It was another action packed day at Casino Malta and the Intercontinental Hotel in St Julian’s, as the third day of the Battle of Malta Main Event played down to the last five tables. With seven other tournaments taking place, there was a lot to choose from, with a variety of different formats on offer, at various different price points.

A new attendance record was set in the High Roller, which climbed to over 700 entries, forcing a third day to be added for the tournament to reach its conclusion. The ACR Ladies event was also the biggest one seen at the Battle of Malta, with 158 entrants.

There were also huge fields for some of the side events, with over 600 entries in both the Novibet and Shark Bay EuroRounders tournaments.

Thirty-Nine Steps From Glory

Only 39 contenders for the Battle of Malta Main Event title remain after the 3rd day of the record breaking tournament. Ioannis Daskalis from Greece booked the chip lead with an impressive 15.95m, over 5m ahead of second placed Mikel Calo on 10.7m.

Gabriele Re, the only former winner of the Battle of Malta Main Event sits in 3rd place on 10.7m and only one other player, Dalibor Dula, bagged a stack of over 10m.

Angelos Michael took the chip lead into Day 3, but he busted before the first break of the day, to reshape the leaderboard. Another player who went into the day with a big stack, Herli Orlop, also saw his tilt at the title cut down, busting in 58th place, towards the end of the day.

Northern Irishman Darren Harbinson was sadly taken ill during the evening session. He had over 5m chips when he had to abandon play for the day, which was whittled down to 2.67m by the time the day ended. We hope he recovers in time to retake his seat in Day 4.

Day 3 Top 10 Chip Counts

Pos	Player Name	Chips	Big Blinds
1	Ioannis Daskalis	15,950,000	106
2	Mikel Calo`	10,700,000	71
3	Gabriele Re	10,470,000	70
4	Dalibor Dula	10,270,000	68
5	Jorge Alves Geraldes	9,970,000	66
6	Marco D’amico	9,800,000	65
7	Rafal Lubczynski	9,000,000	60
8	Davis Modans	8,300,000	55
9	Leonardo Romeo	7,700,000	51
10	Jan Gompers	7,150,000	48

 

Full chip counts of all 39 survivors can be found here.

High Roller Goes into Third Day

The biggest high roller event that has ever been held at the Battle of Malta has been extended into an unscheduled fourth day. A further 325 players entered on Day 2, taking the total field up to 714, generating a prize pool of €678,300.

By the time play was suspended, 24 players remained in the field, all in with a shot at the first prize of €127,950. Italian Luigi D’Alterio has the chip lead on just over 3.5m.

Top 10 Chip Counts from Day 2 of High Roller

Pos	Player Name	Chips
1	Luigi D’alterio	3,520,000
2	Fabrizio Petroni	3,110,000
3	Gunnar Lie	2,830,000
4	Ludovic Mordwa	2,760,000
5	Francesc Guixeras Giner	2,460,000
6	Vito Burgio	1,910,000
7	Chasan Koula	1,650,000
8	Dimitrios Amplianitis	1,590,000
9	Humberto Lopes Galindo	1,380,000
10	Leo Worthington-Leese	1,340,000

 

Super High Roller Commences

The ACR Poker sponsored €2,200 Super High Roller had its first day on Monday, in which 55 players took their seats and eight levels were played. There’s a further three levels for more players to join the tournament when it restarts at 3pm. Both Rene Nezhoda and Casey Lloyd played this, but only Casey was among the 39 who bagged a stack for Day 2. Rene may well fire again, we shall see.

The overnight chip leader is Wang Yuhan from China, who more than tripled his starting stack of 50,000. Alex Todd, the 2023 Grosvenor Goliath champion is also still in, as is rising star Andreas Mavromoustakis from Cyprus.

Top 10 Chip Counts from Day 1 of ACR Super High Roller

Pos	Player Name	Chips
1	Wang Yuhan	160,300
2	Gaspare Sposato	152,000
3	Ryan Caw	138,800
4	Nicholas Katovsky	132,400
5	Paul Johnston	125,600
6	Mark Vella	116,200
7	Henrik Juncker	103,900
8	Matteo Intiso	102,000
9	Antonio Chemi	90,100
10	Kasjusz Zycinski	88,400

Ladies Smash It Out of the Park

By far the biggest Ladies Event ever held at the Battle of Malta was won by Neena Patel after a three-way even chop with Melanie McHale and Fiorinda Sena. They each took €3,340 with the British player taking the trophy. A total of 158 ladies entered the ACR Poker sponsored tournament, including host Casey Lloyd, of Storage Wars fame, although she busted early and jumped into the Super High Roller.

Defending champion Flavia Guedes also took her  seat for this one, but only made it to the half-way point of the tournament. Maili Tannbaum, who was runner up at the last edition sneaked into the prize money, as did Ebony Kennedy.

Three-Way Chop in Shark Bay EuroRounders Bounty

A further 95 players joined on the second and final day of the €300 Shark Bay EuroRounders Bounty for a total field of 649 entries, for a prize pool of almost €63k, not including bounties. After Jeff Sluzinski had been Boski’d out in 4th place, the remaining three did a deal. The tournament was won by Belgian Johan de Clerq, taking down €9,210 plus the trophy.

Side Event Roundup

Three other events were completed on Tuesday at the Battle of Malta, all with massive fields.

• The Novibet Ultradeep PKO, with 622 entries ended in an even 7-way chop, with all taking €9,925, with German Nico Benz taking the trophy and the extra €10 that was symbolically set aside for the winner.
• The Qui Goico €200 NLH had 315 entries and also resulted in a six-way deal, but this wasn’t an even chop. The players in positions 2-6 all took €4,000, but winner Edward Oakes from the UK, took more than double that, €8,280.
• Italian Manuel Persico won the final €330 Pot Limit Omaha of the week, defeating a field of 107 runners to trouser the €7,615 first prize.

Congratulations to all!

The full results of these and all other events at the Autumn Edition can be found in the results section.

Tuesday’s Schedule at the Battle of Malta

Tuesday is the last full day of tournaments at the 2025 Battle of Malta Autumn Edition. It’s also the day that the Main Event will play down to its final table of eight.

The High Roller, which set a new standard for the BOM, with 714 entries, resumes at 2pm for its third unscheduled day. Also at 2pm, the ACR Super High Roller begins its second day, with registration still open for the first three levels of play.

The non-Hold’em schedule completes today with the €330 H.O.R.S.E at 5pm and there are four further Hold’em tournaments taking place.

Time	Tournament Name	Buy-in	Stack	Levels
14:00	BOM Day 4 1,500,000 GTD (short clock 24 players left)	–	–	90 min
14:00	ACR POKER SUPER HIGH ROLLER (start from level 8) Final Day	€2,000+€200	50K	40/50 min
15:00	IPC Turbo DeepStack €10,000 GTD	€360+€40	50K	15 min
16:00	HORSE	€300+€30	30K	25 min
17:00	NLH White Knight	€340+€60	30K	20 min
19:00	NLH Dark Knight	€170+€30	20K	20 min
21:00	NLH HYPERTURBO	€130+€20	20K	10 min