The Battle of Malta began in 2012 and this is the 14th running of the biggest poker event in Malta. The Autumn 2024 edition has a packed schedule of over 40 events, including the €1.5m guaranteed Battle of Malta Main Event, the €100,000 GTD Mystery Siege of Malta and the €300,000 GTD Quigioco High Roller.
In total there are €2m in guaranteed prize pools with several side events per day, including satellites to key events, daily turbos and non-Hold’em offerings on most days as well. The Main Event runs all the way through the festival, with nine starting flights in total and will reach its live-streamed final table by Wednesday 6th November.
There’s a twist this year, as the Main Event has two different buy-in prices, with some flights costing €600 to lay, while others are €300. However, players in the half price flights start with half the chip stack of those in the full price flights. Only 7.5% of players entering the half price flights will progress to Day 2, compared with 15% in the regularly priced starting days.
As usual there are lots of Italians in town and a large number of Greek players are expected to make the trip across the Mediterranean. Hotel rooms are indeed hard to come by and with other events also taking place on the island this week, poker takes centre stage once again this autumn in Malta.
Play in the Battle of Malta Main Event begins today at 13.00 with the first full price starting day, while the first half price flights begins at 20:00.
Who will emulate the feats of Vasileios Zisis, the Battle of Malta Spring 2024 edition winner and Gabriele Re, who took down the 2023 Autumn edition?
Festival Schedule Highlights
- Nine starting flights for the €1.5m guaranteed Battle of Malta Main Event (four of which are half price, half starting stack starting days)
- Four starting days for the €100,000 guaranteed Mystery Siege of Malta
- QuiGioco sponsored High Roller with a €300,000 guarantee
- Luxon Pay sponsored Super High Roller
- Huge number of sponsored side events by Winamax, Novibet, QuiGioco, Redtooth, MAS, Betwin360, Rebet24, Full Tilt Catania, Italian Poker Federation and the IPC Poker Tour
- First Ladies in Poker Ladies event
- Non-Hold’em side events most days, formats include Sviten, Omaha, 8 Game & HORSE
- Daily White Knight/Dark Knight Hold’em side events
- Daily NLH Hyperturbo at 10pm
- Daily Satellites for the Main Event and High Roller
The Full festival schedule can be viewed here.
Event Coverage
Coverage of the Battle of Malta can be followed in several ways.
The blog has English language coverage presented by Jason Glatzer and myself, Jonathan Raab with photography by Igor Bezborodov.
Jason will be focusing on coverage of the Main Event and will also be doing his famed walkabouts for our YouTube and Facebook channels, delivering news of the action direct from the tournament floor.
For the first few days of the festival, we will focus most of our coverage the full price starting days, which begin at 1pm, but we will also keep an eye on the half-price flights and will keep you updated on how they are progressing.
I will assist Jason with coverage of the Main Event and also deliver news, stories and results from the wider festival as well as a glance of what’s going on away from the tables.
There is also an Italian coverage of the Battle of Malta on Gioconews, written and presented by Gaetano Vicidomini, who is always on fire!
Patrisha Rimfire and Valeria Tamburin will host coverage on our social media channels on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.