Marcelo Bonanata has won his first European Poker Tour title after taking victory in the first event of EPT Cyprus — the $10,200 Mystery Bounty.
Bonanata banked a winner’s prize of $99,300 with an extra $57,500 for the bounties he drew. In total the Uruguayan collected $156,800.
This popular victory is Bonanata’s first outside of Uruguay and also the first in at the EPT after more than a decade of trying.
The field size was only 75 entries, no doubt hampered by being the first event of the series, but the prize pool was still $352,500 with another $375,000 set aside for the bounties.
Action Recap
When the field reconvened for Day 2, only 26 players had chips left but 13 more entries soon arrived to take advantage of the lengthy late registration period.
Popular high-stakes reg Ren Lin was the chip leader as play recommenced but there was still a long way to go.
Patrick Leonard was one big name who fell quickly, along with Ognyan Dimov and Boris Kolev. Adrian Mateos and Aliaksei Boika followed them right after the break.
As the tournament approached the money bubble, it was Lin who was in trouble. A couple of key pots and not being able to make a hand saw the initial leader steadily lose his stack until Boanata finished him off to break the bubble.
As the final table stage kicked off it was Vladimir Korzinin now in charge with twice the chips of second place.
Russia’s Valeriy Fokin was the first to leave the stage and only minutes later his short-stacked compatriot was leaving, too.
Manuel Fritz then had his kings cracked by Tom Vogelsang of the Netherlands and Yulian Bogdanov fell victim to Bonanata who two-outed him to leave only five players left in.
By now, Santhosh Suvarna had dodged several bullets to stay in the hunt but his luck finally ran out when Vogelsang ‘s straight came in on the river.
But that wasn’t such a big win for the Dutchman who didn’t get enough from Survana to prevent him from exiting the event in fourth.
Korzinin had led the event from the first hand but it all went wrong when he tried to three-barrel bluff into Ponakov who had flopped trip tens.
The heads-up stage promised a lot as Bonanata only held a slim lead over Latvian Aleksejs Ponakovs.
Ponakovs ground out the first few hands well and soon held the lead himself before Bonanata started his fightback by forcing a fold from his rival followed by making a couple of strong hands.
The Uruguayan then seized victory after winning a flip with pocket deuces in the final hand.
$10,200 Mystery Bounty Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize | Bounties | Total |
| 1 | Marcelo Bonanata | Uruguay | $99,300 | $57,500 | $156,800 |
| 2 | Aleksejs Ponakovs | Latvia | $64,000 | $65,000 | $129,000 |
| 3 | Vladimir Korzinin | Estonia | $45,800 | $32,500 | $78,300 |
| 4 | Tom Vogelsang | Netherlands | $35,200 | $52,500 | $77,700 |
| 5 | Santhosh Suvarna | India | $27,100 | $7,500 | $34,600 |
| 6 | Yulian Bogdanov | Bulgaria | $21,500 | $75,000 | $96,500 |
| 7 | Manuel Fritz | Austria | $17,200 | $7,500 | $24,700 |
| 8 | Alexander Zubov | Russia | $13,800 | $17,500 | $31,300 |
| 9 | Valeriy Fokin | Russia | $11,000 | $0 | $11,000 |
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