Aaron Pinson has won the $2,200 Big Big Borgata Mystery Bounty after a heads-up deal with Matt Glantz, collecting $199,825 in total after pulling an extraordinary $150,000 in bounties.
The Maryland grinder entered the final day in the bottom third of the counts but surged through the field, landed multiple premium bounty pulls and then beat Glantz in a flip for the trophy. The result gave Pinson his first tournament victory at Borgata and one of the biggest scores of his career.
Pinson Turns One Bounty Draw Into the Biggest Prize
The tournament had two $50,000 mystery bounties and two $25,000 bounties in the mix, creating exactly the sort of high-variance chaos these formats are built around. Pinson made the most of it, collecting $150,000 from bounty pulls on top of his share of the regular prize pool.
After reaching heads-up play, Pinson and Glantz agreed to split the remaining tournament prize money evenly at $44,825 each. They then flipped for the trophy, with Pinson winning, before drawing the remaining bounties.
Glantz held six bounty tickets to Pinson’s one, so the maths appeared to favour Glantz for the final $25,000 bounty. Pinson pulled first and found it immediately, pushing his bounty total to $150,000 and his combined return from the event to $199,825.
Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Tournament Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Aaron Pinson | $44,825* |
| 2nd | Matt Glantz | $44,825* |
| 3rd | Michael Wang | $25,500 |
| 4th | Michael McNicholas | $17,225 |
| 5th | Dylan Lemery | $12,725 |
| 6th | Victor Ramdin | $10,325 |
| 7th | Paul Spitzberg | $8,525 |
| 8th | Pashk Gjini | $7,125 |
| 9th | Justin Arnwine | $5,950 |
*Heads-up deal. Mystery bounty prizes are not included in the tournament payout column.
A Final Day Where Almost Everything Went Right
Pinson’s rise began well before heads-up. He eliminated Bartley Dowling and immediately pulled one of the $50,000 bounties, giving his day a serious boost while a string of experienced players continued to fall around him.
Joe McKeehen, Justin Liberto, Kharlin Sued and others were among the players eliminated before the final table was settled. Pinson later knocked out Michael McNicholas after making a full house on the river, then sent Michael Wang out in third when pocket sevens improved against Wang’s pocket tens.
Wang reportedly told Pinson the bounty attached to his elimination would be the $50,000 prize, and the prediction proved correct. That pull helped set up the unusual heads-up finish where the trophy and remaining bounty slips became almost as important as the standard payout.
Borgata Series Keeps Producing Big Swings
The Mystery Bounty came during the same Big Big Borgata series that has already produced a comeback story for Andrew Chang, who turned five big blinds into a $182,000 win. Between a huge comeback and a player pulling $150,000 in bounties, the Atlantic City festival has delivered plenty of drama away from the usual Main Event script.
Pinson’s result also adds another notable East Coast score during a busy stretch of US live poker. Poker Type recently covered the Maryland Poker Championship smashing its guarantees, another sign that regional tournament poker remains capable of drawing strong fields when the pricing and structure are right.
A Mystery Bounty Result That Looks Almost Backwards
The strangest part of Pinson’s win is that the $44,825 tournament payout was only a fraction of his overall haul. His $150,000 in bounties dwarfed the first-place money, which is exactly why mystery bounty events can produce results that look wildly different from a conventional freezeout.
For Pinson, the format delivered almost the perfect final day: timely cards, major knockouts, two huge bounty pulls and the last premium ticket despite having only one draw against Glantz’s six. Poker is rarely that cooperative for long, but when the deck and the drum line up on the same day, the result can get very expensive for everyone else.
