It’s getting late, it’s now 2 AM here at PortoMaso Casino in Saint Julian’s. There are still 21 players left in the main event and they will play on until they reach the final 16 which may take them up to another hour or so.
Remaining Main Event Players
Andrei Mjagkov
Bart Dil
Dimitrios Katsikas
Dragan Ignjatovski
Haven Taylor
Ivo Petkov
Jesper Lucas
Jordi Ruiz
Julie Whitworth
Krystian Nalepka
Lucas Liljegren
Mario Eder
Mathias Jordi
Milan Ljubisic
Oliver Mihajlovski
Pasquale Grimaldi
Stefanos Michalidis
Stuart Steven McNally
Svensson Linus
Victor den Houting
The only other tournament still running at this time is the €125 Saturday Madness, which drew or field of 67 players. They are now down to the final table of nine players and are fighting it out for first prize of €2450. They are also on the bubble now, as only eight will get paid.
Amongst the remaining contenders is Bulgarian Lachezar Tsenov, who has been playing aggressively and enjoying a few beers at the same time. Maltese Londoner Joe Grech is another player still left in.
The Deuce to Seven Triple Draw had 56 entries and played seven places. The Festival Series’ very own Karev Tralla made the final table once again, securing 4th place in an almost equally chopped four-way deal for €1,200. The win to Damien Michalski from Sweden, for just €50 more than Karev won.
This is going to be my last post of the evening, however I will update the chip counts for the Main Event at the end of play. The blog will resume in the early afternoon on Sunday and the Main Event resumes at 2pm. Goodnight all!
Eighteen players will return on Sunday for the Day 2 of the Mystery Bounty. All remaining players are now in the prize money and it’s only on Day 2 that bounties can be won. The chip overnight chip leader is Open Face Chinese champion Siarhei Narohzny, who has 600,000 and is almost 200,00 ahead of his nearest challenger Maria Koutsouki. In Rozvadov I nicknamed Siarhei ‘The Machine’ and he is still living up to that moniker with another impressive display this week.
Also still left in are Scotsmen Lewis Aikman and Stephen McCabe, however they are both relatively short-stacked. They’ll have their work cut out tomorrow if they want to emulate the feat of the High Rollerm where they finished in 1st and 2nd places.
Shortly before the last break there was a big hand on table 14. Giovanni Piccioni, the winner of the Vamos Poker Tour Main Event also made the prize money here in the Main Event at the Festival Series. He was taken out in three way all in, when holding A 3 for his last 185k. He found himself in bad shape, up against J J and A A .
A 3 on the flop gave him some hope, but he was not able to improve. Lucien Jouanneau’s pocket jacks did not improve either and Italian Pasquale Grimaldi who held the aces added a nice chunk to his growing stack.
The players have gone on a short break and there are now 31 left in, with a further 15 eliminations required before the end of the night.
The chip leader at this point is casinotogether’s Milan Ljubisic, who has just over 1m chips, just ahead of Haven Taylor on 980,000, one of two women left in the tournament. The other lady still left in is Julie Whitworth from the UK, who qualified via Betfred.
Play has progressed at a steady pace since they resumed play after the dinner break. There are now 40 players left in, as 31 have busted since the bubble burst. Here are the payouts of the players who exited in 41st – 71st places.
Sometimes things happen in such a way that we feel like we’ve experienced it before. This is quite common in poker because let’s face it with all lost with Ace-King versus Queens multiple times, however this isn’t really déjà vu because it’s such a common occurrence.
Something happened here today at The Festival in Malta was much more unusual. Today’s Pot Limit Omaha offering was a €250 buy-in Freezeout, which had 27 entrants. But it’s not the first €250 Pot Limit Omaha tournament has taken place during the week as there was also the €250 PLO Masters, which was won by Jacco Hester from the Netherlands, beating Irishman David K Lappin heads up.
Cheer Up David K Lappin!
In today’s tournament the same two players remarkably got heads up once again and in a repeat of what happened earlier in the week Jacco won for the second time. This is uncommon, but not unheard of and there are probably numerous examples of the same two players getting heads up in tournaments. However, there was one additional coincidence that makes today’s result even more unique, as the third place finisher Daniel Orlowski was also the third place finisher in the PLO Masters.
It was a short bubble, only lasting for two hands. There were in fact two all-ins at the same time on separate tables. The first of these was played out on table 8 between Krystian Nalepka from Poland who had Q Q versus the A 10 of Milan Ljubisic.
Krystian Nalepka doubles on the bubble
The queens held, so we moved on to table 16, where Ron Lemmens had A Q versus the 8 8 of Macedonian Dragan Ignjatovski. Ron failed to connect with the board and just for good measure, the 8 sent a bitter Lemmens to the rail with nothing to show for his efforts.
Ron Lemmens exits on the bubble in Malta Main Event
All the remaining players are now in the money and they will soon be going on dinner break. If I post this quickly, I should get to the buffet before there’s a queue.
We’ve now arrived at the first really serious point in the tournament, as with only 78 players left in and 71 places getting paid, the bubble is now approaching. This means that seven unfortunate souls are gonna leave empty-handed. They are now on level 20, which has blinds of 3,000/6,000 and a 6,000 big blind ante. The average stack is now 217,000 and there’s now a good chance that the bubble will burst before the dinner break.
A quick scout around the room, suggests that the current chip leaders is Spanish player Jordi Ruiz, who has 725,000. In second place is casinotogether’s Milan Ljubisic, who was last night’s DeepStack winner. He has now built a chip stack of 610,000.
Earlier today I lent my jumper to a freezing Shaun Decesare, who had forgotten his hoodie. The jumper started off being a lucky one, enabling Shaun to climb to over 130,000, however it was at this point that things started to go wrong.
After losing 50k with nines against tens, he got into a great spot with aces against nines. The AQ8 flop was delightful, giving Shuan a 98.2% chance of winning the hand. The turn was a ten and yes, you guessed it, a jack on the river sent Shaun to the rail.
I’ll never wear that jumper again when I play poker. Come to think of it, it has never been lucky for me, I wore it during the WPT World Championship last year and suffered a nasty cooler. The damn thing will now be burned.
The Main Event players have just returned from their third break of the day and there are 93 players now left, but still over twenty places away from the prize money. Still in contention is Festival Queens Co-winner Noelia Rico from Sweden. She is sharing a table with Bulgarian Martin Tsvetanov, who was one of the chip leaders at the start of the day. There are also still a few British players who still have chips, such as Neil Rawnsley, David Gee and Julie Whitworth.
Noelia Rico
Sides
Three of today’s side events are in play now, with one more to come this evening.
The €250 PLO had 27 entries and is now down to the last ten, with four getting paid and the winner taking home €2,550. Still in this one are recent Main Event bustees Thomas Gugerbauer and David K Lappin.
The €250 Mystery Bounty is now in its eighth level with late registration open until the end of level 10 anjd has 121 entries so farm including many other who exited the Main Event today, such as High Rolller winner Lewis Aikman and Open Face Chinese winner Siarhei Narohzny.
The €125 2-7 Triple Draw was an extra tournament that was added onto the schedule and it has recently begun, with 24 players participating so far. Playing today are both Gia Carnestrom and Scott Kenyon, who chopped the Big O last night.
Gia Carnestrom
Dessert
Let’s not forget to mention that there’s also the Saturday Madness taking place today. Its a €125 Turbo No Limit Hold’em tournament and will start at 8pm.
Another fantastic highlights video from our extraordinarily talented production team Nekit, Aleks and front man Andreas ‘Wiseguy’ Hoglund. To view the rest of the highlights videos and interviews, check out The Festival’s YouTube Channel
The main event is moving fast today with almost half the players who started now eliminated at the second break of the day. But 160 of the 307 who began today have their tournament lives intact and are still fighting it out for a place on tomorrow’s final table plus a shot at the €55,000 1st prize.
This situation won’t last for long however, as with 71 players being paid, play is expected to tighten up once another 30 or 40 players hit the rail. After a brief consultation with the tournament director, we expect the bubble will be burst sometime close to the dinner break, which is not until 9 PM this evening. It’s looking like this could be a late one and the plan is to play till they are down until 16 players.
Big Stacks
The chip leader at this point in the proceedings is Mario Eder from Austria who has close to 390,000. In second place is Mario Keskel from Estonia, who won the Blackjack tournament earlier this week. He has a stack of 328,500 and is 30k ahead of Jesper Lucas, who is hovering just below 300,000.
Lucky Jumper?
It’s actually quite cold in the room today with the AC being turned up a bit due to the larger number of tables and play, and some players didn’t come prepared. One such player is Maltese Shaun Decesare, but he was fortune enough to borrow my lucky jumper and is now feeling a bit warmer. How lucky will it be for Shaun? Will update you later once we have some more news on that.
The €250 Mystery Bounty will start soon in the poker room on the lower floor of the conference centre. Its a two-day event with the mystery bounty prizes kicking-in on the second day. Today’s €250 PLO Freezeout is already underway and Franke is having a go at that one.
New Tournament Added to Schedule
There is also another event that has been added to the schedule on Sunday, which is another of the Madness tournaments that we have held each day since Tuesday. This one will have a KO format and costs €125 to enter, of which €50 goes towards the bounty (not a PKO).
Late registration has now closed and the total number of entries in the Main Event is 566, generating a prize pool of €268,850. The prize breakdown is being worked on now and the first prize amount will be revealed soon.
There were additional 91 entries today, bringing the number of players who have participated in day 2 up to 307, but 67 of them have busted, leaving 240 players left with dreams of making the final table.
For some the tournament is now over, such as Siarhei Narohzny, winner of last night’s Open Face Chinese event. Her had bagged a below average stack for Day. He’s a mixed games specialist and will likely have his sights set on the 2-7 Triple Draw, which starts at 6.30pm.
Unibet Poker ambassador Dara O’Kearney started the day short stacked and ended it within a lap of the table, as one of the first players of the day to hit the rail. However, late registration was still open and he reloaded his gun and fired another bullet. His Chip Race podcast co-presenter David Lappin is still in.
High Roller winner Lewis Aikman has also hit the rail, just after late registration has closed, however his friend Stephen McCabe, whom he got heads up with still has chips.
Coolbet streamer Ylva Thorsrud was another casualty of the first two levels, as was Belgian player Wouter Schuurbiers. Local mixed games fanatic Antoine Degiorgio has made four final tables this week, but won’t be getting there in this one, as he also now an ex-participant of the Main Event.
Franke is now giving his start of Day 2 speech, which means that play will be starting soon. 216 players made it through the opening flights and more players are still buying-in, 31 so far today to take the number playing now up 247 and the total entries to over 500. We’ll confirm the final numbers at the end of the second level of play.
Six days and six night have now passed since the festival in Malta began at Portomaso Casino in Saint Julian’s. But today is no rest day, as we have now reached Day 2 of the Festival in Malta Main Event.
Play resumes at 12pm, the blinds have been rolled back two levels and late registration is still open for the first to levels of play today.
There’s also plenty of other options on the schedule for those who are no longer involved in the Main Event and are not tempted to late register.
Here’s the itinerary for the day! Keep Calm and Carry on Pokering!
