2024 The Festival Malta Day 8

Victor den Houting is The Festival in Malta Main Event Champion! He defeated Canadian Haven Taylor after an hour long heads-up battle to take the title and the €55,000 first prize.

He went into the heads-up stage of the tournament with 10.675m chips versus Haven Taylor’s 6.3m. Taylor did manage to take the lead at one stage of the final session, however Victor who is usually a cash game player rallied and retook the lead and the final hand played out soon after.

In the final hand Haven moved all-in with K 6 on a flop of Q K 7 and after a brief delay Victor made the call, tabling K 7 for two pairs. This left Haven drawing thin, needing either running sixes to win the hand, or a queen to pair the board for a chop. The 4 on the turn and 9 on the river provided no help for the Canadian, who had been dutifully railed by her husband Tom Taylor throughout the final table.

Haven Taylor cashed for €32,800 for her runner-up finish while our champion Victor victoriously took down the €55,000 first place prize.

In his post tournament interview Victor revealed that he hasn’t played live for ten years and his journey here was the first time he has even been on an aeroplane in the same amount of time. Victor, originally from Spain plays cash online professionally and moved to Andorra six years ago, soon after the birth of his first child. He is now a proud father of three and has re-ignited his love of tournaments by securin this win.

Congratulations to The Festival in Malta Main Event Champion Victor den Houting! See you in Bratislava!

The Final Table Result

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Macedonian Oliver Mihajlovski has just been eliminated in 3rd place by Haven Taylor. He had K 4 but was dominated by Haven’s A 4 and the board provided no help. Oliver cashed for €23,300 for his 3rd place finish.

Heads Up play has now begun, with Victor holding the chip lead on 10.675m versus Haven’s 6.3m. May the best man or woman win! Let Battle commence!

Follow the heads-up action on the live stream on Instagram.

There hasn’t been another bust out and there are still three players left in, but Victor den Houting is making a strong claim for the title, building a significant chip lead. He is now in possession of 11m of the 17m chips in play. There hasn’t been an all-in or any really huge pots, he’s been grinding it out. Haven now has around 3.5m with Oliver Mihajlovski from Macedonia on 2.5m.

Congratulations to Joakim Olin from Sweden, who is ecstatic, having won back-to-back Seniors events on The Festival Series this year. In Rozvadov he beat a field of 68 players and he has now repeated the feat in Malta, defeating compatriot Totti Lind heads up to claim his second title and the first prize of €3,750.

A few days ago Franke got heads up in the €250 Open Face Chinese, but missed out on the title, losing to Siarhei Narohzny in an intense three-hour heads up encounter.

Today is the High Roller version on the OFC, which had 15 entries, to create a prize pool of €14,250. It pays just the top two, so there’s €8,550 up top for the winner. This time Franke is heads up again, but wait, it’s just his head, not him. 

Earlier in the week Totti Lind showed up in a specially made shirt that was a montage of Franke’s head. At some point during the week Totti sold this shirt to Wouter Schuurbiers and now Wouter (and Franke’s head) is heads up against Tomasz Walkowiak from Poland as they play out for the title.

The remaining three players have now gone on a short break. During the last session of play we lost Mathias Jordi from Switzerland, who departed with €17,800 for his 4th place finish. His exit came at the hands of Victor den Houting, who’s K 10 made two pairs against Mathias’s A 6 .

Since the double-double 3-way all-ins, Haven has lost quite a few pots and now has the shortest stack of the last three. These are the current chip counts.

Just a few hands after delivering a fatal blow to two of her final table opponents, Canadian Haven Taylor repeated the feat, sending another two players to the payout desk.

On this occasion the victims were Mario Eder from Austria and Bart Dil from Netherlands. Again, it was an all-in pre-flop situation:

Mario: 9 5

Bart: K K

Haven: 7 7

Board: 10 7 A 4 2

Mario had been down to four big blinds, hence the reason he was all-in with such a holding and the crowd watching gasped in surprise as the seven on the flop put Haven into a great situation. With no further help from the board, both Mario and Bart saw their tournament lives fizzle out.

Mario Eder has had a good Festival in Malta and was going for his second victory of the week, having won the €250 PLO 4/5/6 Card for €4,950. He added a further €10,600 to his winnings from the week, exiting in 6th place

Bart Dil cashed for €13,800 for his 5th place finish.

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Dragan Ignjatovski and Kystian Nalepka have both been eliminated by Haven Taylor in a three-way all-in during level 34 of the Main Event. 

Krystian: K 10

Dragan: Q 10

Haven:K K

Board: 3 7 5 5 3

Macedonian Dragan Ignjatovski is our 8th place finisher, collecting €6,300

Polish Kystian Nalepka finished in 7th place, for €8,300

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Incredible scenes here on the final table. Haven has just busted four players in the space of a few hands. Both were three-way all-ins and we are now down to four. Full details coming soon…

The main event has just gone on its first break of the day with eight players left. these are the updated chip counts.

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It has taken almost two hours since the start of the final table for the first player to be eliminated. That dubious honour went to Spaniard Jordi Ruiz, whose AT off-suit was not good enough to get past Dragan’s pocket Kings. Jordi exits the tournament in ninth place winning €4,800.

As it often the case, the final table has started rather slowly, as players become comfortable with their new playing environment and begin to size up the tasty €55,000 first prize. While they get settled in, here’s a quick update about what else is going on in the room here today at Portomaso Casino in Saint Julians.

€250 Mystery Bounty Final Table

Day two of the mystery bounty has five players left and remarkably both of the top bounty prices of €5,000 and €2,500 are still to be pulled. Open face Chinese winner Siarhei Narohzny is still in and potentially could put himself in contention for the Player of the Series award, if he has enough time to win this and jump from this into the Open Face Chinese High Roller…and then go on to score another victory in that format.

€250 Festival Seniors

The Festival seniors which is a tournament for players age 50 and above currently has 23 players competing out of the 47 who started. Joe Grech who won last night’s Saturday Madness tournament  exited early from this one, in a full house over a full house situation, but is still considering re-entering. Joakim Olin, who was the Rozvadov Seniors Champion is still in and looking for back-to-back old codgers wins.*

*Disclaimer, I’m also an old codger, so I’m allowed to get away with saying this 😉

Open Face Chinese High Roller

The €1,100 Open Face Chinese high roller is now in its fourth level of the day with 10 players having entered so far. Amusingly, Franke is on a table with Belgium’s Wouter Schuurbiers, who is wearing a shirt which is made up completely of images with Franke‘s face. 

You Take The High Road

The Festival Lowroller is the cheapest tournament on the schedule this week and it started at midday today. There were 52 entries in total and it is now approaching its final table with 11 players left.

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The final table of The Festival in Malta Main Event has now begun with the first few hands now being played out. To watch the action check out the live stream on the festivals Instagram page.

Will Haven Taylor become our first female winner of a festival series, main event, or will another player in the chasing pack emerge to challenge her and overcome her massive chip lead?

The unfortunate player to just miss out on a seat at the top table was casinotogether’s Milan Ljubisic, who takes home €4,200 as the tenth place finisher. Milan won the Deepstack Championship on Friday, but won’t be repeating that feat here today. Unlucky Milan, but well played, you’ve certainly impressed a lot of people with your prowess at the tables this week!

The final table of the Festival in Malta is now set and the remaining nine players have now gone on a short break before play resumes. Canadian Haven Taylor is the huge chip leader, after taking out several of her opponents during the opening session of the day.

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We are now one elimination away from the bubble, with ten players left in with a chance of becoming the Festival in Malta Main Event Champion and walking away with a year-changing €55,000.

Recent Eliminations

The first player to depart was Bulgarian Ivo Petkov, who busted soon after the start of the day in 16th place. He also made the money in the Rozvadov Main Event, finishing in 24th place. Congratulations to Ivo on back-to-back cashes, but commiserations  for not progressing further today.

Soon after he was joined on the rail by Stefanos Michalidis from Greece, whose last 240,000 chips went to Dragan Ignjatovski from Macedonia. Stefanos’s K 9 was torched by Dragan’s J 10 on a A 6 9 3 J board. It’s just a game, let’s hope this doesn’t spark further local conflicts in their region of Europe.

Julie Whitworth was the last player to bust at the end of Day 2. This leaves Haven Taylor as the last remaining woman in the field. She’s in second place in chips and has a great chance to progress to the business end of the tournament. But anything can (and probably will) happen today.

The remaining 16 players in the Main Event are now taking their seats ahead of the 2pm restart. Who will be first to bust out today, who will just miss out on the final table and who will be our Festival in Malta Main Event champion?

Both tables are being lived streamed from the start of play, with one table on our Instagram page and the other on our Twitch Channel.

The Last Sixteen

The time has flown by so quickly this week, for me anyway. But its not over yet and there is one more day of The Festival in Malta for us all to enjoy before it becomes a thing of the past. Check out the article on the news page about what to expect on Day 8 of the series. The blog coverage today will mostly focus on the conclusion of the Main Event, but I’ll try to keep you updated on what else is going down here at Portomaso Casino in St Julians. Here’s today’s schedule of play.

Schedule of Play

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