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Michael Jagroo Leads Card Player Poker Tour bestbet Jacksonville Mystery Bounty Final Table

Nine Players Remain With A Shot At The Title and Top Prize of $74,010

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The final table is set in the 2023 Card Player Poker Tour bestbet Jacksonville $1,700 no-limit hold’em mystery bounty main event. With 357 entries, the event blew away the $300,000 guarantee to create a final prize pool of $537,285. Now, after three starting flights and an action-packed day 2, there are just nine competitors remaining with a shot at the title and the top prize of $74,010.

The chip leader is Michael Jagroo with 2,545,000. The Sunny Isles Beach, Florida resident (pictured above) enters this final table with more than $712,000 in prior tournament earnings. His largest score yet came last year when he took down the Spring Mayhem Poker Festival at The Lodge Poker Club in Texas, earning $251,982 for the win.

In addition to holding the lead heading into the final table, Jagroo also pulled one of the largest mystery bounties on offer for day 2 players. There was $178,500 was set aside for the bounties in this event, with the 47 payouts ranging from $500 to $50,000. Jagroo drew one of four $10,000 bounties during day 2 action.

While the lone $25,000 bounty is still up for grabs, the top bounty payout of $50,000 was indeed awarded on day 2. Local player Wendy Lu, who finished as the runner-up in the $400 buy-in kickoff event of this CPPT bestbet Jacksonville series for $38,577, was the lucky winner. Check out her reaction below:

A full accounting of the mystery bounties (both paid out and yet to be awarded) can be found at the bottom of this story.

The second-largest chip stack going into the final table belongs to Heng Zhang. He knocked out Rodney Turvin (12th – $5,914) in a flurry of action down the stretch of day 2 to help build his stack to 1,530,000. Zhang finished third in the 2015 CPPT bestbet Jacksonville main event for $69,252.

Heng ZhangHot on Zhang’s heels is Paul Chung with 1,500,000, who scored the penultimate knockout on day 2, eliminating Hans Brown with a flopped ace-high straight.

Jamison Alford ended the day with 710,000. While this essentially puts him in a tie for the second-shortes stack among the final nine, his performance on day 2 was definitely noteworthy. Alford entered the day with just 39,000 in chips or 13 big blinds. He was the shortest stack of any of the 47 players that had advanced to day 2 from the three starting flights. He won some crucial early all-ins and then navigated his way to the final table, and is now guaranteed at least $7,401 from the main prize pool for making it this far.

Thad McNulty, who finished fourth in the 2019 CPPT bestbet Jacksonville main event, is the short stack with 575,000. He still has 23 big blinds to work with when the action resumes, though.

Plenty of notables were among the 38 to hit the rail on day 2, including HPT FLorida champion Jermaine Gerlin (45th), ladies event winner Kim Sukyung (39th), 2017 CPPT bestbet Jacksonville main event champion Jared Reinstein (28th), ladies event runner-up Mary Darnell (26th), 2021 CPPT bestbet Jacksonville main event champion Ben Scrogins (23rd), 2013 CPPT bestbet Jacksonville main event seventh-place finisher Eddy Mroczkowski (20th), 2022 WSOP $3,000 no-limit hold’em event runner-up Toby Boas (18th), WSOP Circuit ring winner Jason May (17th), kickoff event runner-up Wendy Lu (14th), and 2018 CPPT bestbet Jacksonville main event fifth-place finisher Brian Arbaugh (13th).

Here is a look at the chip counts and seating assignments heading into the final table:

Seat 1: Chris Long – 700,000 (28 bb)
Seat 2: Michael Jagroo – 2,545,000 (102 bb)
Seat 3: Alan Franco – 1,010,000 (40 bb)
Seat 4: Heng Zhang – 1,530,000 (61 bb)
Seat 5: Paul Chung – 1,500,000 (60 bb)
Seat 6: Thad McNulty – 575,000 (23 bb)
Seat 7: Alex Kimpel – 1,165,000 (47 bb)
Seat 8: Tyler Chen – 1,010,000 (40 bb)
Seat 9: Jamison Alford – 710,000 (28 bb)

Play will resume at 2:00 p.m. on Monday with 5:53 remaining in level 22, with blinds of 15,000-25,000 and a big blind ante of 25,000. The action will be streamed on bestbetLIVE.

Here’s a look at the bounties paid out on Day 2:

$50,000 – Wendy Lu
$10,000 – Heng Zhang
$10,000 – Alex Kimpel
$10,000 – Michael Jagroo
$10,000 – Alan Franco
$5,000 – Alex Kimpel
$2,000 – Mary Darnell
$2,000 – Ben Scrogins
$2,000 – Wendy Lu
$2,000 – Jeffrey Davoud
$2,000 – Tyler Chen
$2,000 – Paul Chung (x2)
$2,000 – Heng Zhang
$2,000 – Alex Kimpel
$1,000 – Dale Young
$1,000 – Hassan Tahsildar (x2)
$1,000 – Jeffrey Davoud (x2)
$1,000 – Michael Jagroo
$1,000 – Toby Boas
$1,000 – Tyler Chen
$1,000 – Paul Chung
$1,000 – Michael Jagroo
$500 – Jeremy Swilling
$500 – Jack Boswell
$500 – Alex Kimpel
$500 – David Nodes
$500 – Paul Chung (x2)
$500 – Jamison Alford
$500 – Herb Gartner
$500 – Daniel Anderson
$500 – Toby Boas
$500 – Thad McNulty
$500 – Hassan Tahsildar
$500 – Heng Zhang

The remaining nine bounties in play are:

$25,000
$5,000 (x4)
$2,000
$1,000
$500 (x2)