Mark Mazza is pretty good at bounty tournaments. Just a few months after an eighth-place finish in last summer’s World Series of Poker $1,500 no-limit hold’em bounty event, he tops a stacked final table to win the $1,100 no-limit hold’em Thursday Thrilla event at Run It Up Reno.

Mazza earned one of the most prestigious titles of the series after besting the 183-entry field, earning $24,100.

“It feels really good to win the bounty event because I final tabled the World Series of Poker bounty event. I got eighth place, so I wanted to close this one out really bad.”

Closing out this final table was no easy feat. The final table, which concluded the 15-hour live stream, was filled with talent. Team RIU pro Matt Staples, high-stakes poker pro Jon Turner, recent RIU champion and member of ‘The Young Wizards’ Brian Sherrier, and Stephen Song were all at the final table battling it out.

It was one of the tougher final tables in recent RIU history and the action didn’t disappoint the thousands of viewers that followed the action on RunItUp.tv. The talent and the livestream made the experience even more special for the Los Angeles native.

“There were lots of good players,” he said. “There were the wizards and a lot of good players. It was fun to be on the live stream. It was just a great experience.”

Mazza has been making the trip up to Reno for two years now and has made a lot of poker friends along the way. When the final card was dealt, and he defeated David To heads-up, the rail erupted and his winner’s photo was filled people that cheered him on late into the night and into the early hours of Friday morning.

“I’ve been coming out here for two years now and with all my friends watching. Yeah, it was great.”

The chips were flying throughout the final table. Staples, who finished fifth in the event, came into the final table with the chip lead, but didn’t hold onto it for long. When it was down to three-handed play, Brandon Carl held a significant advantage over To and Mazza.

To won multiple pots off Car to take the chip lead away from Carl before Mazza decided to go on his rush to the top.

“I won a couple flips,” said Mazza. “Brandon and David were battling it out while I was short and yeah, I just got lucky a few times. I won a lot of the all ins.”

Mazza doubled through To after making a good call with queen-nine for his entire stack preflop. Then, he knocked out Carl in third and took a chip lead into heads-up play against To. Heads-up didn’t last long before Mazza’s king-queen topped To’s ace-four for all the marbles.

Along with the first-place money, the trophy and the seat in the freeroll, Mazza earned a lot more from his knockouts. For every elimination, he received a $500 bounty. In the end, he made an extra $5,250 in bounties.

“Lets count. There’s a bunch,” said Mazza reaching into his pocket to count his bounty chips. “10 and a half. That’s pretty good.”

Results:

1st: Mark Mazza – $24,100
2nd: David To – $16,200 + Platinum Pass freeroll seat (RIU gear last longer winner)
3rd: Brandon Carl – $11,020
4th: Stephen Song – $7,530
5th: Matt Staples – $5,150
6th: Brian Sherrier – $3,590
7th: Jon Turner – $2,260
8th: Jeff Crawford – $2,000
9th: Kent Jorgensen – $1,530
10th: Justin Chan – $1,530
11th: Vincent Moscati – $1,320
12th: Anders Damhaug – $1320
13th: Adam Klein – $1,170
14th: Derek Gomez – $1,170
15th: Max Brown – $1,040
16th: Nathanel Normad – $1,040
17th: Jagadeesh Vallabhanen – $920
18th: Justin Silveira – $920
19th: Patrick Tardif – $920
20th: Ty Kohler – $920