The action was hot at the Eden Arena in St Julian’s on second day of the Battle of Malta Autumn Edition. While Wednesday’s first full

day was a little down year-on-year, Thursday’s numbers put the event back on course to potentially set another attendance record in the €1.5m guaranteed Main Event. In total, 1,226 players have already participated, 172 booking their seats into Sunday’s Day 2.

Although it was a busier day, the key flight of the Main Event, Day 1c, finished three hours earlier than Wednesday’s Day 1a, as the bubble only lasted 40 minutes, compared to 180 on the opening starting day.

Charalampos Siakaras Books Day 1c Chip Lead

Only one player on Day 1a amassed a chip stack of over 1m and that was also the case for Day 1c. This seven-figure hero was Charalampos Siakaras from Greece, whose 1,162,000 pile is the biggest bagged stack so far. This distinction also ensured he collected one of the three bonus prizes in the flight, a €1,500 package to the 2026 Spring Edition of the Battle of Malta.

Siakaras’s nearest challenger in Day 1c was the familiar face of Krystian Nalepka, a regular visitor to poker events on the Maltese islands. The Polish player is almost a quarter of a million chips behind the chip leader, on 915,000 and also bagged himself a Spring package. It’s the second time that Nalepka has benefitted from the bonus prizes, as he was the Day 1b chip leader at the Spring Edition, banking a €5,000 bonus on that occasion.

The third player to secure the bonus prize was another Pole, Rafael Lubczynski, who will have 898,000 when Day 2 begins on Sunday.

One has to feel a little sorry for Michal Wesolowski, who had his aces cracked by the poker sevens of Wipat Udomkanjananan, to be the unfortunate 93rd placed finisher from the flight. He exited with nothing but a bad beat story about how a seven hit the flop, despite picking up a flag draw on the turn. Such is poker, you whip it out, you donk and jam and hope you run good.

Sally Stephens was the highest finishing female player, on exactly half a million chips.

BOM Regulars Progress to Day 2

In total 92 of the 612 players who entered Day 1c remain. Their number includes Emanouil Chalkiotis, whose 502,000 stack was the 16th biggest of the flight.

Shervin Ghasselmou from the UK finished 5th in last year’s Autumn edition for €66,600, which is still his biggest live cash. He also cashed in this year’s spring edition and now has a hat-trick of ITM finishes in the Main Event. His stack of 348,000 was the 26th biggest of the flight.

Alessandro Siena is another player who also made last year’s final, finishing in 4th place. This is also his third successive cash in the Main Event as went on to take 18th place in this year’s Spring Edition Main Event. He sits just behind Ghasselmou in 27th place with 338,000.

Top 10 Stacks from Day 1c

Position	Name	Chips
1	Charalampos Siakaras	1,162,000
2	Krystian Nalepka	915,000
3	Rafal Lubczynski	898,000
4	Leonardo Romeo	897,000
5	Michael Isiguzo	874,000
6	Bartosz Paszynski	843,000
7	Kai Fuong	720,000
8	Georgios Karakousis	618,000
9	Davis Modans	609,000
10	Wipat Udomkanjananan	575,000

 

Full chip counts of all 92 survivors from Day 1c can be found here

Sixteen Progress from Day 1d

The second of the half-price starting days was almost twice as well attended as Wednesday’s Day 1b. Just 16 players out of the 216 who entered made it to the end of the day, with Sukru Arican from Turkey ending as the chip leader from the flight on 502,000. He wins the chip leader bonus prize. Norwegian Joachim Andersen hauled the second biggest catch of the day, having trawled his stack up to 487,000 by the time Alessandro Gardani took the walk of shame as the bubble boy.

Top 5 Stacks from Day 1d

Position	Name	Chips
1	Sukru Arican	502,000
2	Joachim Andersen	487,000
3	Andro Scarpa	452,000
4	Tomas Knapek	367,000
5	Mattia Pilloni	339,000

 

Full chip counts of all 16 survivors from Day 1d can be found here

Field Bulks Up for Mystery Siege Day 1c

Attendance went north in all of Thursday’s tournaments at the Battle of Malta, including the Mystery Siege, which with 343 entries, was more than double the size of Day 1b. Despite that, no player managed to surpass Matthias Kribben’s pace setting Day 2b stack of 602,000. The player who got the closest was Frenchman Julien Stropoli, who ended the day on 589,000. He was one of 51 players who made it into today’s Day 2. The second biggest stack of 516,000 was bagged by China’s Gang Wang, who incidentally is not the same Gang Wang as his namesake, who styled a classy victory in the GUKPT Luton Main Event earlier this year.

There have been 664 entries made into the Mystery Siege so far, with one flight to go, starting at 11.30am, which is expected to be the busiest one yet!

UK Players Sweep Thursday Sides

Thursday’s side event schedule was also a jam packed one, with every event bursting at the seams and all were won by British players

First up was the €330 PLO, a repeat of the same tournament that ran on Wednesday. But this was more than double the size, as 106 players took their seats. It was won by Luke Tatum, who took the €7,800 first prize and one of the very distinctive Mdina Glass trophies. Michael Tastanis from Greece was the runner up, while Main Event Day 1a chip leader Anthony Hughes was third.

The Beer Poker Tour €180+€20 was by far the busiest side event of the day, with 366 players taking their seats, generating a prize pool of over €62,000, not including several thousand euros worth of free beers, as a drinks voucher was added to the pot of the first hand of every new level. It was won by Daniel Kothari for €12,265. He apparently used to be a dealer and a rather good one, by all accounts. One presumes he didn’t have to pay for a single drink either.

It was also Beer Poker Tour founder Merivan Hassan’s birthday yesterday and he was hi-jacked during the first break with a surprise birthday cake, which was quite delicious. He was kind enough to share some slices with the media team.

The final side event of the day was the €150 Hyperturbo, which was also a busy one, with 235 entries. Alex Todd took this one down, for €6,150. 

130 Satellite Tickets Awarded on Thursday

The level of participation in Thursday’s satellites was unprecedented, with 582 entries in the 11am qualifier, which produced 58 Main Event tickets. The evening’s €70 satellite was even busier with 725 entries, producing a further 72 qualifiers. Friday’s two satellites are likely to have similar this participation levels.

Friday at the Battle of Malta

Friday is set to be the busiest day yet at Casino Malta and the Eden Arena. Days 1e and 1f are on the schedule and the is one final flight for the  Mystery Siege of Malta, starting early, with Day two of the €100,000 guaranteed event set to begin later in the day.  As already mentioned, there are also two Main Event satellites.

Today’s PLO offering is a 4/5 Card Round of Each, which like the rest of the non-Hold’em tournaments, has a €300+€30 buy-in.

There are also two Hold’em side events, the Dark Knight and the White Knight, but there is no late night Hyper Turbo today.

Time	Tournament Name	Buy-in	Stack	Levels
11:00	Satellite One Shot to BOM €1.5m GTD	€60+€10	10K	20 min
11:30	Mystery Siege of Malta (Mystery Bounty) €100K GTD Day 1D	€210+€200+€40	30K	20 min
12:00	Redtooth (Closed Event)	–	–	–
13:00	BOM €1.5m GTD Day 1E 15% Progress to Day 2	€530+€70	40K	40 min
15:00	NLH White Knight	€340+€60	30K	20min
17:00	Pot Limit Omaha 4-5c round each	€300+€30	30K	25min
18:00	NLH Dark Knight	€170+€30	20K	20 min
19:00	Mystery Siege of Malta (Mystery Bounty) Day 2 100K GTD	–	–	30 min
20:00	BOM €1.5m GTD Day 1F 7.5% Progress to Day 2	€265+€35	20K	20 min
21:00	Satellite Accumulator to BOM €1.5m GTD	€60+€10	10K	20 min