2024 The Festival Malta Day 6

This is the final post of the blog coverage for the sixth day of The Festival in Malta has arrived. Although  Day 1e of the main event is now over, there are still a few tournaments left in play.

The Festival Surprise is still going with 13 players left form the 92 who started. There’s a €550 Bratislava Main Event seat for the player who goes out on the bubble and with 11 getting paid, they will soon be at that juncture.

The Big O has a long way to go with 22 of the 54 players who started still in.

And finally, the Open Face Chinese is heads up, with Franke and Siarhei Narohzny battling away for the title.

Day two of the main event resumes at midday tomorrow and we will be back in the morning to do it all over again, following the action as the main event up and gets closer to the money.

Time for a cup of cocoa and bed for me. Goodnight Larry!

We’re doing an experiment today. We’re live streaming on The Festival’s Instagram channel. Currenty we are streaming the Festival Queens, which has six players left in from its 22 starters. Only three get paid so it’s getting close to the bubble now. 

Estonian Maili Tannbaum, Las Vegas resident Michelle Richey and Coolbet streamer Ylva Thorsrud from Norway are all still in at this stage.

To watch the action, visit the our Instagram page

The last three players in the OFC are Siarhei “The Machine” Narohzny, Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon and Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk. They are all hoping for frequent trips to fantasyland and to scoop their opponents in pursuit of the €4,800 first prize.

Open Face Chinese is a really good game for spectators as you can follow the action easily and if you’re new to the game, can learn the rules while watching. Scott is streaming it on his Twitch channel, with crystal clear sound, so although the stream is only focused on Scott’s hand, the table chat add to the coverage. Let’s face it, when Scott and Franke are on the same table, its not going to be a silent one.

There have been 427 entries from the first four starting days combined and 191 have made it through to Day 2. The final turbo flight is now running with 36 entries so far and they have just started the fifth level of the day. Joe Grech is playing this one, as is local legend Lawrence Bonnici. Stephen McCabe, who finished second in the NLH High Roller last night is playing today. His friend Lewis Aikman, who won the High Roller and was runner-up in The Hendon Mob Championship is planning to take his seat before the end of the flight.

In other news, the Open Face Chinese is now in the money, with five players left. Siarhei Narohzny was the chip leader at the recent dinner break, with Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon in second place. Franke is also still in, having narrowly escaped elimination on the bubble and is now rebuilding his stack for a tilt at the title.

Play in the fourth starting day of The Festival in Malta has now finished and 70 of the 149 entries have progressed to Saturday’s second day. Rozvadov Main Event Champion Prisiyan Tsvetanov has gone through, with an above average stack of 114,000. The chip leader on 165,000 is another Tsvetanov, but with first name Martin. They’re not actually related, but did travel here together and are room mates.

One of the other big stacks from the day on 130,800 is Estonian Marko Keskel, who’s name should be familiar to anyone following the story of The Festival in Malta, as he was the winner of the Blackjack tournament. Player of the Series in Rozvadov Thomas Gugerbauer is another player to make it into Day 2 from this flight, bagging 61,400.

One player who had a roller coaster ride today was Englishman Kenny Burke. In the early exchanges of the day he was whitled down to just 300 chips after losing an unfortunate hand where he had turned a straight only for his opponent to river a better one. However Kenny then went on a tear, rebuilt huis stack, getting up to as high as 85,000 at one point and ended the day on 61,400, exactly the same stack as Gugerbauer.

The ‘surprise’ for today’s €125 NLH Texas Surprise tournament at 7pm has now been revealed. It’s a consolation prize for the player who misses the money by one place – the bubble boy, or bubble girl. That unlucky player will become lucky, as they will win a €550 Main Event seat for The Festival in Bratislava this November. Please note that this prize is is not transferable, postponable, exchangeable or sellable. Use it or lose it!

Friday Madness Start Pushed Back

Today’s €125 NKLH Friday Madness was due to start at 8.30pm, but this has now been pushed back to 9.30pm. This is to avoid a clash with the late registration period of the Texas Surprise. Click the image below to check out the content on The Festival’s facebook page.

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Let’s take a quick look at what’s going on right now at The Festival in Malta.

€550 Main event

Day 1d of the main event, which is the last starting flight to be played on a regular clock, is now in the seventh level of the day with 131 players registered so far. There are exactly 100 remaining in the seats at this point in time brings total of entrance in the main event across all starting days up to 375 with a further 5 1/2 levels to play in this one, plus the turbo fight tonight. Registration is also open for the first two levels of the Saturday’s Day 2.

Having a tilt at making day two today is JJ Hazan, who is on his first bullet of the tournament, but will this one be enough secure his continuation tomorrow?

Other players taking part today include the Vamos Poker Tour Main Event winner Giovanni Piccione, Bulgarian Lachezar Tsvetanov and exuberant Englishman Kenny Burke, a finalist in The Hendon Mob Championship, who is unusually quiet today, perhaps nursing a headache induced by the 15 pints he drank yesterday.

It’s eerily quiet in the main poker room today with almost no table banter anywhere in the room.  Do these players even know that they are at the festival series? It’s really very uncharacteristic, but perhaps they will loosen up as the day progresses.

€250 Deepstack Championship

The €250 Deepstack, which is a two day event is now in level 17 and when late registration closed there were a total of 133 entrants, generating a price pool of €28,428. The top 15 players will be paid and the winner will take home €7850/

There are now 42 players remaining including Vince Calenti, however his stack has recently taken a hit to leave him short. Perhaps the problem today is that he returned to multi-tasking to try and do his day job at the same time as playing. Should’ve left the tablet at home pal!

€250 Open Face Chinese

The Open Face Chinese tournament is now up to 60 entrants, on level 8 now and late registration still open, but closes soon. With 21 players left in the tournament the overwhelming Chip leader is once again Siarhei Narohzny, who is on a table with Scott Kenyon, which is being live streamed on his twitch channel. Sascha Manns, Franke, Eva ‘Chic’ Jiretorn, and Mati Pirn are among the remaining players in the field.

€125 Festival Queens

The Festival Queens ladies tournament got off to a slow start with just 4 players registered by the time play commence. However, that number has now risen to 14 with Gia Carnestrom,  Maili Tannbaum and Julie Whitworth  recently taking their seats in the tournament.

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Thursday was the fifth day of the series and several trophies were won. There’s a Day 5 winners report in the news section detailing news of the winners of the day. But for those of you who are too lazy to read, or if you simply have the attention span of a goldfish, check out this fantastic highlights reel.

Day 2 of the €250 buying DeepStack championship has now resumed and late registration remains open until the end of the second level of the day. They played 12 levels yesterday however blinds are rolled back to the start of level 10 today.

Over 30 players have already joined the tournament and received their 30,100 starting stack. Will update you further on how things are going a little bit later in the day.

The first of two events on The Festival and Malta schedule also began today, at 12:30 PM. After the first hour of play, the field has grown to 28 players, including festival series founder Franke, who absolutely loves the game and is sure to play the high-roller version of it on Sunday as well.

It’s actually not the first OFC to take place during the series, as on the final event on the Vamos Poker Tour on Sunday was also an Open Face Chinese event, which was won by Siarhei Narohzny, who is also playing today.

It will be no surprise The Festival mixed game regulars are taking part today such as Sascha Manns, and Scott Kenyan, who came second in last nights PLO/5/6 card event. This was his second runner-up finish in consecutive days following on from Thursdays, eight game. Congratulations Scott!

Scott won the OFC High Roller in Rozvadov and will be hoping to emulate that feat. If he does win, it will be a world first, as no player has ever won back-to-back OFC titles and live streamed both of them. Yes, Scott is once again streaming his play on his ‘Pokerbrahs’ Twitch Channel.

Also, the player of the series points will not be totalled up officially until after The Festival series ends , however a quick glance all the results suggest that Scott is certainly in pole position now to claim his second Player of the Series title. Will he keep the chasing pack at bay before the final lap of the track on Sunday?

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The sixth day of The Festival in Malta is now in play. The first of two flights of the €550 Main Event began at midday and there are now 70 entries as they approach the end of level two. There’s another turbo flight tonight and plenty of other action on the schedule, including OFC, Queens event (ladies), day two of the €250 Deepstack and more.

For further details, read this article in the news section of the site.