A Look Back at The Festival in Malta
Almost a week has now passed since the end of The Festival in Malta and the island, which was basking in sun is now drenched with rain. Mediterranean storms are dramatic, several centimetres of rain falls in a very short space of time and many of the islands valleys and roads become temporary rivers.
But the drama of the Maltese weather was nothing compared to the drama that unfolded at The Festival in Malta, where Victor Gil den Houting outlasted a field of 566 players to take down the Main Event and its €55,000 first prize.
Tales of the Main Event
There were several great stories that emerged during the week and the plot surrounding our new Main Event champion was one of them. Victor is originally from Spain and met his wife to be while he was grinding out cash games at Peralada Casino in Catalonia, where she was on the other side of the table, as a dealer.
After having they had their first child they moved to Andorra, where Victor pursued a living as a professional cash game player. The family has now grown with the couple adding two further children to the den Houting clan.
Victor hadn’t played any live poker for the last ten years and it was only by accident that he found himself in Malta for The Festival Series.
He won a cash game rake race promotion on Championpoker and the prize was a Festival In Malta Main Event package. It had also been ten years since Victor had even been on a plane, but he made the journey alone while his wife took care of the family back in Andorra.
Victor admitted to feeling uneasy handling chips, as he is now used to simply clicking buttons. Adapting to the slower pace of live poker was also a challenge, but one that he rose to admirably, beating Canadian Haven Taylor heads up to take the title and the €55,000 first prize.
Haven Taylor’s own story is also a remarkable one. When Julie Whitworth was eliminated in 17th place, Haven was left as the only woman still with their tournament life intact. It was more than just intact as she went into the final day with the second largest chip stack. At one point, with four players left, she held two thirds of the chips in play, but for her and her supporters from Canada, who had tuned into the live stream on Instagram to witness the occasion, it was not to be.
Like Victor, Haven is an excellent player and the €32,000 she won for her second place finish pushes her lifetime winnings close to half a million dollars.
Bravehearts Charge to Victory in High Roller
“You can take their freedom, but you’ll never take their tournament lives” Gel Mibson
Despite being massively outnumbered, two brave Scottish poker warriors took to the battle felts of The Festival in Malta’s No Limit Hold’em High Roller. Having outlasted all 59 of their adversaries in the €1,100 event, Stephen McCabe and Lewis Aikman then went heads-up for the title.
Just one day earlier Lewis had made it to the same stage of The Hendon Mob Championship, falling short to Fred “FriDiGiDi” in an epic heads up battle, in which the Scotsman refused to be beaten and held out for quite some time as the short stack, before ultimately finishing as the runner-up.
In the high roller Lewis went one better, besting his friend Stephen to taste his first ever live event victory and scoop the €18,500 first prize.
Déjà Vu in Pot Limit Omaha Events
The winner of the PLO Masters on the second day of the series was Jacco Hester, who defeated David Lappin and Daniel Orlowski in a field of 33 players. Nothing unusual there, it was a hard fought final table and Hester was a very worthy winner.
Such a worthy a winner he was, that he repeated the feat later in the week, taking down the PLO Freezeout as well. It was a remarkable display by the Dutchman, but even more remarkably, the runner up was once again David Lappin and the third place finisher was also Daniel Orlowski.
The repeat podium standings are certainly a first on the Festival Series and likely a very rare occurrence in live poker. If a similar example of this exists, it might take a long time trawl The Hendon Mob database to find it.
Joakim Olin Goes Back-to-Back in Seniors Championship
In Rozvadov Sweden’s Joakim Olin won the seniors tournament and proving that both class and form are permanent, he did it again, putting on a dominant display, taking a huge chip lead onto the final table.
Joakim was ecstatic afterwards, celebrating exuberantly chanting “Back to back, back to back” as danced around as if he was a player half his age. He’ll be going for a truly unprecedented three-timer in Bratislava and we wouldn’t put it past him scooping again!.
Online Qualifer Spins €0.40 Up To €1,100!
Victor Gil den Houting wasn’t the only player to spin up a win at The Festival in Malta. James Neil from Scotland won a package in an online satellite at Unibet Poker, having worked his way up from a €0.40 cents feeder. He traveled to Malta with his brother Andrew, who made the journey all the way from Texas to cheer him on from the rail, He eventually finished in 46th place in the Main Event, for €1,100.
The Festival in Malta Roll of Honour
Casinotogether’s Milan Ljubisic’s took victory in the Deepstack and also went far in the Main Event, where he just missed out on a seat on the final table, exiting in 10th place.
The Mixed Games Main Event ended in an equal 4-way chop with Norwegian Eirik Presttun taking down the title and the extra €50 they had left to play for.
Karev Tralla recorded his first Festival Series title in the Tuesday Madness, celebrating with a high-energy lap of honour of the entire venue.
Gia Carnestrom became a first time champion in the Big O after a deal with Scott Kenyon, which was his second final table of the day, having taken 3rd in the Open Face Chinese (OFC).
Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk narrowly missed out on a trophy in that OFC event, finishing runner up to Siarhei “The Machine” Narohzny, a mixed games specialist from Belarus who frequently makes it to the latter stages of Festival Series events.
The high roller version of the OFC also featured Franke heads up once again. But it was not the real flesh and beer Franke, it was multiple images of his head on a specialty shirt that had been made by Totti Lind. Totti sold the shirt to Belgian Wouter Schuurbiers, who took down the title wearing it.
One player who went under the radar for much of the week, getting it as quietly as he could without anyone noticing (until the leaderboard scores were totted up) was Latvian resident Aleksiy Baranovskiy.
Having taken back-to back runner-up spots in the Wednesday and Thursday Madness events, he then won the Festival Surprise (which had an extra prize of a Bratislava Main Event seat for the bubble boy). Aleksiy also featured in a three-way deal in in the last event of the series (KO Deepstack Madness) which enabled him to just pip Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon by two points, to take the Player of Series title and a €1,600 Festival in Bratislava package.
Noelia Rico from Sweden and Radica Kanani from Portugal chopped the Festival Queens, which was also live streamed on The Festival’s Instagram channel.
Rolf Arne Bechstrom did not have such a good run in Franke’s Flip Flops this time (which he has won twice) but won the roulette tournament, avenging his last minute defeat in the same event in Rozvadov, where he finished 2nd.
There was success for Maltese players too, with Antoine Degiorgio making three finals and finishing in 5th place on the Festival Leaderboard. However it was not until the last two days of the series that we got a Maltese winner. In fact we got two, with Joe Grech winning the Saturday Madness before Michael Cauchi won the last event of the week (KO Deepstack Madness) after a 3-way chop.
As always, there’s so much going on during The Festival Series week that it’s not possible to report on every tournament during the week itself. But we can and will pay homage to all our winners now. The full list of winners can be found in the results section of the Live Blog.
To the champions of every event at The Festival in Malta, we salute you! See you at The Festival in Bratislava!
