The Battle of Malta Autumn edition is now well and truly underway, with the first day now a thing of the past. And what a day it was, with an extremely busy start to the Main Event, taking place at Casino Malta and the Eden Arena at the Intercontinental Hotel.

By the time late registration ended in the main event Day 1a, there had been 362 entries, 15% of whom would progress further in the tournament. But it was a long day for these early starting poker warriors, as it was not until after 5am that the flight concluded, with 54 players safely securing their passage into Day 2.

It was also the first half-price starting day yesterday and as this is a new feature of the Battle of Malta’s format, we weren’t so sure what to expect. It did quite well, not as well as the opening flight, but with 133 entries, it was a reasonable start. 

Just ten players (7.5% of the field) bagged stacks from Day 2. The rest hit the rail, but many will likely be back for another crack at the Hold’em whip, in one of the remaining seven starting days.

High Stack Bonuses

Another new feature for this edition of the Battle of Malta Main Event is the introduction of High Stack bonus prizes for the top finishers in the starting flights. 

• The full-price starting days award €10,000 to the player who bags the largest stack of the day, plus €5,000 and €3,000 to the players with the second and third biggest stacks respectively.
• The half-price starting days award €5,000 to the end of day chip leader and €2,000 to the owner of the second biggest stack.

Humberto Hauls €10,000 Bonus in Day 1a 

Humberto Lopes Galindo bagged the chip lead after parlaying his 40,000 opening stack into a whopping 1,146,000 in chips to earn the €10,000 bonus. Michael Kim Falcon was near the chip lead throughout Day 1a and ended just one starting stack behind Galindo, to end the day with 1,106,000 and earn the €5,000 second-place bonus.

These two were quite far ahead of the rest of the pack and it was Nikolaos Oikonomou who squeezed into the third-place by the end of the day, bagging 797,000 to earn the €3,000 third-place bonus. 

There’s a large contingent of Estonian players at this event and two of them posted top 15 chip counts from the opening starting day. Kaidar Viikman, bagged up 435,000, while Herli Olop, who final tabled the 2023 Battle of Malta ended the flight with 385,000. Here are the top 10 chip counts from the day.

Player	Chips
Humberto Lopes Galindo	1,146,000
Michael Kim Falcon	1,106,000
Nikolaos Oikonomou	797,000
Gabriel Ionut Dinu	783,000
Kostadin Mihaylov	685,000
Kyriakos Papadopoulos	655,000
Giulio Di Salvo	599,000
Massimiliano Mauceri	570,000
Andreas Froehli	513,000
Kaidar Viikman	435,000

 

The full list of chip counts for all 54 Day 1a survivors can be found here.

Polish Duo Pocket Day 1b Bonuses

Two players from Poland collected the bonuses. Krystian Nalepka led the way after transforming his 20,000 starting stack into 599,000 to earn the €5,000 chip leader bonus, while countrymate Krzystof Mielnik ended the day with 520,000, which was good enough to earn the €2,000 bonus for second place. 

For clarity, all of the bonuses are part of the prize pool, creating a unique and exciting end to each starting day. Check out the full chip counts below from the 10 Day 1b survivors.

Player	Chips
Krystian Nalepka	599,000
Krzysztof Mielnik	520,000
Leslie Lamnea	388,000
Salvatore Pardo	257,000
Andreas Putz	184,000
Claudio Schifano	175,000
Adam Pawel Wojcieszak	161,000
Ricardo Abreu	138,000
Grzegorz Kozieja	132,000
Elia Salerno	76,000

Mystery Siege of Malta Smashes Guarantee

The Mystery Siege of Malta began on Tuesday, when 210 players contested the first of four starting days. The numbers in the first flight alone ensured that the €100,000 guarantee in the event will be smashed well out of the ball park and this was confirmed yesterday, when a further 140 players took their seats. With 350 entries so far at the half way stage of the starting days, the prize pool is already close to €130,000! The prize pool now looks very likely to surpass €250,000!

Chip counts from the survivors of yesterday’s flight can be found in this post in yesterday’s blog coverage.

Satellite Surge

Yesterday’s two main event satellites were both huge, with 67 players winning (full-price) Main Event seats. The early starting satellite had a very respectable 256 entries, producing 25 seat winners. The evening satellite did even better, with 424 players joining the game to generate a further 42 seats into the Battle of Malta Main Event.

Congratulations to Our First Day Winners

We also had four winners on the first day of the festival, as both the White and Dark Knight tournaments reached their conclusions, as did the Sviten and the late night HyperTurbo. 

Danny Verheij from Netherlands won the €150 White Knight, scooping the €2,100 first prize, defeating Italian Vicenzo Scarpitti after an intense heads up battle.

Vladyslav Sidihkin from Ukraine who defeated the UK’s James MacPherson in the €200 Dark Knight to claim the €2.390

Soner Vanelderen, a Belgian who lives in Malta won the Sviten, officially taking the €1,710 first prize, however there was some business done with Karol Olszewski when they were heads up.

Nathan Priestnall won the first HyperTurbo event of the week, defeating Kosovan Selamiri Bllloshmi to scoop the €2,380 first prize.

Thursday’s Action At The Battle of Malta

Start Time	Event	Buy-In	Fee	Starting Stack	Levels
11:00	Satellite One Shot to BOM €1,500,000 GTD	€60	€10	10K	20 mins
13:00	BOM €1,500,000 GTD Day1C	€530	€70	40K	40 mins
15:00	6max by Winamax (Day 1A)	€340	€60	30K	30 mins
16:00	MYSTERY SIEGE OF MALTA (BOUNTY MYSTERY EVENT) €100,000 GTD Day1C	€210+200	€40	30K	20 mins
17:00	Pot Limit Omaha	€300	€30	30K	25 mins
18:00	NLH Dark Knight	€170	€30	20K	20 mins
20:00	BOM €1,500,000 GTD Day1D half price	€265	€35	20K	20 mins
21:00	Satellite Accumulator to BOM €1,500.000 GTD – every 100K	€60	€10	10K	20 mins
22:00	NLH HyperTurbo	€130	€20	20K	10 mins

 

Thursday’s schedule is very similar to Wednesday’s. In fact the only difference today is that there is no White Knight tournament this afternoon. In its place is the first of two starting days in the Winamax 6-Max event, which has a €400 buy-in (€340+€60).

As per Wednesday’s action, the day begins with a satellite at 11am, with Day 1c (full-price) of the Battle of Malta Main Event beginning at 1pm and a further half-price flight at 8pm. There is also another Main Event satellite at 9pm.

The third starting day of the Siege of Malta begins at 4pm and today’s non-hold’em offering is a €330 (€300+€30) Pot Limit Omaha.

For those looking for single day Hold’em side events, the €200 (€170+€30) White Knight at 6pm and the €150 (€130+€20) Hyper Turbo at 10pm are the available options.

As today is October the 31st, which as everyone knows is Halloween, we are also expecting something spooky to happen today. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself in a hand and the devil himself is the one who does the write up for the blog. There will be much blood spilled today at the Battle of Malta and none of it will be mine, muhahhhaaa (evil laugh).