2024 The Festival Malta Day 5

Blogging at live poker events a very enjoyable, but it’s also very exhausting as the days start as soon as you wake up and they don’t even end after you go to your bed. Your mind is still racing about everything that you’ve written that day and beginning to consider what you might have to write when you wake up in the morning.

You try to keep going for as long as you can, but when you start to forget your own name, it’s time to go home…if you can remember where that is. I’m almost at the point of the evening when it’s time for me to head out of the door and try and re-discover my true identity once again.

But before I go often search of answers that I don’t even know the questions to, here’s a round up what’s still going on here in the poker rooms at Portomaso Casino, Saint Julian’s.

High Rollers Rolling

The €1100 buying highroller is now down to 18 players spread across three tables because it’s an eight max event. They’re playing for first prize of 18,500 and still in is Scotland Lewis Aikman, who finished second in The Hendon Mob Championship yesterday. Also Still hanging on in there is Rozvadov Main Event winner Presiyan Tsvetanov,  however he’s now short-stacked.

Pace Slowing in the H.O.R.S.E

The H.O.R.S.E final table is now down to the last four players. The remaining foursome are Frank Visser, Timothee Marlin, William Lynch, and Antoine Degiorgio. It’s been a very good natured tournament, however the table chat has died by down in the last half hour, as things are beginning to get serious. They’re playing for a first prize of €3680 and have locked up a minimum of €980 each at this point.

Omaha Players Pot Limiting 

The third tournament still playing on the upper floor is the pot limit Omaha 4/5/6 card tournament which mustered a field of 69 players. There are currently 23 players left fighting out for the first prize of €4,950. Many festival series regulars are still in the tournament including Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon, but he’s not live streaming this one. Andre Sorm, who won the first of the Franke‘s Flip Flops competitions is still playing, as is Sviten Special champion Barrie Dear, who jumped straight in after bubbling the H.O.R.S.E. Players are still in include Bulgarian Lachezar Tsenov and Finnish player Sami Pulliainen.

Thursday Madness

The Thursday madness tournament is still running on the ground for and The Festival’s. Karev Tralla it’s still in with 37 players left from the 81 who started. Will Karev make it three final tables in three days or has his good run come to an end? 

Will be back on Friday for the sixth day of the festival and will provide the answer to this question and many more. That’s all folks, sleep well!

High Roller Returns Dinner Break

The NLH High Roller players have now returned dinner break and delete registration has closed. There were 61 entries and there are 32 who are still left in the tournament, with the chip leader being Dara O’Kearney from Ireland on just over 200,000. His Chip Race co-presenter David K Lappin is also still playing but has a below average stack .

The high or tournaments start with 100,000 chips, way more than the 30,100 that players receive for today’s DeepStack.

Double Bubble in the H.O.R.S.E.

Meanwhile, The Festival’s €250 H.O.R.S.E tournament which had 46 entries has now reached its final table. Frank Visser has been crushing this one since very near the beginning of the tournament and had held the lead until the bubble hand. 

It was a double bubble hand as both Barrie Dear and DJ Warrior Sound were busted  by Timothee Marlin in the same hand during the Stud Hi-Lo part of the rotation. That enabled him to leapfrog Frank to take the chip lead onto the final table. The remaining six players, include locals Antoine Degiorgio and Richard Burke and Scotsman William Lynch, happy to have secured his first cash of the week.

Chip Counts at the Start of The H.O.R.S.E. Final Table

€250 PLO 4/5/6 Card

The €250 pot limit Omaha 4/5/6 cards tournament is the third event taking place in the upper for poker room currently has 37 of the 57 players left in. There now in level eight, the final level for further players to join the tournament.

All of these tournaments will be completed today

Today was the start of the two-day €250 Deepstack tournament, which played 10 levels. It resumes on Friday with a further two levels for late registration. Today 92 players took their seats with 52 progressing to the second and final day, which resumes at 1pm.

Survivors Chip Counts

The third starting day of The Festival in Malta is now history. There were 108 hopefuls who entered and exactly half of them are still hoping, while the other half are now hopeless.

The chip leader from the day with 146,400 is Totti Lind from Sweden, a former Malta resident, who won last year’s Sviten Special at The Festival in Malta. Joakim Olin, Rozvadov Seniors Champion bagged the second biggest stack of the day, 139,900. 

They are well ahead of 3rd placed Marko Cosic from Serbia and 4th placed Dutch Ferdinand Janssen who both ended the day with just over 115,000. Joris Ruijs also survived the day, posting a stack of 51,200. 

Today’s €250 H.O.R.S.E. tournament ended up with 46 entries, 20 of whom are still in the tournament, which is currently on level 12. The top six players will be paid with the first prize amounting to €3680

Going strong today is Frank Visser, who at this point is totally destroying his table and is by far the chip leader of the entire tournament. Also still in is Mattia Rubenstrunk,  better known as DJ Warrior Sound.

Barry Dear is also still playing in the tournament as are Scotsman William Lynch and Antoine Degiorgio, the Maltese mixed game fanatic. There is still a long way to go in this one, we will update you more on it later.

It’s time now (long overdue, apologies for that) to update you on the events that came to their natural conclusions on Wednesday. We already reported on Fred “FriDiGiDi” winning The Hendon Mob Championship, but what about the other events that took place yesterday?

Sarharib Karatas Wins 8-Game 

Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon was in the zone yesterday in the €125 8-Game tournament. I spoke to him when there were 10 players left and he was feeling confident and rightly so, as he very nearly picked up his first trophy of the series. However, he didn’t quite get there, but I spared him the “Scott Falls Short Again” headline suggested by William Lynch and instead paid homage to the actual winner of the tournament, Sarharib Karatas from Germany who took the €1,870 first prize. Congratulations Sarharib!

Overlay in PLO High Roller

The PLO High Roller has a lower than expected turnout and ended up missing its guarantee by €2,000. This gave a nice bit of added value to the players who took part. There were 18 entries altogether, however three of them were made by Franke. His third and final bullet sadly only lasted one hand. It was won by Phil Grosg from Germany for €9,600

Karev’s Wednesday Madness Mayhem

Karev Tralla was going for back-to-back wins in the newly added Madness tournaments that take place at 8.30pm each night. These €125 NLH turbo tournaments have proved to be popular, with 96 entries this time. Karev didn’t have much luck at first, dusting off three bullets within the first hour of play, his third lasting only one hand.

His fourth pop wasn’t much better either, but his fifth was a lucky one and enabled him to make it onto the final table for the second day in a row. He exited in 7th place for €420, but made a loss of €330 overall as he had invested a total of €750 in buy-ins. He needed to finish in the top four to make a profit.

It was won by Norwegian Halvor Dahlberg for €2,580. Also putting in an appearance on the final table were Sami Pulliainen from Finland, a former Maltese resident and David K Lappin. They exited in 4th and 5th places respectively

Full Results will be posted shortly on the Malta results page.

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The fifth day of The Festival Series is now well and truly underway. Here’s a roundup of what’s going on right now at Portomaso Casino in the heart of St Julians, Malta.

Main Event

The Main Event is now in the 8th level of the day, with 76 of the 103 entries (so far) still in. This brings the total entries so far up to 373 with two more flights to go. Players are allowed two bullets per starting day and start with a 30,000 chips stack.

Joris Ruijs of training site PokerAmbition, who has over $3m in cashes on his HendonMob is playing in the Main Event today.

€250 Deepstack 

Speaking of starting stacks, there were some confused looks by some of the players at the start of the €250 Deepstack as to why the starting stack was 30,100, equivalent to one extra big blind on level 1. It is of course a Festival Series in-joke, to ensure that the event has a bigger starting stack than the Main Event. 

Multi-tasking maestro Vince Calenti, a Maltese Scot and local resident is in the house today, but this time he’s ditched the day job and is fully concentrating on taking down the Deepstack.

€250 H.O.R.S.E.S

The players in the €250 H.O.R.S.E.S have just resumed play after their second break of the day and the field has now grown to 46 entries, 31 of whom are still in. Rolf Bechstrom isn’t having a great start to this one, as he’s currently riding his third steer, having been unseated twice already in this Portomaso Steeplechase.

€1,100 High Roller

The NLH High roller has recently started and has 20 players during level 1. It has a €30,000 guarantee and eight levels for late registration.

I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again now, The Festival Series is about more than poker and more than casino games too. It doesn’t always involve gambling and there is a rich schedule of off-the table activities taking place this week.

Yesterday there was a pool party and today a busload of players headed off for a morning at Riviera Beach in the north of Malta. Its one of the island’s best beaches and the Maltese name for it is Ghajn Tuffieha, which translates into English as ‘Eye of the Apple.”

It looks like they enjoyed themselves…

There were 18 runners assembled at the starting line at 1pm for the orders to start the race. They have now been joined by a further 13 late starters, who are galloping hard to catch up with the main pack during the opening lap of the track in the €250 H.O.R.S.E tournament.

Many of the core Festival Series stalwarts have saddled up for this one, which drops Sviten Special in favour of the more traditional version of this mixed poker game. Barrie Dear is there searching for another title, so that when we get the next winners pic of him done, we can leave out his middle name, which was erroneously included on his first trophy.

Also playing today is Richard Burke, a local player (originally from the UK) who has a strong track record in mixed game tournaments. Rozvadov Mixed Games Champion Sascha Manns from Germany is also in the field today and although he no longe lives in Malta, his flag on the casino’s reporting system is still the red and white of the Maltese flag.

Another local, Antoine Degiorgio is not yet entered the tournament, as he got distracted when he tried to leave the casino at 1am last night and ended up not getting home until after 5am.

They’s shuffled up and they’s started dealing in the third of five starting days of the €550 Main Event. There were 170 entries from the first two starting days combined and 67 of these made it into Saturday’s Day 2. They play 12 x 40 minute levels and start with 30,000 chips. 

Today is the first day of the second half of The Festival Series in Malta, or Day 5, as its more commonly known. As ever, there’s plenty on for poker players to get stuck into, with options on the fifth day including the third of five starting days of the Main Event and a H.O.R.S.E tournament for the mixed game specialists.

Pot Limit Omaha is also on the menu today, with a €250 4/5/6 card version at 7pm and today is also the day of the €1,100 No Limit Hold’em High Roller. There are also two further heats of the cash game challenge and today’s casino games event is a slots tournament. Who will be the best Book of Ra player? It’s definitely not the Festival’s video editor Aleks Pljuw, based on last night’s warm up attempt.

Here’s today’s schedule.