Player, coach and PokerOrg Advisory Board member Faraz Jaka became $500K richer in the blink of an eye when he pulled the top bounty in ACR Poker’s recent $2,650 Venom Mystery Bounty tournament last week.
Mystery Bounty tournaments award prizes for eliminating opponents, usually starting when the tourney is in the money or on Day 2. The prizes awarded vary from a minimum ($5K, in the case of the Venom) to a maximum, with many lower-value prizes available but usually only one top prize.
It was this top prize - of half a million dollars - that Jaka claimed last week, and he shares the details of his experience with us in the video above, including his plans for how to spend the money. Click the banner to watch now.
‘I’ve never actually made Day 2 of a Mystery Bounty’
“I was playing day two of the Venom $2,650 buy-in $8M guarantee,” he explains, “I've actually never made day two of a mystery bounty. I've only played, maybe, two, this might have been my third one ever. So it was my first time actually pulling bounties.”
Ever the poker coach, Jaka was recording his play to share his thoughts and analysis with his Jaka Coaching students.
“I was in the middle of recording a training video on playing day two of mystery bounties. I was recording my screen, sharing my analysis and how do I optimize the chance of getting bounties? And how do I value the bounties?”
Jaka - known on ACR Poker as 'The-Toilet 0' - shared a screenshot just prior to his mega bounty pull. Students can now not only see Jaka’s thought process for themselves, but watch exactly what happens when you pull the biggest mystery bounty prize.
“I've had big scores in tournaments,”Jaka told PokerOrg, “up to $950K online. And it's very different because you're grinding a long tournament, multiple days. You're at the final table; you’re heads up; it all happens kind of gradually. But this was day two, there were still 140 players left… it really just came out of nowhere, there's no build up and it just happens all of a sudden. I've definitely never had anything like that happen to me before.”
Jaka shares more insights in this week’s edition of his free poker strategy newsletter, which focuses on - you guessed it - mystery bounty tourneys.
WSOP bracelet-winner Jaka is also a renowned poker coach.
Both Venom tournaments beat their guarantees
ACR Poker’s Venom poker tournaments came in two ‘flavors’ this summer, with a Texas Hold’em Mystery Bounty tourney running alongside a Pot-Limit Omaha version - ACR Poker’s biggest PLO tournament ever.
Both tournaments exceeded their ambitious guarantees, with the $8M GTD Mystery Bounty attracting 3,234 entries and building a prize pool of $8,085,000.
Here’s how the top 9 finished up in the $2,650 Venom Mystery Bounty:
- Chickenpastry - $572,333 (+ $45K in bounties)
- Im_so_shOrt - $413,021 (+ $30K in bounties)
- JohnNoArms - $298,083 (+ $80K in bounties)
- BARRELSWEET - $215,214 (+ $30K in bounties)
- RainerMitAl - $155,465 (+ $50K in bounties)
- str8tothebank - $112,388 (+ $35K in bounties)
- FatsoFat6969 - $81,329 (+ $40K in bounties)
- AlwaysWithNuts - $58,935 (+ $25K in bounties)
- IRBLTG - $42,788 (+ $70K in bounties)
The winner, ‘Chickenpastry’, is known offline as Brazilian pro Ivan Limeira.
"I’m so grateful and relieved that all the hard work actually paid off," said Limeira following his big win, "I always dreamt of winning big prizes and actually realizing this dream felt so good."
After Jaka's top bounty pull, the next two biggest bounties were won by 'provideordie', who pulled a bounty worth $158,750, and '!Alexyo' who drew a $153,750 prize.
The $2,650 PLO event had a guarantee of $2M, which was also surpassed as 914 entries created a final prize pool of $2,332,500. The final table of 7 ended up like this:
- Omahafyrarolls - $471,378
- jujubro - $342,217
- i_take_sheets - $248,446
- Xazel303 - $167,063
- BalaGarba14 - $112,338
- Edsheeran - $75,538
- Suitedeexter - $50,793
You can watch the final table of the $8M GTD Mystery Bounty tournament now at ACR Poker’s Twitch channel, with commentary from Justin Kelly and Michael Loncar.
