It took only two hours on Day 3 of Event #39: $215 Mystery Bounty Main Event at the 2024 PokerNews Online Championship hosted by 888poker for Romania’s Razvan “RazvyB” Belea to top the eight-handed final table and claim the title of champion. He beat out a field of 1,627 runners to scoop a total of $27,654 from the overall $325,400 prize pool with $25,626 of that coming from his first place finish.
Brazilian “betsoares” was forced to settle for second place after failing to overcome a heads-up chip deficit while “dainuciuks” of Lithuania managed to secure a podium finish in third. That is especially impressive given they won their way into the tournament via a freeroll and were able to parlay that into a $16,980 payday.
You may recall that Belea has previously taken down some prestigious live events. In August 2021, Belea won the 888poker LIVE Bucharest Main Event for €50,000, and followed that up with victory in the 2023 European Poker Tour (EPT) Paris Main Event for €1,170,000. Belea’s name is now written into online poker’s history books as the inaugural champion of the PokerNews Online Championship Mystery Bounty Main Event.
Event #39: $215 Mystery Bounty Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (Including bounties) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Razvan “RazvyB” Belea | Romania | $27,654 | |
| 2 | “betsoares” | Brazil | $19,367 | |
| 3 | “dainuciuks” | Lithuania | $16,980 | |
| 4 | “bucurestean” | Romania | $26,105 | |
| 5 | “AKGambit” | Germany | $8,423 | |
| 6 | “scheeescheee” | Mexico | $19,500 | |
| 7 | “aziz.Mancha” | Brazil | $5,515 | |
| 8 | “EstorilBlue” | Lithuania | $3,809 |
Mystery Bounty Portion
Although the regular prize pool had big sums of money up for grabs, the largest single payout in the tournament stemmed from the mystery bounty portion, where the top bounty stood at $30,000. The individual fortunate enough to reel in that score was Brazil’s “Dangerzinn” before ultimately falling in 16th place for a $31,193 combined score.
Final Table Action
There was no runaway chip leader coming into the final table, nor was there an obvious short stack. Nevertheless, the quick blind structure quickly shook things up and it did not take long for “EstorilBlue” to become the first casualty of the day after they lost a flip against “AKGambit”, sending them out in eighth place. Soon after, “aziz.Mancha” fell in seventh place and was followed shortly by start of day big stack “scheeescheee” in sixth place when they could not connect with a suited jack-ten.
Despite rallying from a short stack early at the final table, “AKGambit” could not add to their initial momentum, losing a number of pots before committing their last chips drawing nearly dead against the jacks of “dainuciuks” to hit the rail in fifth place.
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Belea flew under the radar for much of the first hour before catching an opportune hot streak that began with a flopped set of sixes to send “bucurestean” to the showers in fourth place. He continued to dominate three-handed play, but in the end, it was “betsoares” who dealt the final blow to “dainuciuks” by winning a flip to bring their opponent’s cinderella story to a premature end in 3rd place and set the stage for a heads-up showdown.
Belea began heads-up play with a slight advantage, and although there were several momentum shifts, in the end, he prevailed, first whittling “betsoares” down to a short stack before finishing them off holding a dominating nine-eight suited. “betsoares” was forced to settle for consolation honors while Belea claimed the victory in Event #39: $215 Mystery Bounty Main Event at the 2024 PokerNews Online Championship hosted by 888poker.
Full PokerNews Online Championship Results
Expand the table below to discover which 888poker players excelled during the inaugural PokerNews Online Championship. The series paid out $1,190,234 across its events, a superb result for everyone involved.
*includes bounty payments