2023 The Festival Bratislava Day 2

The action was booming on Day 2 of The Festival Series Bratislava at Banco Casino with two one-day events, two more events progressing, two Cash Game Challenge sessions, a super satellite that attracted 120 entries, and, of course, cash games running around the clock.

Harald Redl and Vincent Picard both earned customized sketchy framed photos of themselves as trophies by shipping the €250 Sviten Special and €125 Monday Texas Knockout respectively. Norwegian poker beast Jon Kyte snagged the chip lead in the €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES, while Stylianos Papantoniou bagged the Day 1b chip lead in the €250 Bratislava Deepstack.

There is even more action to start on Tuesday including the highly-anticipated €500,000 guaranteed €550 Main Event gracing its presence with Day 1a along with the entertaining €125 Roulette Tournament. Read on to learn more about what transpired on Day 2 and the schedule for Tuesday’s action.

Harald Redl Wins the Sviten Special

Harald Redl had the chip lead to start the final table of Event #5: €250 Sviten Special and eventually was the last player standing among the 78 entries that created €16,672 prize pool. Redl first agreed to a three-way deal with two experienced Sviten Special players in Matteo Crapanzano and Linus Elmes before taking down the event for €3,817.

There was plenty of talent to go around in this event with many familiar names finding their way to the cashier including Karl Sundin, Erik Risberg, Florian Fuchs, Ola Brandborn, Andre Sorm, John Clarkson, and William Lynch.

*Reflects three-way deal at final table

Vincent Picard Wins €125 Monday Texas Knockout

Vincent Picard won five €50 bounties including the final three in play after eliminating Indrek Eiche and Brian Klindrup back-to-back to win the Event #8: €125 Monday Texas Knockout for €1,688 from the prize pool. Check out all of the payouts from this event which attracted 114 entries for €6,498 in the prize pool and €5,700 in the bounty pool.

Other News on Monday

In other news, Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES attracted 20 more entries to bring the total up to 37 entries. So far, 15 players bagged chips for Tuesday’s Day 2 at 8 p.m. but before then we expect many more entries with Day 1c kicking off on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. Jon Kyte supplanted Bas de Laat as the overall chip leader but we could see a new one before the start of Day 2.

Event #3: €250 Bratislava Deepstack attracted 105 more entries on Day 1b to bring the total up to 152 entries with the final opening flight taking place on Tuesday at 12 p.m. with Day 2 kicking off on Wednesday. Stylianos Panatoniou bagged the most of the 18 players to find a bag to bring the total of 26 players thus far advancing to Day 1b. Panatoniou won’t advance with the overall chip lead as Aleksandar Kamendoliev found a handful of more chips in his bag on Day 1a.

The Franke’s Flip Flops kicked off on Monday as well with 23 different rake-free flips. The players earn tournament money every time they win a flip but also the player that wins the most flips during the week will be awarded a free package to the next The Festival Series in February. Estonia’s Keito Kaljulaid ran hot to say the least and won six of the flips to be three ahead of his nearest competitor in Estonian resident Joseph Jackson.

Meanwhile, Dzintar Lacis took the early lead after winning 215 big blinds on a designated Cash Game Challenge €2/€2 NLHE table that players can sign up for on the casino floor. The always-friendly Eva “Chic” Jiretorn won the second session with 165 in profit at a €2/€2 session. This means Lacis is in the lead for now, but this is far from safe with plenty of more action to come including two Cash Game Challenges in the same games broadcasted live on TheFestivalOG Twitch channel.

Today’s Schedule (Tuesday, Nov. 28)

The Cash Game Challenge is another fun feature of The Festival Series Bratislava. Every night at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. there will be select Cash Game Challenge sessions which players can sign up for on the casino floor across a variety of stakes and games. The player that wins the most big blinds during any Cash Game Challenge will be crowned the champion and win a free package to the next The Festival Series.

The action was live-streamed on TheFestivalOG Twitch channel when Latvia’s Dzintar Lacis booked the most profit during the first €2/€2 no-limit hold’em stream with 215 big blinds. The game switched to €2/€2 Omaha for the second session and fan-favorite Eva “Chic” Jiretorn headed away from the table with the most profit of 165 big blinds.

This means Lacis is in the lead going into today but congrats to both players. We won’t be shocked if Lacis’s lead on the leaderboard is short-lived as odds are we will have a new leaderboard captain on Tuesday with two more Cash Game Challenge sessions in the same games and formats.

Vincent Picard collected the final three €50 bounties including his own after eliminating Indrek Eiche and Brian Klindrup to win Event #8: €125 Monday Texas Knockout for €1,688 from the prize pool. Check out all the payouts below and well done to all of the late-night players that managed to head to the cashier before calling it a night.

Event #5: €250 Sviten Special witnessed 78 entries get into the mix to create a €16,672 prize pool. This fell one shy of the record of 79 entries coming out in full force during the last The Festival Series at Portomaso Casino when Totti Lind hoisted the trophy.

This time around, it was the well-deserving Harald Redl to take home the bacon after agreeing to a three-way deal with two formidable opponents in Matteo Crapanzano and Linus Elmes. Check out the full payouts from the event below and congrats to everyone who cashed.

*Reflects three-way deal at final table

Norwegian poker beast Jon Kyte seems to find success nearly everywhere he goes. He showed today that he knows many games as he battled his way among the 20 entrants on Day 1b of Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES after parlaying his 30,000 opening stack into 147,500 in chips to put him ahead of Day 1a chip leader Bas de Laat who managed to bag 136,000 despite previously being known as mostly a hold’em player.

Fellow Norwegian Marius Hogtun also ended Day 1b with more than 100,000 in chips with Frank Visser, Charlampos Chalkiotis, Sascha Manns, Sami Pullainen, Revo Kink, Arto Loikkanen, and 2023 WSOP Europe 8-Game bracelet winner Dainius Antanaitis all advancing with five-figure stacks.

Meanwhile, our hero Franke will need to try against tomorrow in Day 1c starting at noon for a chance to advance to Day 2 on Tuesday at 8 p.m.

The €250 Sviten Special still has six players remaining with Matteo Crapanzano, Linus Elmes, Florian Fuchs, Harald Redl, Erik Risberg, and Karl Sundin still in contention with the Monday Texas Knockout still ongoing as well. This seems like a good time to call it a night. Good luck if you are still playing and we will update the final results of the two ongoing events along with the winners of tonight’s live-streamed Cash Game Challenge sessions early on Tuesday.

Cyprus’s Stylianos Panatoniou bagged the most of the 18 survivors from the 105 entries that hopped into the Day 1b field of Event #3: €250 Bratislava Deepstack. This places him only behind Day 1a chip leader Aleksandar Kamendoliev who managed to bag 10,000 chips more for a total of 375,000.

So far, a total of 152 entries have hopped into the mix to add €32,490 to the prize pool with the final opening flight taking place tomorrow at 4 p.m. So far, 26 players have advanced with likely around the same coming tomorrow. Check out the full Day 1b chip counts below and photos from the event.

Monday’s session of Franke’s Flip Flops is in the books. After the freeroll flips for those with the hospitality package for tomorrow’s €125 Roulette Tournament, the floorman Adam Chalany was masterful behind the microphone announcing the winners and updating the leaderboard. He also encouraged on the microphone for Franke to join the action. Franke was busy battling it out in the €525 Mixed Main Event HORSES which was up to 18 entries on Day 1b and perhaps things would have ended differently.

Multiple players won two flips in Sturla Hiller and three flips for Joseph Jackson. Jackson actually won his first flip which was a freeroll thanks to winning a package that included the hospitality package.

Shortly after, Estonia’s Keito Kaljlaid found the flipping action and instantly got involved. He lost his first flip, but then immediately snagged the lead winning three flips in a row. He then lost his next one but had four tickets with more than €100 in tournament buy-ins each in front of him after winning his next flip.

Meanwhile, The Festival’s Karev Tralla got into the action for a few flips and wound up side-betting Coolbet’s Svein Olav Eidsaeter. The amount started at more than the €20 buy-in for the rake-free flip and went up from there. Tralla won two of those flips to tie Jackson and Hiller in second place on the leaderboard before Eidsaeter won a bit back on a bigger bet.

Tralla was still ahead in his flipping endeavor but more players came and Tralla graciously gave up his seat to Daniel Pilgrim.

Meanwhile, by the time the 20th and final flip was dealt, Kaljulaid already won six of them. This puts him three ahead of Jackson with Hiller, and Tralla in the lead for the Franke’s Flip Flops leaderboard. No lead is safe as any player can run hot. We will update more on Franke’s Flip Flops tomorrow when the flipping fun returns from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Franke’s Flip Flops Leaderboard Through Monday (23 Flips)

If you had fun watching Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund and Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon commentate the €2/€2 no-limit hold’em action, you should stay tuned as they will continue shortly with a €2/€2 pot-limit Omaha session as part of the Cash Game Challenge.

The player that wins the most big blinds out of any of the players in the Cash Game Challenge will be crowned the champion and win a package to the next The Festival Series in February.

Joseph Jackson won at least two €20 rake-free flips in the Franke Flip Flops competition. He used one of those tickets to enter the €125 Monday Knockout which just began. He was the first player on the rail after the 44 players in the field but headed off for a break and appeared intent on re-entering with one of the other tickets he won.

Hopefully, he will last at least a bit longer after he hops back in.

This will be the final side event of the evening. However, coming up soon will be the second Cash Game Challenge of the day with a €2/€2 PLO affair set to be broadcast on TheFestivalOG Twitch channel at around 11 p.m.

Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk lost his first bullet and was enjoying some tea with his friend Sami Pulliainen who was at the table when it transpired.

“It took three hands of hold’em,” Franke shared. “I had ace-king, ace-queen, and six-nine.”

“You would have won the last one,” Pulliainen added.

Franke had a huge laugh. “Hahahaha, of course!”

The duo continued their chat before they temporarily got onto the topic of the Franke’s Flip Flops. Franke began explaining the concept to Pulliainen before pulling off his flip flops.”

“You can win a framed pair of these,” Franke said.

But before he could get any laughs and further explain that a free The Festival Series package also goes to the player that wins the most flips throughout the week, in came the bandit in Coolbet’s Svein Olav Eidsaeter.

Eidsaeter stealthy ran from nowhere and grabbed Franke’s flip flops before running into the poker room.

Franke erupted in laughter before Eidsaeter came running back.

“How much for these back?” asked Eidsaeter.

Franke continued to laugh before Eidsaeter had a change in heart.

“Never mind, these smell,” Eidsaeter said with a mischievous grin.

Afterwards, Franke and Pullianen continued to talk before Pulliainen began to walk away.

“I hate you,” said Franke. “You just called me bad.”

“I didn’t say you were bad,” Pulliainen said after he came back. “I said it was bad what happened to you.”

Franke gave him a hug before Pulliainen got another laugh.

“But if you asked me, I would have said you played bad as well,” Pulliainen said with a smirk.

Meanwhile, Franke re-enter the HORSES and saw yesterday’s HORSES Day 1a chip leader Bas de Laat.

“I will join you on this bullet on Day 2,” Franke said confidently.

De Laat went on to buy-in into the €125 Texas Monday Knockout. We wish him and everyone else mentioned in the latest chapter of the ‘Franke Stories’ at The Festival Series Bratislava.

Players with the hospitality package are able to choose a VIP dinner during Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night by reserving their spot with The Festival Series hospitality host Anastasia.

The players enjoyed their first session at Mille Baci. Check out the photos below:

It comes as no surprise that Joseph Jackson is busy grinding the rake-free Franke’s Flip Flops as each festival he attempts to win the leaderboard with a framed pair of Franke’s flip flops and a package to The Festival Series’s next stop in February.

Jackson was visibly having fun and split a buy-ins with Coolbet’s Elisabeth Balazs after which he got €10 change.

Sturla Hiller turned to Jackson and it seemed Jackson knew what he was about to say.

“You know what that means,” Hiller said as he pushed €10 in chips forward.

“Sidebet!” Jackson proclaimed instantly after.

Two other players asked to be involved in the side bet as well. Jackson and Balazs both thought the rivered the best hand but it turned out they were both left disappointed on that round. Don’t feel too bad for Jackson as he already won a flip during one of the earlier rounds.

The Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk came back with the hospitality group from the VIP dinner only to find out that the last of his chips were blinded off in the €250 Sviten Special.

“HORSES!” shouted Franke as he said hi to a few people before signing up for another shot in the €550 Mixed Main Event.

Meanwhile, the rest of the hospitality group headed to where the fun Franke’s flip flops were about to begin. They were each given a few free flips for a chance to play tomorrow’s €125 Roulette Tournament for free. After that, more fun and games took place with €20 flips that involved at least five players at the table for tournament credit.

The flips, which run every day until Saturday from 9 p.m. until 11 p.m., are rake-free and also have one added benefit as the player that wins the most flips during the week will win a free package to the next The Festival Series. To some, this will be the biggest prize but you will also win a framed pair of Franke’s actual flip flops as well if you flip the best. Rolf Bechstrom won the package in Malta, but there are several determined players already at it including The Festival Series veteran Joseph Jackson and Sturla Hiller.

Have fun and may you run well if you opt for some flipping.

The Festival Series veteran Danius Antanaitis won a WSOP Europe gold bracelet recently in the 8-game and recently arrived to Banco Casino to hop into Day 1b of the €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES which is now up to 13 entries with Coolbet streamer Ylva Thorsrud and Norwegian poker pro Jon Kyte also joining the mix.

Antanaitis wants to play the final opening flight of the €250 Bratislava Deepstack as he enjoys two-card action as well despite being well-known as a mixed-game beast. We were curious to check out Antanaitis’s bracelet and as he is a friend from Lithuania where this author also lives, he was happy to bring it along for some photos and live the moment.

Antanaitis and Frank Visser were off to decent starts or at least above a starting stack. Kyte was short on chips after losing a three-way pot in Omaha h/l where all three players had a flush and Thorsrud stack was also below a starting stack.

Good luck to everyone to advance to tomorrow’s Day 2 in the €550 HORSES.

The Cash Game Challenge is another fun element of The Festival Series. The Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk was proud that he was the champion of this contest during the last The Festival Series at Portomaso Casino in Malta.

Franke is at dinner, although his stack seems to still be in play in the €250 Sviten Special. We are not shocked as Franke missed about two hours if not more earlier in this event for meetings. So, we know he will at least be sitting out the first session.

The challenge is easily explained. Every night throughout the week, The Festival Series will be hosting two cash game challenges at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. which players can sign up for on the casino floor. The games and stakes will vary from session to session but the player that manages to win the largest amount of big blinds during any single Cash Game Challenge session will win the challenge, a sketched winner’s portrait, and a package to the next The Festival Series stop in February with the location to be announced soon.

Stakes are small to start things off with a friendly €2/€2 no-limit hold’em affair. The Festival Series veterans Knut Gronli and Daniel Pilgrim both signed off on using their real names, while several others opted for nicknames including the duo from casinotogether in Marco Allstarz21 and Milan. Lars, Kiiver, Alex, and Saturn opted to not use their full names at least for the time being as well.

Best of luck to all of the first Cash Game Challenge players. Tonight’s action will be hosted on Twitch with Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund and Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon announcing the action. An action-packed €2/€2 pot-limit Omaha session will follow in a couple of hours. Check out the action at TheFestival OG Twitch channel.

A smaller field was expected on Day 1b of the €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES today as part of the allure of this event is the Sviten Special element which we will explain shortly. Meanwhile, even though the late registration window is permanently shut in the €250 Sviten Special event, many of the players in that event are interested in also playing in the HORSES.

That being said, it looks like there will be a good shot that Day 1b will be bigger than the 17 entrants attracted during yesterday’s Day 1a. Poker reporter and mixed-game enthusiast Frank Visser just got off a plane, hopped into the Sviten Special, and after that didn’t go well will take a shot with the HORSES. Meanwhile, Finland’s Sami Pulliainen hopped off a plane from Malta, chatted with his good friend Sascha Manns, who now has a decent stack in the Sviten Special Event, and got into action in the HORSES prepared with a glass of wine sitting next to him.

Phillip Huxley was looking forward to this event and jumped in as did Sandeep Nene, Teemu Hietala, Marius Hogtun, Revo Kink, The Festival Series Tallinn Main Event Champion Eirik Kristiansen, and Arto Loikkanen.

As we explained yesterday, the HORSES event is a first-time affair involving HORSE and limit Sviten Special. We explained the rules both to the HORSES on Day 1 of our coverage and the rules to Sviten Special earlier before the start of this stand-alone event which nearly broke a record for The Festival Series.

Best of luck to all of the HORSES players. Tomorrow is expected to be the biggest opening flight of them all with not too much mixed-game competition on the schedule. That being said, you don’t need to wait until the kickoff of that flight on Day 1c as late registration for Day 1b will be open for the first eight of the total of 10 blind levels to be played today.

The €250 Sviten Special registration has closed and the event fell one shy of a record with 78 entries in the mix. Some might blame our friend Totti Lind, but this author refuses to throw him under the bus. Meanwhile, Scott “PokerBrahs” Kenyon is throwing me under the bus. We will Instead blame Franke for being too busy to fire a million bullets.

All joking aside, Lind walked by a minute after late registration closed for the Sviten Special was taking place. We thought he was just slightly late taking his seat. He was intent on defending his title after winning the record-breaking Sviten Special in Malta but that wasn’t meant to be as he lost his stack just before the break and was too late coming back from the break to re-enter.

Kenyon was blaming this author as we had a nice chat at the beginning of the day.

“How can I blame Lind or Franke for not breaking the record?” said Kenyon. “I should instead blame you as I might have re-entered if you didn’t mention to me earlier today about potentially joining Wiseguy (Andreas Hoglund) for commentating this evening in the Cash Game Challenges.”

Well, maybe this author is to blame for another reason as he fired zero bullets and had permission to play an event provided there was some first-hand reporting.

Hundreds of players qualified to The Festival Series Bratislava and those that had the hospitality package included are invited to a world-class dinner at the Italian Mille Baci restaurant.

As there are tons of players, this will be on offer for hospitality package players on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. See Anastasia after you have made your choice of which day works best for you or if you wish to purchase a hospitality package on the side.

Everyone has their own idea as far as what their personal highlight of The Festival Series Bratislava will be. For many hold’em players, it will be an easy decision with the €500,000 guarantee waving its tongue in The Festival Series Bratislava €550 Main Event, which kicks off with Day 1a tomorrow at noon.

The €550 buy-in is well worth the price thanks to the hefty guarantee, but players have had multiple opportunities to get in cheaper. Leading up to The Festival Series Bratislava, nearly 20 partners offered qualifiers. Now, players will have another shot with the €60 Super Satellite gracing its presence with 10 seats guaranteed.

There were more than two dozens players in their seats when cards were in the air including Runar Borge, who lost his stack in the Sviten Special, Martin Klaar, Sandor Mate, and Matthew Deller. Best of luck to all of the Super Satellite players!

The €250 Sviten Special is up to 67 runners with still around an hour of late registration still available. The players are visibly having fun with the exception of Franke, who has disappeared from the table for a couple of hours. Rest assured, Franke is OK, but he will need to do this from time to time as he attempts to win the Player of the Festival and has meetings with players and partners alike throughout the week.

Peter La Terra was busy building a monsterous stack with his shirt half off, a beer in front of him, and getting a massage. Meanwhile, Eva “Chic” Jiretorn also was back in her element enjoying the banter at the tables, while Allan Arjut also was enjoying the atmosphere.

We ran into first-time The Festival Series player Wouter Schuurbiers and noticed he was still on a starting stack. We thought maybe he re-entered as it was precise but he is still on his first bullet hoping for Sviten Special glory.

“What is this table? Malta?” Schuurbiers questioned with a smile pointing to the table next to him.

Schuurbiers lived in Malta for a number of years before recently moving back to his home country of Belgium. Two others that called Malta their home before moving elsewhere in Germany’s Sascha Manns and Sweden’s Totti Lind were at the table as was Gozo, Malta resident and Sviten Special author Martin Smith. Smith was at around 121,000 from his 30,000 starting stack, while Lind was also above 100,000. As we earlier mentioned, Lind is attempting to make history by becoming the first two-time winner of this event after shipping the record-breaking Sviten Special event during the last The Festival Series at Portomaso Casino in Malta.

We won’t embarrass Manns about his stack but at least he is still on his first bullet of the event. This is better than Sviten Special enthusiasts Gia Carnestroem and Philippe Laval who were each on their second bullet along with the many players opting not to re-enter after hitting the rail with just 41 players in their seats (40 as Franke was still sitting out).

Meanwhile, Scott Kenyon, also known as PokerBrahs is continuing to stream this event on his Twitch channel to add even more excitement.

Best of luck to all of the Sviten Special players!

While we aren’t focusing on hand updates during until the final day of The Festival Series Bratislava, this is more fun-related than hand-related.

After a few drinks, Kellner has made several friends at his table on Day 1b of the €250 Bratislava Deepstack including the charismatic Elisabeth Balasz, who is also shown at The Festival Series that she is here for fun as much as the poker.

Balasz recently erupted in shock after Kellner made the prediction of the day.

Kellner jammed his stack on the turn in a pot against Marc McCauley. McCauley called before he turned over aces and was miles ahead of Kellner’s treys. Kellner needed a two outer to stay alive.

“I guess I need to call it,” Kellner said. “Here comes the three of hearts.”

Balasz could be heard a room away after Kellner called his shot and got there with the three of hearts spiking the river.

“Kelster Mania is alive!” Kellner said after the hand.

Although Kelster Mania was alive for a short period, it appeared to also suffer from some jetlag as about 15 minutes later he lost his stack. He shared that since he just arrived from Canada today, he was going to get some rest today before putting in a solid week of poker. Best of luck to Kellner and may Kelster Mania come alive again at The Festival Series Bratislava.

If you want to see some close-up action, check out Scott Kenyon playing live on no delay at his popular Twitch channel Pokerbrahs.

Unfortunately for Kenyon, he has been off to a rough start. While he hasn’t re-entered as others have, his stack was down to 17,,000 from a starting stack of 30,000 when we last checked in on him.

Best of luck to Kenyon. We will keep our eyes on him (or his cards) as the day goes on and wish him the best of luck in winning the title live on stream.

Day 1b of the €250 Bratislava Deepstack kicked off moments ago with 15 players in their seats. This number will grow with many players saying they will pop into this soon including Lithuanian poker beast Dainius Antanaitis. Antanaitis has been on quite a tear for more than a year with many victories live and online. This is mostly in mixed games including a recent WSOP Europe bracelet victory in an 8-game event but he holds his own in hold’em as well.

While it is a curious choice for Antanaitis with both the €250 Sviten Special and Day 1b of the €550 of the Mixed Main Event HORSES scheduled today but every day has mixed games and he needed to get some two-card action in as well.

Meanwhile, Martin Steen, Matthew Adams, Mikolaj Domanski, and Simon Wahlbrink are among the first players to take their seats.

Kelster Mania has also joined this event as Kelly Kellner, who is fresh off a plane from Canada, hopped into the event with a beer in his hand.

“Believe it or not, Jason, this is my first beer in three weeks,” Kellner shared.

We believe Kellner’s story even if he might bluff during today’s poker action, we don’t think he is bluffing this reporter.

Peter La Terra is well-known for his cash game and tournament prowess in Sviten Special. Back when the Cash Game Festival, which was founded by The Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk, La Terra took some time out to provide a tutorial for those that wanted to learn the game. Check out his video below:

We got to meet Martin Kanaker early on Sunday before the action began and right away we knew he would be up to something special. Kanaker has been playing poker for more than a dozen years and more recently is part of the Swedish Value Town community for the past few years.

Although Kanaker is originally from Sweden, he traveled to Bratislava with several of his friends from Malta which he currently calls home. This instantly created some fun and excitement in the €125 Crazy Pineapple, which he went on to win for €1,565 after agreeing to a three-way deal with Matthew Adams and Morten Lie. Let’s just say that there is a good reason that in our coverage we dubbed this event the “Crazier Pineapple.”

“It was fun last night,” said Kanaker. “I came to Bratislava with a bunch of friends in Malta and five of us were on the final table of the event.”

Three of these players were unable to make the money with Teemu Hietala, Adam Tomasson, and Dzintars Lacis heading to the rail one-by-one to start the final table. We will chat more about Tomasson soon, but the other player that came from Malta in Adams as we already mentioned was part of the three-way deal.

Meanwhile, there were multiple prop bets, the first of which didn’t lead to a great result. In fact, the opposite was the case.

“Anastasia and myself initiated a stand-up game similar to what you see in cash games,” said Kanaker. “It got a little confusing in the beginning with players moving tables and hitting the rail. People had to move to other tables due to balancing. However, the dust settled we tried the second time went off without a hitch because we were doing it across multiple tables. This didn’t work out for me as I was the last player to win a hand and was unable to sit down until I paid every player involved a €5 penalty. I escaped the third time but my friend Adam (Tomasson) was less fortunate.”

Although things started rough for Kanaker it was all fun and games and there were obviously much bigger things to come. In addition to winning the title, he felt pride in winning a separate prop bet against Tomasson.

“Adam suggested that we have a fun seven-deuce game,” said Kanaker. “I thought it sounded like fun and agreed. What was even more funny is that we were the only two players to participate in the tournament with the rest of the players already knowing what bet we had going on. That was fun because our three-bets or large bets on various streets had people thinking does he have seven-deuce or really have a hand.”

The bet was that the last player to table seven-deuce in a hand they won would be treated to a luxury dinner at a restaurant of the winner’s choice. Of course, the loser in this case Tomasson, will have to pay up.

“It was much better winning the prop bet against Adam,” said Kanaker with a little sarcasm. “Of course, I am happy to win the title to kick start The Festival in a good way but also now have bragging rights for the week with Adam while making sure he sees how much I enjoyed every bite of our meal later in the week.”

Today, Kanaker plans to hop into Day 1b of the €250 Bratislava Deepstack. We wish him the best of luck in his quest to win a second title.

When defending Sviten Special champion Totti Lind saw that he was in Seat 1 in the Sviten Special event before it began, he joked that he should unregister as this isn’t his favorite seat. Little did he know that his table was in the back corner and he was trapped and unable to get out of his chair without disruption being snug with space between Runar Borge and the dealer.

“This is worse than you thought,” this author said. “You are stuck in the corner.”

“Yeah, put the fat guy in the corner,” Lind said joking about himself.

“Who are you calling fat?” said Borge as a joke which got the entire table to chuckle.

Meanwhile, Sviten Special guru Peter La Terra just arrived and is about to get into the action. First, he was invited for a “tea” with Franke, who took a break from the action to chat with his close friend.

The first event of Monday kicked off in the €250 Sviten Special after some announcements by both the floor and The Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk.

If you aren’t familiar with the rules, you can easily learn the game if you are familiar with both five-card draw and pot-limit Omaha.

The action starts off simply enough with each player getting dealt five cards followed by a round of betting in pot-limit format. A flop is then dealt and another round of betting takes place.

So far so good? Well, here is where it starts to get trickier. Players can discard any amount of cards for new ones or opt to stand pat. If a player only takes one card, it is face-up for every player to see. The player can decide whether to keep that card or ask for a new one. If they take a new one, it is face down like it would have been if they took 2-5 cards.

A turn is dealt followed by a another round of betting with the final round of betting taking place after the river. The player with the best five-card draw hand at showdown wins half the pot while the player with the best Omaha hand wins the other half.

The event provides plenty of action with a 30-minute clock and a 300 big blind starting stack of 30,000 in chips. Players can re-enter as many times as they would like during the first eight blind levels.

The event began with 24 entries and Franke appears convinced based on his announcement that a new record will be broken to shatter the 79 entries attracted in this event at The Festival Series Malta. Time will tell whether this will happen or not, but expect a big crowd.

Sviten Special author Martin Smith, Totti Lind, Frank Visser, Fuad Gotovusa, and Franke are among the early entrants, while Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon will be streaming his action on his Twitch channel for everyone to watch and learn.

Get ready for some fun and excitement on Monday at The Festival Series Bratislava at Banco Casino. The €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES and the €250 Bratislava Deepstack both continue with Day 1b, while two players will go home champions today with the one-day €250 Sviten Special and €125 Texas Monday Knockout also on the schedule.

In addition, the live stream at TheFestivalOG Twitch channel begins today with Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund hosting the action for the two Cash Game Challenge streams. The Cash Game Challenge will run all week long and the player that wins the most big blinds during any of the sessions will be crowned the Cash Game Challenge champion and be awarded a package valued at €1,600 to the first The Festival Series stop of 2024.

Check out the full schedule for Monday, Nov. 27 below, and best of luck to all of the players.