Victor den Houting Secures Victory in The Festival in Malta Main Event
Victor den Houting from Spain has won The Festival in Malta Main Event to claim the €55,000 first prize. He triumphed over a field of 566 players in the 3-day €550 No Limit Hold’em event at Portomaso Casino in St Julians.
Den Houting defeated Haven Taylor after an hour long heads-up battle, in which the chip lead switched hands more than once. He took the chip lead into the heads-up stage of the tournament with 10.7m chips versus Haven Taylor’s 6.3m, but his Canadian adversary reversed the standings with strong aggressive play.
The Winning Hand
However Victor, usually an online cash game player, dug deep and had retaken the lead by the final hand played out. In the championship deciding hand, Haven moved all-in with
K 6
on a flop of Q K 7
After a short consideration, Victor made the call, tabling K 7 for two pairs.
This left Haven drawing thin, needing running sixes to win the hand.
The 4 on the turn left her needing a queen to chop the pot, but the 9 on the river sealed the deal for den Houting, securing a payout of exactly 100x the buy-in.
Victor actually paid zero to enter this event, as he won his way here via a rake race challenge on Championpoker, a skin on the iPoker Network.
A Gracious and Victorious Victor
Speaking to Andreas Hoglund in the post-match interview, Victor commented
“The heads-up was really really hard, my opponent was a very good player”
He went on to reveal 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 is originally from Spain and plays cash online professionally. He met his wife-to-be while grinding out live cash games at Casino Peralada in the north-eastern part of Catalonia, where she was a dealer. After the birth of their first child they moved to Andorra and Victor is now a proud father of three children.
Living in Andorra enables Victor to pursue a career as a professional players, as he has access to global liquidity pools that are not available to players in Spain. He prefers cash games, due to the lower variance and because it suits his family lifestyle better, but still has a love of tournaments, which sometimes plays online.
Watch the full Interview with Victor den Houting on The Festival Series YouTube Channel
Haven’s Story
Runner-up Haven Taylor from Calgary in Canada is an accomplished poker player and has been playing professionally for several years. She took €32,800 for her 2nd place finish in the Festival in Malta Main Event, which pushes her lifetime live cashes to close to $500,000. Her best result came in December 2023 when she took down the $800,000 Ultimate Stack at the Venetian*.
Haven was supported on the rail by her husband Thomas Taylor, a mixed games loving professional cash game player. She also received considerable support online, with members of the facebook group Global Poker Community railing her via the live stream, screened on The Festival Series’ Instagram page.
*Coincidentally the author of this article also played in that same tournament, busting late on Day 1c after misreading his hand, due to jet lag, FML.
The Final Table
The final table of nine featured two players from Spain, two from Macedonia and five others hailing from Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Poland.
After a slow start to the final table, Jordi Ruiz, the other Spaniard to make the final was the first player to be eliminated.
There then followed an incredible period of play in which Haven dusted off four players in the space of a few hands. Both were double eliminations, rocketing her to the top of the chip chart and at this point she had close to 12m of the 17m chips in play.
In the first of these hands both Dragan Ignjatovki from Macedonia and Poland’s Krystian Nalepka hit the rail in 8th and 7th places, falling to Haven’s pocket kings versus their dominated holdings of KQ and KT.
Just a few hands later the feat was repeated, with Austria’s Mario Eder (6th) and Bart Dil (4th) from Netherlands becoming Haven’s next victims. This time she had pocket sevens and hit a set on the flop, overturning Bart’s KK in the process
However two of Haven’s remaining opponents doubled up through her and by the time den Houting had eliminated Mathias Jordi of Switzerland in 4th place, the remaining three all had comparably sized stacks.
Victor then ground out a considerable lead, but Haven closed the gap once again as she eliminated the last remaining Macedonian in the field, Oliver Mihajlovski in third for €23,300.
The Final Table Result
- Buy-In: €550
- Entries: 566
- Prize Pool: €268,850
| Position | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Victor den Houting | Spain | €55,000 |
| 2 | Haven Taylor | Canada | €32,800 |
| 3 | Oliver Mihajlovski | Macedonia | €23,300 |
| 4 | Mathias Jordi | Switzerland | €17,800 |
| 5 | Bart Dil | Netherlands | €13,800 |
| 6 | Mario Eder | Austria | €10,600 |
| 7 | Krystian Nalepka | Poland | €8,300 |
| 8 | Dragan Ignjatovski | Macedonia | €6,300 |
| 9 | Jordi Ruiz | Spain | €4,800 |
The full Main Event result and all the results events at The Festival in Malta can be found in the Results Section of the live blog, where the unfolding story of the final day can also be read.
The Festival in Bratislava
The next Festival Series event takes place in Banco Casino in the Slovakian capital Bratislava, from 18-24 November. Details of the full qualification path to The Festival in Bratislava will be revealed soon.
