
Klas Lofberg was the beneficiary of the last six-figure bounty in the form of �100,000. While Ahmed Ibrahimi, Anthony Michel Cruz, Zlatin Penev and Michel Dattani all got their hands on a �50,000 bounty each.
The collection of �25,000 bounties found its way into the pockets of Cristinel Dumitru, Erdal Gulseven, Byron Kaverman and Marcelo De Medeiros.
With no major bounties at large, the focus of the tournament floor is starting to switch to the looming first-place prize of �374,064.
Day 3 restarts tomorrow, September 1 at 12 p.m. local time. The structure will recommence on Level 28 with blinds at 40,000/80,000 with an 80,000 big blind ante.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be back tomorrow to bring you more coverage of the Europen Poker Tour Mystery Bounty here at EPT Barcelona as we play down to a winner, so stay tuned.