George Tomescu Wins WPT World Championship Mystery Bounty At Wynn Las Vegas

The WPT World Championship Festival at Wynn Las Vegas is in full swing, featuring numerous completed and ongoing massive events. George Tomescu, hailing from Romania, emerged as the latest significant winner in the series. He outlasted a field of 3,421 entries in the $1,600 buy-in mystery bounty event, securing the top prize of $500,202.

This victory marked Tomescu’s most substantial live tournament payday to date, boosting his recorded scores to over $654,000. Alongside the prestigious title and the primary prize money, Tomescu earned 1,200 Card Player Player of the Year points. This accomplishment marked his second POY-qualified score of the year and positioned him within striking distance of the top 500 in the 2023 POY race standings presented by Global Poker.

The event’s strong turnout resulted in a final prize pool of $3,215,740, surpassing the $2 million guarantee for the tournament. The top 427 finishers cashed in on the main prize money purse, with an additional $1,710,500 distributed among the bounties. Notably, David Hipperson secured the largest bounty, a $250,000 payout.

The tournament featured four $100,000 bounties, with two-time bracelet winner Shannon Shorr among the recipients. Many prominent names made deep runs, including Shorr (95th), WPT champion Justin Young (83rd), two-time bracelet winner Eric Froehlich (69th), Xuan Liu (62nd), WPT Season XIX POY Jacob Ferro (59th), two-time WPT champion Tony Tran (47th), and four-time bracelet winner Calvin Anderson (35th).

In the final stretch, Tomescu faced challenges from bracelet winner Danny Fuhs (8th) and 2021 WPT Montreal Online champion Jack Hardcastle (3rd) before ultimately squaring off with Jiacong Zhang for the title. Zhang secured $324,347 as the runner-up when his two pair was bested by Tomescu’s turned flush.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table: