The first day of the 2025 Battle of Malta Spring Edition included a lot of poker and a few surprises.

1st Surprise

The first surprise was that the Eden Arena looked a little different as the set up has changed. There is no stage in the middle of the floor. The tables are all well spaced out and it feels like a nice environment to play in. The most noticeable feature of the set up is the enormous video wall that looms over the 70 tables in the playing area.

This new set up of the Eden Arena is complimented by use of the conference space on the floor below the Arena, where side events and satellites are taking place. This allows the Arena to focus exclusively on housing the headline events of the Festival: the Main Event of the Battle of Malta, the Mystery Siege of Malta and the High Roller.

2nd Surprise

The next surprise was the absence of sword wielding knights and their fair maidens, as the opening ceremony has been replaced for this edition with a welcome video, shown before the start of the Main Event on the giant video wall. This certainly surprised and captivated a lot of players. If you missed it, it will be repeated before the start of each opening flight and at a few other rare moments throughout the week.

3rd Surprise

The third and final (for now) surprise of the day was the very first episode of the yet-to-be named Battle of Malta daily talk show. Check out the 15-minute show on the Battle of Malta’s YouTube page and let us know if you have any suggestions for its name. Rumours are that there may be a prize for whoever comes up with the name that is chosen. Watch the full show to find out if it’s true or not!

The inaugural episode saw Jason Glatzer, Glenn Brown, Telly Bartolo and new BOM TD Andy Tillman having a cosy fireplace discussion (minus the fireplace) about the event. There will be a new episode every day, dropping late in the evening. Guests will include players and staff at the event and will focus on the talking points of the day as the event progresses.

Thursday’s Poker Action

The action on the poker tables was of course still the main highlight of the day, with several events taking place simultaneously, both upstairs and downstairs. Upstairs the focus was on the Main Event, but there were also two flights of the Mystery Siege of Malta.

Main Event Day 1a

The opening flight saw 146 players take their seats in the €600 buy-in event, with just 22 progressing into Sunday’s Day 2. All have secured themselves a payout and chip leader Nicolaj D’Antoni from Italy has done even better, claiming the €5,000 bonus payment for bagging the biggest stack of the day with a towering 697,000.

His nearest challenger on 572,000 is Alessandro Siena, who finished in 4th place in the last BOM Main Event and will be looking to go deep once again. Dario Barone, a former winner of the event (Spring 2023) also made it through the day, however he posted the shortest stack of the survivors with 64,000. But he’s still in it, so he could definitely still win it again.

For a more detailed wrap up and all the chip counts of the survivors, check out the excellent Day 1a recap posted by new blog team member Chris Karlen.

Mystery Bounty

The Mystery Bounty had two flights on Thursday, with one more to come on Friday.

Jonathan Wong posted the largest chip stack from Day 1a with 527,000, well ahead of second placed Emmanouil Chalkiotis on 428,000. Carl Nakamoto, the Day 1b chip leader almost matched Jonathan’s stack with 523,000, with Benoit Kuhn not far behind on 515,000.

Across both these starting days there were 331 entrants, 50 of whom have made it into Day 2, which begins this evening, at 8pm. The final starting flight begins at midday, with 10 levels for late entry.

Side Events

You can’t have a good main course without some tasty sides. Today the players were spoiled for choice as the Mystery Bounty, with two flights was the side event of choice for most. However, there were other accompanying dishes on the poker menu and some players did opt for these boutique choices.

The first of these was the €220 PLO, which was won by Gabriel Morales Ruiz for €1,840. Ryan Wilson took second place in the event, which had 23 entries in total.

The first of two outings for the €200 Dark Knight had 35 entrants and ended up in a chop between Robert Oliver and Michael Janczarski, who each took home €1,620. It has to be said that Robert looks a lot happier about the result than Michael does in the post event photo (see below).

The €150 Hyperturbo was the quietest event of the day, with just 10 entries and was won by Lukasz Zajac for €800.

Satellites

Yesterday’s satellites were busier than the other sides, as most players are focused on securing seats for Friday’s two opening flights. The early starting one mustered 100 entries, while 185 chanced their luck in the late night version. In total 28 tickets were awarded, with some players in the later satellite bagging more than one seat, as its format allows multiple seats to be won. One player on Wednesday scooped three seats and this is unlikely to be beaten, but several players managed to bank a second seat.