O'Kearney, Panka and Moorman Among 22 Survivors in Event #28: $2,100 Bounty Championship
Progressive Knockout tournaments have proven to be very popular throughout the 2021 GGPoker WSOP Online Bracelet Events so far as the previous five editions in No-Limit Hold'em and Pot-Limit Omaha all attracted decent field sizes. Event #28: $2,100 Bounty Championship NLHE was no different either. Despite not featuring any guarantee, the tournament attracted a field of 1,064 entries and resulted in a prize pool worth $2,128,000.
The top 152 finishers earned a portion of the cash pool and at the end of 32 levels, only 22 contenders remained in the mix. Israel's "NIRUSHHH" topped the overnight standings as the only player with more than 50 big blinds for the final day and already amassed $20,219 in bounties.
Vincent "Moist" Huang staged a late comeback to advance with 46 big blinds closely followed by Arkadiy "Kamsky" Tsinis, who is one of three known WSOP bracelet winners among the survivors. Abhinav "OBellaCiao" Iyer and Chris Moorman advanced with 16 and 12 big blinds respectively.
Among the contenders is also Dara O'Kearney, the author of strategy book "PKO Poker Strategy" which is specifically dedicated to this action-packed tournament format. The Irishman soared to the top of the leaderboard after the end of late registration and made it through with 20 big blinds for the final day.
Top 10 After Day 1 in Event #28: $2,100 Bounty Championship
| Place | Player | Bounty | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NIRUSHHH | $20,219 | 6,304,742 | 63 |
| 2 | Vincent "Moist" Huang | $12,438 | 4,625,683 | 46 |
| 3 | Arkadiy "Kamsky" Tsinis | $5,781 | 4,583,917 | 46 |
| 4 | Mathias "Senor Perez" Siljander | $9,000 | 3,938,692 | 39 |
| 5 | Sheng "asdf3578" Liu | $13,820 | 3,208,779 | 32 |
| 6 | Noam "silverplat" Makavy | $17,117 | 2,913,279 | 29 |
| 7 | Oleg "PbI6AFiSH" Eltsov | $18,938 | 2,671,398 | 27 |
| 8 | Felipe Ketzer | $6,578 | 2,591,857 | 26 |
| 9 | Natalya "Nikitina N1" Nikitina | $4,063 | 2,558,936 | 26 |
| 10 | Sergio "TugaStalion" Coutinho | $5,734 | 2,295,836 | 23 |
The remaining 22 players will return to their virtual seats on Wednesday, September 8 at 5.01 pm GMT and play all the way down to a winner. Until the nine-handed final table, the levels will last 15 minutes each and the action recommences with blinds of 50,000-100,000 and a running ante of 12,500. So far, a cash prize of $7,171 is locked up whereas the top two finishers will pad their bankrolls with more than $86k in cash and the accumulated bounties.
The Action of the Day
There was action right from the start and the field size grew by the minute, be it via new entries or players firing multiple bullets. With bounty prizes up for grabs in every hand, it came as no surprise that more than two thirds of the field were gone by the time the late registration had closed. Notables no longer in contention by then were Felipe Ramos, Dario Sammartino, Niklas Astedt, the recent WSOP Online bracelet winners Dmitry Yurasov and Nuno "Albertov" Capucho, Blaz Zerjav and Bruno Volkmann to name all but a few.
It was not uncommon to see two or more players at risk during the same hand. One of many such examples saw the 2020 WSOP Online Main Event champion Stoyan Madanzhiev and Andrii Novak felted by "bootybanger", who remains in contention for the gold bracelet. Allan "Freedom35" Mello and Fabiano "MarkyAurelio" Kovalski were ousted by Aki "Seabossss" Virtanen and the money bubble burst soon after with Chinese player "JRamosCruz" ending up as the bubble boy.
The pace of eliminations only picked up from there on and Igor d'Ursel scored a memorable triple knockout in a rapidly shrinking field. Dara O'Kearney was propelled into the lead after he scored three knockouts in quick succession but the Irishman was sent back into the middle of the pack during the late stages.
Ultimately, things slowed down eventually on the final four tables and 22 players were left over when the dust had settled. They will be back in action after a good night of sleep and so will be the PokerNews live reporting team. Stay tuned for the conclusion of this event on September 8 to find out who becomes the latest WSOP gold bracelet winner.