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Vasilis Nikolas has captured the first live tournament title of his career, topping a field of 1,863 entries to win the King’s Million European Poker Championship Mystery Bounty at King’s Resort. The victory earned him the King’s Royal Scepter and a first-place prize of €123,850, plus a substantial bounty haul.
The event ran across eight starting flights for a €1,000 buy-in, producing a total prize pool of €1,583,550. Nikolas battled through three days of play to reach the summit, marking the highest buy-in tournament of his poker career. His first recorded live cash dates back to 2022, and this single result now surpasses his entire previous tournament earnings combined.
Day 2 introduced the Mystery Bounty format, where eliminating a player granted a spin for an unknown cash prize worth at least €300. French pro Axel Bayout landed the tournament’s top bounty of €150,000 mid-way through the day, then rode that momentum to a fourth-place finish worth an additional €89,280, making him the event’s biggest overall earner.
Leonidas Georgopoulos claimed the second-largest bounty of €75,000 but busted in 54th place for €1,970, unable to replicate Bayout’s deep run.
A €30,000 bounty remained unclaimed into the final table, adding extra intensity to the closing stages. After Andrea Marchi’s elimination in fifth, the final four agreed to an ICM deal before play resumed. Bayout fell next after a failed bluff was correctly read by Nikolas holding pocket kings, and Luca Beretta exited following a lost flip against Loris Greco.
Heads-up play ended quickly as Nikolas’s ace-king outran Greco’s pocket eights after an ace turned. Nikolas then capped his run by winning the final €30,000 bounty pull, pushing his total earnings beyond €150,000.
