Saturday was by far the busiest day of the 2025 Battle of Malta Spring Edition. The first day of the weekend is always the key day for main event starting flights and over 850 players entered across Days 1c and 1d.

After four of the five main event fights, they have now been a total of exactly 1300 entries and the €500,000 guarantee has been well and truly smashed. Let’s take a look at how Saturday’s starting days panned out.

Day 1c

After the introductory video was shown on the 27m long video wall, the familiar daily mantra of “Shuffle up and deal” was announced by Tournament Director Andy Tillman and Event Manager Telly Bartolo. While this iconic poker tournament starting phrase is technically an instruction to dealers to begin the game, most players take it to heart as well, perhaps replacing the word “deal” with “steal,” because if you’re not prepared to bluff in poker, you probably won’t get far.

By the time the cards started sliding across the felts, 155 players had taken their pews, but this number would rise sharply and by the first break over 430 players had got involved in the day’s action. When registration closed, 686 players had entered Day 1c, 103 of whom survived the opening day of poker warfare.

Many players with significant BOM history took their seats on Day 1c, including former final tablists Alfredo Cuti, Claudio Barone, Fotios Ntamaris and Ivaylo Eftimov, however there has as yet been no sign of Vasileios Zizis, last year’s Spring Edition winner and Autumn Edition runner-up. It seems unlikely that he will make a late appearance for Day 1e on Sunday morning, but we’ll keep an eye out for him just in case.

The day ended after Francis Van Uden was eliminated as the unfortunate bubble girl, with Shai Biner posting the largest stack of the event so far, a towering 931,000 chips. Daniel Poluk also bagged a monster (922,000), with the UK’s Ceri Rees not far behind on 845,000. Shai not only bagged the biggest stack of day, he also claimed the €5,000 bonus prize for achieving that feat.

Jonathan Wong (312,000), Joris Ruijs (452,000) and Krystian Nalepka (172,000) all made it through as well, as did James ‘Grogsy’ Grogan, who squeaked into Day 2 with just 34,000. He has at least one chip and a chair, so at least for now, his dream is still alive.

The full Day 1c chip counts can be viewed here.

Day 1d Turbo

The fourth flight of the Battle of Malta Main Event began just as Day 1c was breaking for dinner. It actually ended slightly before Day 1c with 26 of the 171 who entered making it through. Benoit Kuhn was the lucky recipient of the €5,000 prize in this flight, ending the day with a stack of 675,000. Angelo Vietti (594,000) and Federico Cirillo (565,000) completed the top three chip counts, with Bulgarian Autumn Edition final table player Ivaylo Eftimov in fourth (550,000).

Other players who progressed from the flight include Fotios Ntamaris, who will have been relived to have made it  through, having fired bullets in every starting day so far. Rasmus Lundstroem, who pulled over €12,000 in bounties in the Mystery Siege also progressed from this flight, with 141,000. Click here for full Day 1d chip counts.

There is one final starting day on Sunday morning, which is also a turbo flight being run on a 20-minute clock. Day 2 commences at 7pm.

PLO 4 Card Knockout

Saturday’s non-Hold’em offering was a €330 (€300+€30) PLO Knockout, which attracted a field of 60. It was won by Marton Lugosi for €2,370 plus bounties (not reported). Soner Vanelderen, who was runner up in Friday’s H.O.R.S.E cashed once again (7th) as did the Maltese number one Joseph Grech (9th).

NLH Betwin360

The €300 (€260+€40) NLH sponsored by Betwin 360 was won by Georgian Sergi Kapanadze, who outlasted 53 other players to claim the €3,820 first prize. Dutch Nick Botman was runner up and Andrei Roman-Tamaduianu completed the podium. The top three all also received packages worth €780 to the next Italia Play event in Nova Gorica.

Hyperturbo

The busiest side event of the day was the €150 Hyperturbo which had 67 entrants, several of which were made by Battle of Malta host Glenn Brown. However his gun was misfiring and he was unable to progress much beyond the close of late registration. The event was won by a total fish, Jonathan Raab, who luck-boxed his way to a €2,360 score. Nice win, enjoy it while it lasts, cos it probably won’t happen again any time soon.

Satellites at the Battle of Malta are now focusing on the High Roller. Saturday’s satellite mustered 109 entries, generating 10 seats into the event, which begins at 7pm on Sunday. There is a further satellite on Sunday morning.