June 14, 2023
SERGHEI LISII WINS BATTLE OF MALTA 2019 FOR €247,167; ZADELHOFF RUNNER-UP
Moldovan player Serghei Lisii has won the Battle of Malta Main Event for €247,167 after cutting a heads-up deal with Dutch pro Steven van Zadelhoff.
Battle of Malta broke records for the eighth year running with 4,657 entries and a gigantic prize pool of €2,258,645. With 35 events on the schedule, an extra start day added to the €1 million guarantee Main Event and more than 13,000 tournament entries overall, the tournament venue was packed throughout the seven-day festival and made this year’s Battle of Malta a spectacular success.
Van Zadelhoff and Lisii cut a heads-up deal to lock up €217,167, and played it out for the additional €30k and the trophy. Click here for final table player profiles.
WCOOP champion Van Zadelhoff, who lives just minutes from the Intercontinental Hotel tournament venue, was the most experienced player at the final table but today’s €217,167 cash is certainly his biggest live tournament result. He first started playing poker in 2000 while working as a car mechanic and won the World Championship of Online Poker Main Event in 2017 for $1.6m. Live, he’s won over $2.2m, is ranked eighth on Dutch all time money list and this summer finished fifth in the EPT Barcelona High Roller for a (previous) best live cash of $209,090.
The new BOM champion Serghei Lisii has been playing poker since 2012 and relocated to Sochi last year to focus on playing live events. He bested a tough final table that included MPNPT qualifier Colum Higgins and WPT UK Main Event finalist Leo Worthington-Leese. BOM 2019 was his first visit to Malta after qualifying online with 32Red. Today’s win is more than four times his live tournament winnings to date. His best live result before tonight was finishing seventh in the WSOPE Little One for One Drop in Rozvadov two years ago for €20,710.
The Battle of Malta 2019 festival was hosted by Casino Malta and took place October 15-22 in the spacious InterContinental Arena at the InterContinental Hotel in St Julian’s.
With 4,657 entries (2,625 unique players) over five starting flights, the €555 buy-in event smashed all previous records for the event – including last year’s field of 3,816 players. The total prize pool was shared by 688 players and was more than double the €1,000,000 guarantee. The giant field included 270 players who qualified online with the MPN Poker Tour.
Among those who cashed in the record-breaking event were Scottish pro Ludovic Geilich (60th, €3,160), media influencer Dehlia de Jong (47th, €4,070), UCOP champions Niko Pakalén (48th, €4,070) and Mateusz Moolhuizen (285th, €1,720), Daragh Davey (104th, €2,260), Irish Open champions Patrick Clarke (166th, €2,030) and Ian Simpson (465th, €1,330), Patrik Antonius’ wife Maya Geller (170th, €2,030), 888poker Ambassadors Sofia Lövgren (245th, €1,810) and Ana Marquez (648th, €1,100), Betsson Ambassador Daiva Byrne (306th, €1,630), Norwegian veteran Rolf Woods (392nd, €1,470), award-winning podcasters David Lappin (400th, €1,470) and Dara O`Kearney (666th, €1,100), NordicBet Ambassador Jon Kyte (476th, €1,330), Main Event Travel CEO Fraser MacIntyre (493th, €1,330) and Irish veteran Mick McCloskey (630th, €1,170).
