France's Mathieu Di Meglio Dominates Way to €3,000 EPT Mystery Bounty Victory (€243,186)
France's Mathieu Di Meglio has won the €3,000 EPT Mystery Bounty at PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague for €243,186 after defeating heads-up opponent Vlada Stojanovic of Serbia in what proved to be a back-and-forth heads-up battle.
Di Meglio is primarily an online player and had $44,046 in Hendon Mob-reported live earnings headed into the event. Speaking through a translator, he told PokerNews he was "very satisfied after many years of failing and sometimes almost getting there and sometimes not."
"(I'm) very happy," the Frenchman said.
Like other tournaments at this stop, the Mystery Bounty event attracted a sizable field of 776 runners for a prize pool of €1,331,616 that didn't include the bounty prize pool featuring two €100,000 bounties. Only 18 players returned on Day 3 and nine made the final table including fellow France and Croatia natives Gregoire Auzoux (8th - €29,240) and Nenad Dukic (5th - €64,240) and Germany's Niko Koop (3rd - €108,570)
€3,000 EPT Mystery Bounty Final Table Results
| PLACE | PLAYER | COUNTRY | PRIZE (IN EURO) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mathieu Di Meglio | France | €243,186 | |
| 2 | Vlada Stojanovic | Croatia | €151,990 | |
| 3 | Niko Koop | Germany | €108,570 | |
| 4 | Daan Mulders | Netherlands | €83,510 | |
| 5 | Nenad Dukic | Croatia | €64,240 | |
| 6 | Nils Pudel | Austria | €49,420 | |
| 7 | Mats Ullereng | Norway | €38,020 | |
| 8 | Gregoire Auzoux | France | €29,240 | |
| 9 | Iliodoros Kamatakis | Greece | €22,490 |
Bounty Action
There weren't many bounty sweats at Friday's final table as most of the biggest envelopes had already been claimed. On Day 2, Orpen Kisacikoglu and Poland's Pawel Krol pulled the two €100,000 mystery bounties, while Toni Kaukua was lucky enough to pull a €50,000 envelope.
The Day 3 field of 18 dwindled down quickly as players including Finnish poker legend Juha Helppi (18th - €9,490) and Turkey's Yigit Aksoy (14th - €12,560) were eliminated. Krol went out on the final table bubble when his king-jack couldn't pull ahead of the pocket sixes of Koop.
Sixes would soon after doom France's Gregoire Auzoux as he four-bet jammed with the starting hand only to run into the queens of the eventual champion to fall in eighth place. Di Meglio began the day as chip leader and only ran his stack up from there as other players dropped, including Nils Pudel, who shoved a short stack with queen-eight only to be called and pipped by the queen-nine of Stojanovic.
The Croatian went on to eliminate Nenad Dukic in fifth place and Koop in third place when Koop's ace-three was dominated by the runner-up's ace-jack.
Heads-up play went on for several levels as the two players exchanged chip leads and played dozens of single-raised and limped pots. Stojanovic took a big lead in a flush-over-flush hand before another hand where his two pair was counterfeited to lose heaps to Di Meglio.
As the number of big blinds in play shrunk, Di Meglio extended his lead and Stojanovic eventually shoved a short stack with queen-five only to run into the Cowboys of Di Meglio. A queen on the flop gave Stojanovic hope but an inconsequential runout confirmed his runner-up finish.
That wraps up the PokerNews live reporting team's coverage of the exciting €3,000 EPT Mystery Bounty. Be sure to check of the team's coverage of other events throughout EPT Prague.
