There are so many great tournaments at the World Series of Poker, but some generate more interest from others. Event #5: Mystery Millions No-Limit Hold’Em is one of those events, and Day 2 kicked off this week.
There is a $1 million prize on the line for winning this tournament, but that’s not the only way to be a millionaire. There were two $1 million prizes available to those that pulled a bounty, and that’s the easiest way to cash in at the WSOP.
More than 18,000 players signed up to compete in this event, and there were four different starting flights. That field was quickly cut down to less than 1,000 players, and that is when players started to take their chances at pulling the $1 million.
A total of 949 bounties are available, but more than 80% of them were worth $1,000. Those are not the bounties that players wanted to get as two envelopes had a $1 million prize inside of them.
For those that are not fortunate enough to pull the $1 million prize, there are also cards with $500,000, $250,000, and three $100,000 prizes. All of this action takes place at the Paris Las Vegas, and actually happens while the big tournament is going on .
Both Big Bounties Claimed
Valentyn Shabelnyk was the first to pull a $1 million bounty, and it actually happened pretty early in the day. The first 12 pulls were all worth $25,000 until Shabelnyk stepped up and had the biggest, and easiest, win of his life.
Shabelnyk is from Ukraine, and he didn’t have time to celebrate his big win as he was still in the big tournament. He now becomes the first millionaire at the 2024 WSOP, and all he had to do was pull a simple bounty card.
It wasn’t long after the first $1 million bounty was pulled that DJ Buckley was able to cash in with $1 million as well. Buckley is a poker pro from Minnesota, and he has cashed more than 40 different times throughout his WSOP career.
While trying to pull the $1 million is the ultimate goal, players are also trying to win the bracelet by taking home the tournament title. Players that bowed out of the tournament were still able to pull a bounty card if they had one racked up.
Other Big Winners
There are some years where the biggest prizes tend to last a long time, but the wasn’t the case this year. While the $500,000 prize was still available late into the night, other big prizes were chosen early on in the day.
Adam Hendrix is a well-known name at the WSOP, and he actually pulled two bounties that combined for $125,000. Craig Varnell was another big winner at this event as he pulled two bounties that added up to $75,000.
Since there are so many tournaments in at the WSOP, poker players that won a bounty could use that money to enter other events.
