Mystery Bounty tournaments aren’t for purists.
Patrick Leonard called them the “nut worst poker format” on X, and when he was challenged by Shaun Deeb ("You'd be crazy not to enjoy them"), Leonard hit back, writing, "Any format where you’re basically committed in every pot to call off 72o is fun, I understand. When that’s a big part of all the schedules, it becomes a little tedious!”
Recs love them because they’ve got a shot at crazy money without having to win the tournament. Regs love them because they have an even bigger edge – a bigger bankroll to fire more bullets, to accumulate more chips, to chase bounties harder on Day 2.
But there’s no doubt that they change the way tournaments play out.
Big-name bounty hunters come up short
On Day 2 of the €1,100 Mystery Bounty at the 2026 WSOPE, Martin Kabrhel and Michael Mizrachi started with top 10 stacks in a field of 219.
The bounties were in play, and the top one was worth €250,000 – way more than the winner of the tournament would get (€150,000). There were two €100K bounties, two €50K bounties, and multiple €25Ks and €10Ks, all the way down to the €1Ks.
The two players immediately went into bounty-hunting mode, and both came up short. Kabrhel was out after an hour. Mizrachi wasn’t far behind. After three 40-minute levels, more than half the field had been sent home, with just 90 players remaining from the 219 starters.
TJ Reid: First two bounty levels are chaos
PokerOrg’s former Live Events Manager, TJ Reid, was also out after starting the day with a top-10 stack.
“The first two levels after the bounties kick in are chaos,” he tells us shortly after busting for slightly better than a min-cash of €1,550.
“With half the prize pool in the bounties, everyone is bounty hunting early, and you see hands play all-in pots that you'd never see in a normal tournament.”
There’s math behind the chaos.
“You can calculate the EV of a bounty by dividing the remaining bounty prize pool by the number of bounties remaining,” Reid explains. “Once you have that number, you can use it to calculate how much wider you need to call off as a covering stack. When the big bounty hits early, the average bounty EV goes down, and ranges tighten up a bit.”
Shortly after the first break, the €250,000 bounty was pulled by Egor Sukhov, and he played it cool. He lifted a fist in the air, said, “Very nice, brother,” and then disappeared from the stage.
We got a more excited reaction from Cesar Natera, who had previously only cashed in WSOP Online events. He pulled the first of the €100Ks and celebrated in style. An hour later he was the chip leader with a stack of 3.6 million.
Bounty pull rituals
With one €100K left, players lucky enough to pull a Gold Chest made their way up to the stage – some ambling, some jogging – where Jeff Platt was guarding a bucket of Golden Eggs. Inside one of them was life-changing money for some people.
There were different rituals. One player brought his ‘lucky’ friend, who selected two eggs, held them up, and cocked his head before rejecting one and selecting the other – which was the lowest possible €10K jackpot.
Another was in a hand when his name was called.
“Did you win it?” asked Platt.
“No,” he replied. He also pulled a €10K egg and was back in his seat within seconds
The final €100K went to the best ritual of all.
The lucky player came up to the stage, picked an egg, tossed it in the air, opened it, and revealed the €100K.
Glaser hits top gear
With all the big bounties gone, you’d expect play to tighten up, but it carried on at breakneck speed. The plan was to play down to 16 players today. After five 40-minute levels, there were just 55 players left.
One name caught the eye. Brit-pro Benny Glaser is one of Shaun Deeb’s big rivals for the Player of the Year title. And he motored to the top of the leaderboard by the dinner break, with 17 players left – one short of the 16 needed to bag for the night.
16 players opted to play through the dinner break. One insisted on taking the dinner break (there’s always one). An hour later, they returned, played for less than three minutes, and lost a player.
Tomorrow, the other 15 players will be looking at the €150K first prize and bracelet – and then at Glaser’s stack – and wondering whether the best they can do is €95,000 for second.
2026 WSOPE Event #1: €1,100 The Opener Mystery Bounty chip counts
- Benny Glaser (UK) – 13.5M (112bb)
- Julien Stropoli (France) – 10M (83bb)
- Maksim Paniak (Russia) – 9.2M (77bb)
- Cesar Natera (Venezuela) – 8.2M (68bb)
- Chenxiang Miao (China) – 8M (66bb)
- Corel Theuma (US) – 7.7M (64bb)
- Benedikt Wenzel (Germany) – 6.3M (52bb)
- Janis Kulikauskis (Latvia) – 4.4M (36bb)
- Jose Devesa (Spain) – 3.6M (30bb)
- Zdenek Zizka (Czech Republic) – 3.2M (26bb)
- Eugen-Gabriel Chiva (Romania) – 2.9M (24bb)
- Kiyoung Kim (South Korea) – 2.7M (22bb)
- Marco Bognanni (Italy) – 2.7M (22bb)
- Dongjae Roh (South Korea) – 2.4M (20bb)
- Mihai Tabac (Romania) – 1.8M (14bb)
- Dominik Matejka (Czech Republic) – 675K (5bb)
Play will restart at 12pm local time on Friday, with 37:41 remaining in Level 28 and blinds at 60K/120K/120K.
