The action stepped up another notch on Friday at the Battle of Malta Autumn Edition, with a seam bursting day that saw a total of 1,317 entries combined across both starting days of the €1.5m Main Event. In total there have now been 2,770 entries with three starting days to go. All in all, its shaping up to be one of the biggest in Battle of Malta history and could potentially become the biggest of all-time.

Here’s a roundup of Friday’s action from Casino Malta and the Eden Arena at the Intercontinental Hotel.

Day 1e of the Main Event 

Friday’s daytime Day 1e, a full price €600 buy-in flight was the largest so far, with 940 entries getting into the mix. The day ended with 141 players finding a bag into Sunday’s Day 2 and saw three players finish with over 800,000 in chips to earn the flight’s leaderboard bonuses. 

All the players that advanced will already be in the money for at least an €800 min-cash.

Italy’s Cecilia Pascaglini proudly bagged 889,000 to earn the honors of the Day 1e chip lead. This awarded her a whopping €10,000 bonus for an amazing return already on the Main Event. 

Fellow Italian Francesco Tino earned €5,000 for ending the day with 822,000 in chips, while Greece’s Ioannis Diamantopoulos earned €3,000 for his third-place finish in the opening flight with 802,000 in chips.

The top 10 chip counts from the flight.

Player	Chips
Cecilia Pascaglini	889,000
Francesco Tino	822,000
Ioannis Diamantopoulos	802,000
Bogdan Jontulovic	686,000
Maria Koutsouki	682,000
Pavel Heger	675,000
Nicola Sasso	595,000
Dimitrios Manekas	590,000
Ugo Gasparini	557,000
Adrian Siewiera	556,000

 

Check out the full chip from Day 1e in this blog post

Day 1f Half Price

Day 1f was a half-price €300 opening flight in which the rules were different, to create parity with the regular €600 opening flight. The 40,000 opening stack was halved to 20,000, as were the blind levels from 40 to 20 minutes. 

Also, instead of 15 percent advancing, just 7.5 percent get through from these flights. Additionally, the end-of-day bonuses are awarded to the top two players (instead of the top three), with a total of €7,000 in bonuses instead of €18,000.

Day 1f witnessed 417 entries getting into the mix, with just 31 players finding a bag. On Sunday’s Day 2, they will start the day with at least a minimum amount of cash in hand worth €800.

Anthony Loots bagged the Day 1f chip lead after catapulting his 20,000 stack into 716,000. This was good enough for him to earn the €5,000 bonus, while Vladyslav Sikikhin earned an extra €2,000 for bagging the runner-up stack with 561,000.

These are the top ten finishers for the flight.

Player	Chips
Anthony Loots	716,000
Vladyslav Sidikhin	561,000
Gabriele Nuzzo	543,000
Gino Tolone	498,000
Raffaele Caputo	443,000
Alan Vinnicombe	382,000
Valentin Imperatore	369,000
Alessandro Acampora	345,000
Paolo Nicolo’	335,000
Sven Reimaa	333,000

 

The full list of chip counts for all 31 Day 1f survivors can be found here.

Mystery Siege Won By Dennis Stemmler for €41,200

The Mystery Siege of Malta also had a huge final starting flight and it could have been even bigger, however it reached its operational capacity and registration had to be capped earlier than expected. 354 players managed to get in before registration was closed, bringing the total number of entries up to 1,034. The final prize pool was quadruple the €100,000 guarantee.

The victor was Dennis Stemmler for €41,200 with Richard Koppel in second (€34,100). It was a late finishing event and we will deliver further details about how it unfolded and who won the big bounties in a dedicated post during today’s blog coverage.

Winamax 6-Max Day 1b

The €400 Winamax 6-Max saw a further 106 players join the 80 who played in Thursday’s opening flight, 16 of whom made it into Day 2 and guaranteed themselves a payday. In total 28 players will return at 3pm, when the prize prizes will be confirmed. The chip leader going into the final day is Italian Pasquale Gregorio, who has 555,500 chips. Check the blog later this afternoon for the full list of chip counts and the final day seating draw.

Satellites News

Friday’s satellites produced a further 69 Main Event seat winners. It would have been much more, but the evening satellite had to be capped due to the high attendance in both of the day’s Main Event flights. There is one further Main Event satellite on Saturday morning and this evening the satellite slot at 9pm switches focus to the Quigioco High Roller, which begins on Sunday afternoon.

Friday’s Side Event Results

In addition to the Mystery Siege of Malta, two other tournaments produced winners on Friday. 

Frankie Chan won the Redtooth private event to take the £5,000 first prize, defeating a field of 49 players in a good natured event, which served as the seasonal final for the UK Pub Poker organization. Colin Broadbent was the runner up for £2,500 while Benjamin Wilkins claimed third for £1,500. One of the other finalists, Scott Hattersley even proposed to his girlfriend on the event’s final table live stream, which host Glenn Brown provided a running commentary for. She said yes!

Congratulations to Akos Palhazi, who won the evening’s €330 Pot Limit Omaha, which was contested by 40 players. He took the €3,870 first prize, defeating Wai Lun Lam heads up. Estonia’s Jaan Vaabel sneaked into the money in this one, finishing in 6th place.

Full results of these and all other completed events can be found on the results page.

Saturday’s Action At The Battle of Malta

Saturday is traditionally the biggest day for the Main Event at the Battle of Malta and if yesterday was anything to go by, we could be in for an absolute behemoth of day. With two further Main Event starting days taking place and already over €1m collected in the prize pool, the €1.5m guarantee is sure to be surpassed in Day 1g, which begins at 1pm.

Day 1g, the final half price (€300) flight begins at 8pm and is also likely to be busier than any of its previous sibling flights, the biggest of which so far was Friday’s Day 1f, which had 417 entries.

The only remaining Main Event satellite is the first event of the day. It begins at 11am and has 10 x 20 min levels for late registration.

The Winamax 6-Max event has reached its final day and resumes at 3pm

Two sponsored €300 No Limit Hold’em tournaments are taking place today, the first of which is the NLH MAS event at 4pm, with the NLH Netwin360 at 6pm.

There is another  €330(€300+€30) Pot Limit Omaha today at 5pm and the first satellite for the Quigioco High Roller is scheduled for 9pm. There is also a €150 Hyper Turbo on the plan for 10pm.

Unfortunately due to just how much demand there was for players to play in both the full price and half price Main Event starting days, two of the tournaments on Friday had to be cancelled, the Dark Knight and the Hyper Turbo. Caps may be required to be placed on some events on Saturday and players are advised to buy-in early.

 

Time	Event	Buy-In	Fee	Starting Stack	Levels
11:00	Satellite One Shot to BOM €1,500,000 GTD	€60	€10	10K	20 min
13:00	BOM €1,500,000 GTD Day1G*	€530	€70	40K	40 min
15:00	6max by Winamax (Day2)				30 min
16:00	NLH MAS event	260	€40	20K	20 min
17:00	Pot Limit Omaha €5,000 GTD	€300	€30	30K	25 min
18:00	NLH BETWIN360 event	€260	€40	20K	20 min
20:00	BOM €1,500,000 GTD Day1H**	€265	€35	20K	20 min
21:00	NLH Satellite Accumulator – QUIGIOCO – HIGH ROLLER €300,000 GTD	€110	€20	10K	20 min
22:00	NLH HYPERTURBO	€130	€20	20K	10 min