Maria Konnikova Bags Top Stack in Final Flight of NAPT Mystery Bounty as 179 Players Make Day 2
The final and largest starting flight of $550 Mystery Bounty at the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) festival at Resorts World Las Vegas saw 63 players advancing and Rhett Van Leeuwen leading the way over big stacks Chang Lin, David Dongwoo Ko and PokerStars Ambassador and recent Life Outside Poker guest Maria Konnikova.
The night ended after simultaneous knockouts that saw Leonidas Georgopoulos and another player missing out on paydays.
The Day 1e survivors will join the 116 players who bagged the previous four starting flights on Nov. 4 at noon local time for Day 2, which will play down to a winner and award the first NAPT title of the series. Bountys will be introduced on Day 2 with prizes up to $25,000 up for grabs.
Day 1e Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Name | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rhett Van Leeuwen | United States | 701,000 | 140 |
| 2 | Maria Konnikova | United States | 505,000 | 101 |
| 3 | Chang Lin | United States | 426,000 | 85 |
| 4 | David Dongwoo Ko | Canada | 423,000 | 85 |
| 5 | Alexandro Tricarico | Belgium | 415,000 | 83 |
| 6 | Nicholas Whitehead | United States | 387,000 | 77 |
| 7 | Ronnie Lamb | United States | 385,000 | 77 |
| 8 | Michael McKuin | United States | 361,000 | 72 |
| 9 | Daniel Samson | United Kingdom | 330,000 | 66 |
| 10 | Wasim Assaf | United States | 319,000 | 64 |
Final Flight Action
The event drew a total of 1,201 players to nearly double the $300,000 prize pool with a total of $576,480. That's split into $300,250 in the bounty prize pool and $276,230 in the regular prize pool. Prize pool and bounty specifics will be made available on Day 2.
Day 1e was the biggest starting flight by more than a hundred players and occupied nearly the entire Resorts World Poker Room, save for a few cash game tables and the Cardplayer Lifestyle Mixed Game Festival IX in the back corner where Robbie Strazynski celebrated his birthday with a cake that he kindly shared with tournament players and media. Happy Birthday, Robbie!
The big hands continued on Sunday with content creator Nikki Limo getting kings cracked at a table that included Konnikova, as well as Gary Melnick making "the craziest call I ever made" by calling 27-big-blind shove by Irene Carey with queen-nine offsuit. He was dominated as Carey held ace-queen but managed to outflop Carey by spiking a nine.
Some other departures on Day 1e included Qing Liu, Tyler Patterson, Utah's second-all-time-money-leader Frank Stepuchin and PokerStars Ambassadors Rory Jennings and Marle Spragg. While Spragg didn't survive the flight, the content creator's father, Gary Cordeiro, advanced to Day 2.
Action will pick back up with 19 minutes left in Level 16 with blinds of 2,000/5,000/5,000.
Stay tuned as the PokerNews live reporting team will be back on-site at Resorts World Las Vegas tomorrow for continued coverage of the NAPT Las Vegas kickoff.