Bounty Builder Series enters final stretch with huge winners and massive Main Event field

The Bounty Builder Series Main Event is drawing to a close, but not before an enormous Main Event gets done, and you’ve caught up on all the action from the final weekend. It’s all in this creaking bulletin…

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BOUNTY BUILDER SERIES NEWS BULLETIN

Two more make it two: We’re up to five double champions in this renewal of the Bounty Builder Series after two Czech players — “boarrder” and “vojta555cz” — both picked up a second title on Friday and Saturday nights, respectively. boarrder won the very first event of the series, beating a field of 2,278 in a $22 PLO tournament for a $5,597 haul, then also won Event #173 on Friday night, which was worth $14,431, including bounties. This event was hold’em, with a $215 buy-in, and 379 players. On Saturday, vojta555cz outlasted a 355-entry field in a $530 buy-in hold’em event, winning $27,304.27. Earlier in the series, vojta555cz won a $215 buy-in hold’em event, which was worth $17,699.57 including bounties. Neither of these players’ real identities is commonly known, but with boarrder winning titles in two disciplines, and vojta555cz beating two high buy-in hold’em fields, these are clearly players with skill sets sufficient to suggest we may be finding out a bit more as the months and years go by.

Marques on the mark again: Pedro “pm_marke” Marques is putting together quite the resume in PokerStars tournaments, with a SCOOP title from 2018 as well as a Super Tuesday success in 2019, and a first Bounty Builder Series title the same year. It wasn’t just any Bounty Builder Series success either: Marques won the $5,200 High Roller a year ago for a $180,062 score. (Sandwiched between all that: fourth in EPT Barcelona 2018, worth $813,371.) Marques did it again on Sunday night when he won the $215 buy-in Event #202 for a combined total of $42,407.49, including $23,567.88 in bounties. There were more than 1,400 runners, so this was another excellent victory by the Netherlands-based Portuguese.

WCOOP crusher wins big in BBS: The UK-based player “deivid29” was one of 18 double champions during the recent WCOOP, and he or she has continued the fine form into Bounty Builder Series. deivid29 won the $1,050 Sunday Cooldown last night, earning $98,741.15, including nearly $60K in bounties, which is the second biggest prize of anyone during the series so far. deivid29 led a British 1-2-3 in the event, with former SCOOP champ “IDOLLS” in second and “chtrumfeinz” in third. Joep “Pappe_Ruk” Van der Bigaart and Sergio “zcedrick” Aido also made the final table. All the stars were out to play the Main Event and swelled this prize pool to $502,000 while they were at it, but none could beat deivid29.

The beauty of bounties Part I: The Brazilian player “daltonhb” managed to get down to the final two of the $530 Bounty Builder High Roller Special Edition having only accumulated $312.50 in bounties. It suggests he or she knocked out only one or two of the 396 others in the field. The biggest money is always available on that final knockout, however, but daltonhb couldn’t quite snaffle that one either. That’s because the UK-based “JaegsPL” was on a roll, picking up that final bounty among dozens of others, finishing with $19,848.59 in the bounty column. That’s 63 times as much in bounty payments as the player in second, and a clear illustration of where the big money really lies in these events. Added to the $15,586.59 from the main prize pool, JaegsPL won $35,435.18, the most of anyone in the series on Friday night.

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MORE ABOUT BOUNTY BUILDER SERIES:
SCHEDULE & RESULTS | BOUNTY MATHEMATICS | ALL BLOG REPORTS

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The beauty of bounties Part II: There was a similar story on Sunday, with the values increased a notch or two. Event #210 attracted 2,912 entries, each worth $215, and that put $582,400 in the prize pool. The last two players were “NationalPPP” of Malta and “DubbCitySauce” of the UK, the latter of whom had entered a maximum four times. Those re-entries suggested that DubbCitySauce was taking a more aggressive line than NationalPPP, and it was underscored by a glance in the bounty column: NationalPPP finished the tournament in second place and only had $1,150 in bounties, a total less than the player who finished in 100th place. DubbCitySauce, by comparison, had $28,077.22 in bounties, more than 24 times as much. Both players took $36K from the main prize pool (so this was still a very good tournament for NationalPPP) but DubbCitySauce took a total $64,211.01, the most of anyone on Sunday.

Don’t panic!: “PANIC.PLAYER” first came to our attention when he or she won the Sunday Million in June 2019, and it wasn’t just any old Sunday Million. It was the UFC KO version of he event, with 13,858 entries, and took close to 16 hours to complete. The same Greek player refused to panic in the Bounty Builder Series on Friday night, holding off challenges from former champ “Kohlrabi7”, who finished third, and Germany’s “PokeAce” (second) to close out the $215 Turbo. This latest victory, over a field of 720 entries, was worth $25,522.51, including close to $15K in bounties. It gives PANIC.PLAYER a Bounty Builder Series title to add to his victory in the Milly.

All the ‘Stans: The emergence of Kazakh players has been one of the distinctions of this Bounty Builder Series, with four titles so far going to players from the central Asian country. The most recent of these came on Saturday night and it represented the biggest so far: “Nooreek26“‘s victory in Event #189 earned him or her $31,885.68, including $12.7K in bounties. There was a huge field — 2,257 uniques plus 851 re-entries — and the buy-in was $109, which put $310,800 in the prize pool. Ten Kazakh players were in the field, but Nooreek26 stood out to claim what appears to be the first major victory of his or her career. On Sunday night, “Rustam308” became the first Bounty Builder Series victor from neighbouring Turkmenistan, winning a $2.20 buy-in hold’em event. Here’s to a booming poker scene around the Caspian Sea.

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MAIN EVENT UPDATE

The two Main Events got under way on Sunday afternoon, and both are enormous, comfortably meeting their guarantees. There were 32,183 entries to the $55 buy-in version, creating a prize pool of more than $1.6 million, while the $530 buy-in version attracted 5,581 entries. That puts $2.8 million in the prize pool and promises $169K to the winner — plus about the same again in bounties.

Bounty Builder Series $530 NLHE 8-Max Main Event
Dates: October 25-26, 2020
Entries: 5,581 (inc. 1,458 re-entries)
Prize pool: $2,790,500

First prize: $168,785.33 (plus bounties)
Players remaining: 385
Chip leader: occasionem (Russia)

Bounty Builder Series $55 NLHE 8-Max Main Event
Dates: October 25-26, 2020
Entries: 32,183 (inc. 11,256 re-entries)
Prize pool: $1,609,150

First prize: $68,424.28 (plus bounties)
Players remaining: 1,029
Chip leader: Dr.Mascia91 (United Kingdom)

These tournaments play to a winner tonight.

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STAT TRACKER

Some very significant milestones have been reached since our last update, with prize pools now having burst through the $30 million mark and first place prizes pushing up past $3.7 million. These stats do not take into account the two enormous Main Events, which are currently under way and conclude on Monday.

Tournaments completed: 200
Entries: 883,802
Prize pools: $30,852,692
First-place prizes (inc. bounties): $3,744,291
Tournaments ongoing: 2
Tournaments starting today: 14

NB: Stats include completed tournaments only

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LATEST RESULTS

(Scroll table left to right to see full results)

*denotes deal

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COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD

Unless Brazilian players turn in a remarkable final day, Russia will win the Bounty Builder Series Leader Board. Another seven titles over the past three days pulled the Russians further ahead and a five-title lead is almost unassailable at this stage. The total number of countries represented is now up to 42 with Georgia, Slovakia, Slovenia
and Turkmenistan winning their first events.

Latest standings:

31 — Russia
26 — Brazil
18 — UK
13 — Netherlands
10 — Germany, Canada
9 — Czech Republic, Romania
6 — Austria, Sweden
5 — Argentina, Lithuania, Poland
4 — Kazakhstan, Latvia
3 — Belarus, Greece
2 — Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Ukraine, Uruguay
1 — Bulgaria, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Georgia, Gibraltar, Ireland, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.

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COMING UP

Today was initially going to be fairly quiet, with all eyes focused solely on the closing stages of the Main Events. But after the technical issues earlier in the series wiped out 10 events, they have been rescheduled to play out today. So here’s today’s line-up:

10am: BBS-115: $1.10 NLHE [8-Max], $7.5K Gtd
10.15am: BBS-116: $11 NLHE [8-Max], $60K Gtd
10.30am: BBS-117: $109 NLHE [8-Max], $100K Gtd
11.30am: BBS-118: $55 NLHE [Heads-Up, Turbo, Zoom Total KO], $80K Gtd
1pm: BBS-119: $215 NLHE [8-Max], $225K Gtd
1.15pm: BBS-120: $22 NLHE [8-Max], $150K Gtd
1.30pm: BBS-121: $55 NLO8 [8-Max], $35K Gtd
2.15pm: BBS-122: $109 NLHE [Turbo], $175K Gtd
2.30pm: BBS-123: $11 NLHE [Turbo], $85K Gtd
3.15pm: BBS-124: $22 NLHE [6-Max, Turbo], $50K Gtd