Day 1ef

The action stepped up another notch on Friday at the Battle of Malta Autumn Edition, with a seam bursting day that saw a total of 1,317 entries combined across both starting days of the €1.5m Main Event. In total there have now been 2,770 entries with three starting days to go. All in all, its shaping up to be one of the biggest in Battle of Malta history and could potentially become the biggest of all-time.

Here’s a roundup of Friday’s action from Casino Malta and the Eden Arena at the Intercontinental Hotel.

Day 1e of the Main Event 

Friday’s daytime Day 1e, a full price €600 buy-in flight was the largest so far, with 940 entries getting into the mix. The day ended with 141 players finding a bag into Sunday’s Day 2 and saw three players finish with over 800,000 in chips to earn the flight’s leaderboard bonuses. 

All the players that advanced will already be in the money for at least an €800 min-cash.

Italy’s Cecilia Pascaglini proudly bagged 889,000 to earn the honors of the Day 1e chip lead. This awarded her a whopping €10,000 bonus for an amazing return already on the Main Event. 

Cecilia Pascaglini

Fellow Italian Francesco Tino earned €5,000 for ending the day with 822,000 in chips, while Greece’s Ioannis Diamantopoulos earned €3,000 for his third-place finish in the opening flight with 802,000 in chips.

The top 10 chip counts from the flight.

Check out the full chip from Day 1e in this blog post

Day 1f Half Price

Day 1f was a half-price €300 opening flight in which the rules were different, to create parity with the regular €600 opening flight. The 40,000 opening stack was halved to 20,000, as were the blind levels from 40 to 20 minutes. 

Also, instead of 15 percent advancing, just 7.5 percent get through from these flights. Additionally, the end-of-day bonuses are awarded to the top two players (instead of the top three), with a total of €7,000 in bonuses instead of €18,000.

Day 1f witnessed 417 entries getting into the mix, with just 31 players finding a bag. On Sunday’s Day 2, they will start the day with at least a minimum amount of cash in hand worth €800.

Anthony Loots bagged the Day 1f chip lead after catapulting his 20,000 stack into 716,000. This was good enough for him to earn the €5,000 bonus, while Vladyslav Sikikhin earned an extra €2,000 for bagging the runner-up stack with 561,000.

These are the top ten finishers for the flight.

The full list of chip counts for all 31 Day 1f survivors can be found here.

Mystery Siege Won By Dennis Stemmler for €41,200

The Mystery Siege of Malta also had a huge final starting flight and it could have been even bigger, however it reached its operational capacity and registration had to be capped earlier than expected. 354 players managed to get in before registration was closed, bringing the total number of entries up to 1,034. The final prize pool was quadruple the €100,000 guarantee.

The victor was Dennis Stemmler for €41,200 with Richard Koppel in second (€34,100). It was a late finishing event and we will deliver further details about how it unfolded and who won the big bounties in a dedicated post during today’s blog coverage.

Winamax 6-Max Day 1b

The €400 Winamax 6-Max saw a further 106 players join the 80 who played in Thursday’s opening flight, 16 of whom made it into Day 2 and guaranteed themselves a payday. In total 28 players will return at 3pm, when the prize prizes will be confirmed. The chip leader going into the final day is Italian Pasquale Gregorio, who has 555,500 chips. Check the blog later this afternoon for the full list of chip counts and the final day seating draw.

Satellites News

Friday’s satellites produced a further 69 Main Event seat winners. It would have been much more, but the evening satellite had to be capped due to the high attendance in both of the day’s Main Event flights. There is one further Main Event satellite on Saturday morning and this evening the satellite slot at 9pm switches focus to the Quigioco High Roller, which begins on Sunday afternoon.

Friday’s Side Event Results

In addition to the Mystery Siege of Malta, two other tournaments produced winners on Friday. 

Frankie Chan won the Redtooth private event to take the £5,000 first prize, defeating a field of 49 players in a good natured event, which served as the seasonal final for the UK Pub Poker organization. Colin Broadbent was the runner up for £2,500 while Benjamin Wilkins claimed third for £1,500. One of the other finalists, Scott Hattersley even proposed to his girlfriend on the event’s final table live stream, which host Glenn Brown provided a running commentary for. She said yes!

Congratulations to Akos Palhazi, who won the evening’s €330 Pot Limit Omaha, which was contested by 40 players. He took the €3,870 first prize, defeating Wai Lun Lam heads up. Estonia’s Jaan Vaabel sneaked into the money in this one, finishing in 6th place.

Full results of these and all other completed events can be found on the results page.

Saturday’s Action At The Battle of Malta

Saturday is traditionally the biggest day for the Main Event at the Battle of Malta and if yesterday was anything to go by, we could be in for an absolute behemoth of day. With two further Main Event starting days taking place and already over €1m collected in the prize pool, the €1.5m guarantee is sure to be surpassed in Day 1g, which begins at 1pm.

Day 1g, the final half price (€300) flight begins at 8pm and is also likely to be busier than any of its previous sibling flights, the biggest of which so far was Friday’s Day 1f, which had 417 entries.

The only remaining Main Event satellite is the first event of the day. It begins at 11am and has 10 x 20 min levels for late registration.

The Winamax 6-Max event has reached its final day and resumes at 3pm

Two sponsored €300 No Limit Hold’em tournaments are taking place today, the first of which is the NLH MAS event at 4pm, with the NLH Netwin360 at 6pm.

There is another  €330(€300+€30) Pot Limit Omaha today at 5pm and the first satellite for the Quigioco High Roller is scheduled for 9pm. There is also a €150 Hyper Turbo on the plan for 10pm.

Unfortunately due to just how much demand there was for players to play in both the full price and half price Main Event starting days, two of the tournaments on Friday had to be cancelled, the Dark Knight and the Hyper Turbo. Caps may be required to be placed on some events on Saturday and players are advised to buy-in early.

Day 1f of the 2024 Battle of Malta Autumn Edition Main Event at Casino Malta and the Eden Arena at the InterContinental Malta boasted a half-price €300 opening flight. The rules were different to create parity with the regular €600 opening flight. The 40,000 opening stack was halved to 20,000, as were the blind levels from 40 to 20 minutes.

This is not all, as instead of 15 percent advancing, just 7.5 percent was slated for these flights. Also, the end-of-day bonuses are awarded to the top two players instead of the top three, with a total of €7,000 in bonuses instead of €18,000.

Day 1f witnessed 417 entries getting into the mix, with just 31 players finding a bag. On Sunday’s Day 2, they will start the day with at least a minimum amount of cash in hand worth €800.

Anthony Loots bagged the Day 1f chip lead after catapulting his 20,000 stack into 716,000. This was good enough for him to earn the €5,000 bonus, while Vladyslav Sikikhin earned an extra €2,000 for bagging the runner-up stack on Day 1f with 561,000. Check out the full chip counts below from the 31 Day 1f survivors.

Friday’s daytime Day 1e, boasting a €600 buy-in, to the 2024 Battle of Malta Main Event was the largest thus far with 940 entries getting into the mix.

The day ended with 141 players finding a bag, and Sunday’s Day 2 saw three players finish with over 800,000 in chips to earn the flight’s leaderboard bonuses. All the players that advanced will already be in the money for at least an €800 min-cash.

Italy’s Cecilia Pascaglini proudly bagged 889,000 to earn the honors of the Day 1e chip lead. This awarded her a whopping €10,000 bonus for an amazing return already on the Main Event. Fellow Italian Francesco Tino earned €5,000 for ending the day with 822,000 in chips, while Greece’s Ioannis Diamantopoulos earned €3,000 for his third-place finish in the opening flight with 802,000 in chips.

Check out the full chip counts below from Day 1e:

It’s now pumpkin time for the bogging team and we are packing up and heading off to our beds to prepare for what will certainly be the busiest day yet for the Battle of Malta Autumn Edition. 

The Main Event Day 1e did not quite get to 1,000 entries, but went close, ending up at 940 when registration closed at the end of level 10. They have just started level 14 and there are 340 players left, 141 of whom will be returning on Sunday for Day 2. 

Day 1f, the third of the half-price starting days is also still running and late registration has just closed, with 417 entries and 173 players still in. 

The Mystery Siege is down to the last 43 players and as recently reported, the first batch of bounties were drawn during the recent break, but none of the big one have been won yet.

The Pot Limit Omaha and is now on the final table with eight players left in and the evening’s Main Event satellite is up to 299 entries and still accepting registrations.

The Winamax 6-Max Day 1b is also very close to the end of play, requiring just 5 more exits before they get down to the last 16, who will join the 12 who made it through to Day 2 from yesterday’s flight.

The first mystery bounties were pulled during the first break of Day 2 of the Siege of Malta. There are now 50 of the 154 players who started Day 2 left in the tournament and 104 of the bounties have now been won.

However, only 36 of the bounties were drawn during the break and all of the big prizes still remain to be won. The largest prize won so far is €5,000 but the majority of those claimed so far have been min-payouts of either €500 or €700.

They have now resumed play and further bounties will be drawn on the next break.

Day 2 of the Mystery Siege of Malta began at 9pm after a forced delay due to the late finish of Day 1d, which had 354 entries. It was a fast a furious start to the business end of the tournament, with 60 players being eliminated within the first 40 minutes of play. One of these early casualties was remarkably the chip leader at the start of the Day 2, Vlasios Argyris. He had 831,000 chips and is now out, although we’re not sure what the cruel twist of events was that caused his demise.

As its a Mystery Bounty tournament, Day 2 is much more exciting than the opening days as everyone is in the money and every knockout equals a bounty, which could be as much as €40,000! The second biggest bounty is €20,000. To put these top mystery prizes into perspective, the winner of the tournament will win less than the lucky player who pulls the biggest bounty. This is what they’re playing for.

Final Table Prizes

1. €35,000
2. €20,800
3. €12,130
4. €9,540
5. €7,250
6. €5,860
7. €4,540
8. €3,430
9. €2,620

Bounties

€40,000 x 1 

€20,000 x 1 

€10,000 x 1

€5,000 x 3

€3,000 x 6

€2,000 x 9

€1,000 x 23

€700 x 39 

€500 x 71

The bounties all get pulled during the breaks in play. The first break is at the end of level 23, which will be at about 11.20pm.

Vlasios Argyris quickly went from Hero to chip count Zero

Tonight’s main event satellite is preparing to start in the downstairs Poker room at the intercontinental hotel. Due to the extremely busy nature of today, this tournament had a soft cap of 150 players placed on it and all seats have been filled before the tournament started. Depending on how fast other tournaments are moving, it’s possible that additional tables may be opened up. In fact, just as this is being published more tables have been added and the attendance has jumped up quickly.

Also taking place downstairs today is today’s €330 Pot Limit Omaha tournament, which is now in the ninth level of the day and 17 of the 40 entrants are still in. Late registration is not yet closed in this tournament.

The third tournament running in the downstairs room is Day 1b of the Winamax 6-Max. It’s now the 11th level and registration recently closed with 106 players being the final number. There are still 32 left and they will play down to 16 remaining at the end of the day, returning tomorrow for Day 2.

In other news, tonight’s €150 Hyper Turbo has also been cancelled.

The final day of the record-breaking €450 Mystery Siege of Malta began at 9 p.m. Some excitement is awaiting the 154 entries from the massive field of 1,034 entries attracted during the four opening flights for a piece of the €196,077 in prizes on tap. This is not all as there will be €206,800 in prizes on the line in mystery bounties as well today with the first bounties scheduled to be open on the first break. Expect some drama and some excitement with bounties ranging from €400 all the way up to €40,000 with a €20,000 bounty in the mix as well.

Vlasios Argyris will be in the captain’s seat to kick off the action with 831,000. This is good for 83 big blinds with the action beginning at 5,000/10,000 with a big blind ante of 10,000. The blinds will move up a little slower with 30-minute levels as opposed to the 20-minute levels featured during the opening flights.

Best of luck to all of the Mystery Siege of Malta players in collecting some big bounties. Check out the top 10 chip counts below heading into the final day.

Leslie John Alfred Lema Lamnea

Almost simultaneously, Day 1e has gone on dinner break, just as the half-price Day 1f is getting started. So far 144 players have entered and the clock has been running for less that ten minutes. So far just one player has made the walk of shame and that player is the UK’s Paul Fisher. Unlucky fella!

• Event: Battle of Malta Day 1f
• Buy-In: €300 (€265+€35)
• Tournament Began: 8pm
• Starting Stack: 20,000
• Blind levels: 20 mins
• Play Ends: When 7.5% of the field remain
• Play Resumes: Day 2 begins at 8pm on Sunday 3rd November

Draculana Rimfire

With the Main Event Day 1e approaching its dinner break, here’s a glance at what’s going on around the room.

Battle of Malta Main Event Day 1e

• Current Level: 9
• Players Left/Entries: 524/890
• Who’s Out: Steven Watts, Martin Tsvetanov, Sascha Manns
• Who’s Still In: Gabriele Re, Vasileios Zisis, Natalie Bromley, Mario Eder, Steve Tucker

Its creeping towards the 1,000 mark and may well get there, with still two levels and a 75-minute dinner break before the registration desk closes for the flight.  The prize pool has now organically reached €1m and the guarantee of €1.5m is the next target to broach!

The previous two winners of the Battle of Malta are both playing today, Vasileios Zisis and Gabriele Re. Also in today’s field is a former colleague of mine from my Blue Square days, Steve Tucker, who was head of the sports-desk in that company, which no longer exists, but was the first online bookie to open in the UK, back at the end of the 20th century.

Mystery Siege of Malta Day 1d

The Mystery Siege of Malta Day 1d is approaching the end of of the flight with 69 left in, but they will play on until they reach 53 players. When play resumes for Day two, it has been revealed that the top mystery bounty will be €40,000 and the next biggest will be €20,000.

• Current Level: 19
• Players Left/Entries: 69/354
• Who’s Out: Soner Vanelderen, Daragh Davey
• Who’s In: Daniel Maunders, Shaun Decesare

Winamax 6-Max Day 1b

The Winamax sponsored 6-Max event is up to 100 entries now today, with just under half of then still in. Marc Hunter, from London is still in, however Main Event chip leader Humberto Galindo has recently exited. Late registration closes in less than an hour.

• Current Level: 9
• Players Left/Entries: 46/100
• Who’s Out: Ian Herbert, Humberto Galindo
• Who’s Still In: Marc Hunter, James Paris

Pot Limit Omaha

The PLO is on its dinner break now and is a smaller field than yesterday, due to being capped at 5 tables. Registration is still open and seats are available.

• Current Level: Dinner Break
• Players Left/Entries: 26/37
• Who’s Out: Pangiotis Petrou, Pangiotis Petrou (2nd bullet)
• Who’s Still In: Soner Vanelderen, Jaan Vaabel

“So as I was saying, a flush beats a straight and try not to purse your lips when you’re bluffing”

Level 9: 500/1,000 (1,000)
Entries: 559/875

The Main Event is well on its way to smash the lofty €1.5 million guarantee with more than €1 million contributed to the prize pool with more than 2,300 entries in the mix including 875 entries today.

Level 9 just began with blinds at 500/1,000 with a big blind ante of 1,000. After this level, players will head off to a 75-minute dinner break. Players will battle for one more blind level before late registration will close for Day 1e. Shortly after, the floor will announce how many players will advance to Sunday’s Day 2 via this opening flight.

In related news, the €300 half-price opening flight to the Main Event is still on track to kick off at its 8 p.m. start time followed by the €450 Mystery Siege of Malta at its new time at 9 p.m.

Marriage proposals were accepted and a champion was just crowned in the £12,500 guaranteed Redtooth Poker Malta 52. Frankie Chan defeated 48 other entries including Colin Broadhead heads-up to earn the £5,000 top prize.

Chan was elated during the interview just conducted during my walkaround on Facebook live and shared that this was his first trophy from a live poker event. He shared that he played well, which was confirmed later by Redtooth Poker host Glenn Brown, and had fun with even players he didn’t previously know.

His new friends and about three dozen others were railing the final table as Brown live streamed the action on the Redtooth Poker Facebook page en route to victory. This was likely not a fluke, as Chan shared he has won a five-figure cash before online and enjoys poker as a hobby.

This is not all, as we previously reported that Scott Hattersley proposed to his wife while playing at the final table.

Spoiler alert: She said yes!

This is one of the many aspects that Battle of Malta shines with as the support to the grassroots poker community is evident with all players qualifying into this invite-only poker holiday for just £22.

Congrats to Chan and well done to all involved in what proved to be a successful event.

The final starting day of the Mystery Siege of Malta was oversubscribed today and registration closed early as it had reached its operational capacity. It is still in play now with 82 left and they need to get down to 53 players before Day 2 can begin. That was due to start at 7pm, but has been delayed until 9pm, or as soon as possible once Day 1d concludes.

Still left in today field of challengers is Daniel Maunders, the Battle of Malta Spring edition runner up. He tried but failed to secure his Day 2 seat yesterday and has come back today for another pop at the Mystery Bounty cherry.

The Battle of Malta is many things to many people. We thought we saw it all over the years but something new just happened.

Before Scott Hattersley busted in fifth place in the Redtooth Malta 52, he proposed to his now fiance over the live stream on the Redtooth Poker Facebook page commentated by Glenn Brown.

Glenn was busy getting his paperwork for his payout when he learned that his fiance said yes!

This led to a round of applause throughout the Redtooth poker community.

Congrats to Scott on making plans to tie the knot and best of luck to the soon-to-be groom the rest of the way at the Battle of Malta.

Level 7: 300/600 (600)
Entries: 591/814

Today’s starting day of the Main Event is indeed the monster we referred to in an earlier post. It now passed the 800 mark and players are continuing to register at a fairly steady pace. They are only in level 7 at the moment and with a 75-minute dinner break scheduled for after level 9, there’s still a long way to until registration closes at the end of level 10. Could we be looking at a four figure flight today? 

Over 800 in the Main Event Day 1e

The Redtooth Malta 52 has reached its final table with players already in the money battling for the £5,000 top prize and the coveted trophy.

Just five players are remaining with Colin Broadhead, Frankie Chan, Richard Sharpe, Benjamin Wilkins, and Scott Hattersley all competing for the honor of becoming this year’s champion. All players in this event qualified for just £22 and regardless of where they finish, they will have an amazing return and great poker holiday in Malta after qualifying for just £22.

Glenn Brown has been commentating the action on the Redtooth Poker Facebook page and in addition to those viewing the stream there (which this author will soon join), there is also a sizeable rail of around 30 poker players cheering on the action.

The Redtooth Poker events mark many of the things that this author loves about poker and was one of the main drivers to my involvement on the industry side. Grassroots poker needs more love, so a massive shoutout for all the great things that Redtooth Poker and other grassroots organizations do to keep poker fun and bring more people into the game.

Malta’s poker events attract a large number of players to the islands several times a year and the impact upon the local economy has not gone un-noticed by the Maltese government.

Silvio Schembri, the Government Minister for the Economy & Industry paid an unexpected visit to the Battle of Malta today. It was expected by the casino management of course, but was a surprise for most people to see him on the tournament floor.

Telly Bartolo, the Battle of Malta’s Director of Logistics commented that “It’s great to see the Government taking an interest in Malta’s poker industry,” adding that he would also be interesting to see Silvio at the tables, “maybe he will return one day as a player!”

Silvio Schembri

November 1st is also known as the Day of the Dead and we’ve had one casualty here at the Eden Arena today. Tonight’s Dark Knight side event, which was due to start at 6pm has had to be cancelled due to high attendance in today’s Mystery Siege of Malta. There is one more outing planned for the DK on Tuesday, by which time today’s corpse will have been dug up and re-animated.

Dark Knight Cancelled This Evening

Today’s Pot Limit Omaha has recently started and due to issues with the Siege taking longer than usual, its capacity is now capped at 5 tables. It therefore won’t be as busy as yesterday’s PLO, which had 78 entries. So far there are 15 players taking part, including Vladimir Cocis, who took third place in yesterday’s Omaha.

• Buy-In: €330 (€300+€30)
• Tournament Began: 5pm
• Starting Stack: 30,000
• Blind levels: 25 mins
• Play Ends: When we have a winner!

Four Aces (not that good in Omaha though)

It’s time to go down memory lane. We will go back in time to 2019 when the final Battle of Malta was hosted on the island before the pandemic halted the world.

That event attracted a massive field of 4,657 entries to recreate a ginormous prize pool of €2,258,645. Both of these figures might be records that will be broken five years later during the 2024 Battle of Malta Autumn Edition.

Back in 2019, the Main Event created one of the most memorable heads-up situations in poker history with Dutch poker hero Steven van Zadelhoff had Serghi Lisii on the ropes. Lisii made a massive comeback in the heads-up battle lasting around 6 hours and eventually had “The Viking” on the ropes himself. Van Zadelhoff mounted a comeback and the duo agreed to a heads-up deal leaving plenty of money to be played for. Eventually, Lisii completed the upset and won the €247,167 top prize, while “The Viking” collected €217,167 after the conclusion of a heads-up battle this author was commentating with “The Tower” from beginning until the end.

Serghei Lisii

It has just been announced that the start of Day 2 of the Mystery Siege of Malta has been delayed until 9pm. The management extends its apologies to players for the delay, which was necessary to enable the fourth starting flight to complete, as there are still 181 players left and it will be unlikely to finish before the original re-start time of 7pm.

Due to the capacity issues experienced today, tonight’s Pot Limit Omaha has been capped at five tables. Players intending to play are advised to buy-in early.

Level 5: 200/400 (400)
Entries: 583/664

Nicola Stagi checked with about 25,000 already in the pot and the Q♠3♣3♦ already on the board. Marius Agica fired out for 11,000. Emmanouil Livanos and Stagi both called to see the 4♠ turn.

Stagi checked again before Agica went into the tank. He eventually jammed for around 65,000. Livanos called off his stack of around 28,000 not too much later before Stagi snap-folded.

“Do you have aces?” Agica asked Livanos.

Emmanouil Livanos: Q♠Q♥
Marius Agica: K♣K♥

It wasn’t aces but the situation was just as bad with Agica flopping the world to improve to a full house. Livanos just needed to sweat two outs with one card to come. The blank 2♠ wasn’t one of those cards for Livanos to scoop a massive pot.

Emmanouil Livanos: 120,000
Nicola Stagi – 65,000
Marius Agica – 30,000

Level 4: 100/300 (300)
Entries: 577/640

Day 1e of the Battle of Malta Main Event has already attracted 640 entries to make it the largest flight thus far. The total Battle of Main Event field has already surpassed 2,000 entries with late registration still open for quite some time and four more opening flights to go.

The prize pool contributions are getting closer and closer to passing the €1.5 million guarantee with more than €900,000 already contributed towards the prize pool.

Main Event Satellite

• Current Level: 12
• Players Left/Entries: 58/409
• Seats To Be Awarded: 40

Late registration is now closed in today’s early satellite, which has generated a further 40 seats into the Main Event. There are still 26 of these to be awarded and 58 players are left fighting for them.

Battle of Malta Main Event Day 1e

• Current Level: 4
• Players Left/Entries: 531/577
• Who’s Out: Alfredo Cuti, Sally Stephens, Dimitrios Dimitros
• Who’s Still In: Absolutely loads of players, far too many to mention individually

Today Main Event flight is the officially the biggest one so far, with almost 600 players getting involved by the fourth level of the day. This is way ahead of where we were at this stage yesterday and this starting flight may yet become a monster.

Mystery Siege of Malta Day 1d

Sadly, the Mystery Siege of Malta Day 1d became too popular and regiostration had to be closed ahead of the scheduled ten levels that had been originally planned. there were 354 entrants in the tournament and 53 of them will progress to the second day, which begins this evening.

• Current Level: 9
• Players Left/Entries: 214/354
• Who’s Out: David Lappin
• Who’s In: Daragh Davey, Daniel Maunders, Shaun Decesare, Kevin Houghton

Winamax 6-Max Day 1b

The Winamax sponsored 6-Max event has two levels left for late entry. There have now been 77 entries in the event, with one of the recent players to join being online maestro Andrew Wilson.

• Current Level: 1
• Players Left/Entries: 39/39
• Who’s Out: Nobody yet
• Who’s Still In: James Paris

Redtooth Private Event

The Redtooth private event is also taking place today and is being played in good spirit. Sadly for Uk legend Paul Romain, he was the first player to be eliminated, but hey, that’s poker!

The second starting day of the €400 Winamax 6-Max has just begun, with 25 players in their seats when the cards hit the air for the opening hands. Amongst those starting today is James Paris, who scooped a bonus prize of €5,000 in yesterday’s Day 1c of the Main Event for bagging the second biggest stack of the flight.

• Buy-In: €400 (€340+€60)
• Tournament Began: 3pm
• Starting Stack: 30,000
• Blind levels: 30 mins
• Late Registration: 10 Levels
• Play Resumes: Day 2 begins at 3pm on Saturday 2nd November

Level 3: 100/200 (200)
Entries: 471/506

The first 20-minute break of Day 1e is about 10 minutes away. In the meantime, the field has already grown to 506 entries and counting. This is just 27 entries behind the 533 entries attracted during yesterday’s Day 1c, which will likely happen shortly after the action resumes after the break.

Level 3: 100/200 (200)
Entries: 449/475

The Day 1e field continues to grow and will be the largest to date by the time late registration is closed before the start of Level 11.

Two former Battle of Malta Main Event champions from Greece are in the mix including 2022 Battle of Malta Autumn Edition champion Dimitrios Anastasakis and the defending champion Vasileios Zisis from the 2024 Battle of Malta Spring Edition.

The first break in the action will take place after Level 3, and another 20-minute break will take place after Level 6. The 75-minute dinner break will take place after Level 9. Time will tell whether Anastasakis or Zisis or another former Main Event champion will become the first two-time champion of this prestigious poker event.

Two events were completed yesterday and both were won by Polish players. Congratulations to Gregorz Wyraz and Michal Janczarski. They came (from Warsaw), they saw, (they went to war) and they conquered!

Pot Limit Omaha (Halloween Edition)

• Buy-In: €330
• Entries: 78
• Prize Pool: €22,230

No Limit Hold’em Dark Knight (Halloween Edition)

• Buy-In: €200
• Entries: 85
• Prize Pool: €13,728

War Sword

Level 2: 100/100 (100)
Entries: 405/420

Players continued to file into the Main Event with the Day 1e field now up to 420 entries. This also brings the total field up to 1,833 entries with the €1.5 million guarantee more than halfway met already.

Level 2: 100/100 (100)
Entries: 390/396

There was around 25,000 in the pot with the 5♠T♥6♠8♦5♥ on the board when Nicola Stagi jammed for around a pot-sized bet. Alessio Vichi went into the tank for a few minutes before he announced a call.

Stagi made sure it was a call before he tabled his 6♦6♥ for a full house. Vichi was left with crumbs after tabling the A♦T♣ for two pair.

Meanwhile, Vichi dusted off the few chips he had left soon

Nicola Stagi – 75,000
Alessio Vichi – 0

Nicola Stagi

Level 1: 100/100
Entries: 359/360

The reporting team was just taking notice that today was the first day that multiple players didn’t hit the rail during the first blind level while 400 big blinds deep. The action almost made it through the entire first level but Roger Elster hit the rail as the final minutes were ticking off to become the first player out on Day 1c.

Meanwhile, the blinds have just gone up but the 400 big blind opening stack still remains with blinds at 100/100 with a big blind ante of 100.

With the fifth starting day of the Battle of Malta Autumn Edition Main Event now underway, let’s take a look at the overall figures so far.

With already 360 players in Day 1e the current total is now 1,775

Space is getting tight, so we recommend today and tomorrow to register for events well before they start to secure your seat. The €450 Mystery Siege of Malta has been on fire all week long including today with 354 entries already getting into the mix.

The Siege has now been capped with the tournament director announcing to the players that the flight was now a freezeout for its final opening flight that began at 11:30 a.m.

Additionally, this event far exceeded even the Battle of Malta’s expectations as the €100,000 guarantee was smashed on the first opening day. Registration wasn’t cut off in time for running out of chips in the chipset, so a quick solution was made to cancel today’s Dark Knight and add that chipset into play. One more change is that Level 6 will be repeated because time was lost while chips were being exchanged. The Battle of Malta realizes this isn’t the ideal situation, but feel this was a good solution under the circumstances. Apologies to any players affected and best of luck advancing to Day 2.

Meanwhile, get ready for some fun and excitement when Day 2 of this prestigious event begins at 7 p.m. Players will already be in the money but will also collect mystery prizes for each player that is eliminated. The event has not only smashed the €100,000 guarantee but also will establish a new record with more than 1,000 entries already.

Level 1: 100/100
Entries: 240/240

It is looking like a banner field to kick off the €600 buy-in Day 1e at the 2024 Battle of Malta Autumn Main Event. The room is buzzing with activity with tons of players in both the €60 satellite to start the day and the final of four opening flights in the €450 Mystery Siege of Malta.

Meanwhile, the Main Event added another 240 entries to the already busy room. Alfredo Cuti, Maria Kalantzi, Steponas Venckus, and 2024 Battle of Malta Spring Edition Main Event champion Vasileios Zasis are all among the early entries.

• Event: €450 Mystery Siege of Malta
• Level: 5
• Day 1d Entries: 317/348
• Total Entries: 1,035

The fourth and final starting flight of the Siege of Malta began at 11am and as predicted, its a belter and its sure to be the busiest of the opening legs. It’s currently in level five and with 348 in so far, the total combined field has now exceeded 1,000 entries. The prize pool is now excess of €400,000, four times the guarantee!

Amongst those taking part today is Daragh Davey, who has now presumably forgotten all about yesterday’s 6-max and will be setting his sights on a seat in Day 2 and a shot at the mystery bounties. Other players spotted taking part today include Shaun Decesare, Daniel Maunders, Mark Anthony Vella and Soner Vanelderen. We’ll update you further on how its going as the day progresses.

Daragh Davey “enjoying” the Winamax 6-max

Redtooth visited the Battle of Malta last year for a private event dubbed the Malta 52, where 52 players from the United Kingdom have earned their invites through various local initiatives to play for a £12,500 prize pool. The event was a massive success for the grassroots poker community and they have returned for what promises to be another fun event at the Battle of Malta.

Redtooth’s Glenn Brown made some announcements to the crowd after welcoming all the players as they began to file in with laughter. Brown will be live on Facebook for his famous final table stream. This author will join for a short time for the excitement as the action gets closer to the money before one player wins the £5,000 top prize.

Best of luck to all of the Redtooth players both in this private event and if they play in any of the open Battle of Malta events on the schedule this week.

Redtooth Malta 52

The second full day of Battle of Malta Autumn edition was another busy one at the….cut cut cut, stop! Start again…

Its usual in these kind of poker event reports to reference how busy the event was on the day being reported on. But when it comes to the Battle of Malta, every day is usually a busy one, so it’s really not necessary to labour the point. It was packed, you get the picture!

It was Halloween yesterday and those who made it in to the Eden Arena at Casino Malta and the Intercontinental hotel by 1pm, were treated to a spooky start to the day, with a horror themed opening day starting ceremony. There were ghosts, there were ghouls, there were skeletons, a lot of scary nuns and even a fake Sheikh. The TD, hosts and Telly put on a dramatic display and one of the most memorable opening day ceremonies to-date.

Over 500 Contest Day 1c of the Main Event 

A total of 533 runners battled it out on a marathon of a day in which 80 players (15 %) advanced to Sunday’s Day 2 and are already in the money.

Bulgaria’s Ivalylo Eftimov earned the €10,000 chip leader bonus for Day 1c after spinning his 40,000 starting stack up to 817,000 to squeeze past Malta’s James Paris who earned a €5,000 bonus for second place after bagging 804,000. Georgia’s Ivane Khazaradze was a bit further behind this group but earned the €3,000 third place bonus for finishing with a stack of 681,000.

Ivaylo Efitmov

This trio is still well behind both the Day 1a chip leaders Humberto Lopez Galindo (1,146,000) and Michael Kim Falcon (1,106,000).

Here are the top 10 chip counts from the Day 1c flight below.

The full list of chip counts can be found in this previous blog post by Jason Count Von Glatzer

Jason Glatzer

21 Progress from Day 1d

Day 1d of the 2024 Battle of Malta Autumn Edition Main Event at Casino Malta and the Eden Arena at the InterContinental Malta was the second of the half-price €300 opening flight on the schedule. The format has been adjusted to create parity with the regular €600 opening flight. The 40,000 opening stack has been halved to 20,000, as have the blind levels, from 40 to 20 minutes.

But that’s not all, as instead of 15 percent advancing, just 7.5 percent will progress from these flights. Also, the end-of-day bonuses are awarded to the top two players instead of the top three, with a total of €7,000 in bonuses instead of €18,000.

Day 1d witnessed 274 entries getting into the half-price mix, with just 21 of them finding a bag. On Sunday’s Day 2, they will start the day with at least a minimum amount of cash in hand, worth €800.

Jorris Neron posted the Day 1d chip lead after nurturing his 20,000 stack up to 62,000. This was good enough for him to earn the €5,000 bonus, while Bartosz Jablonski banked an extra €2,000 for bagging the runner-up stack on Day 1d with 502,000. Here are the top ten chip counts below from the 10 Day 1b survivors.

The full list of chip counts for all 21 Day 1d survivors can be found here.

Jorris Neron

Mystery Siege Gets Even Bigger

The Mystery Siege of Malta had already smashed its o €100,000 guarantee before the third of its four starting days began and it has now breached the €250,000 mark! After the first two starting days it had had 350 entries and a further 330 entered on Day 1c alone to bring the running total up to 680 with one day to go. No details of chip counts are available at present, but check the blog throughout the day, as we will update on this when the information becomes available.

Winamax 6-Max Day 1a

The €400 Winamax 6-Max has the best structure of the festival, according to Irish player Daragh Davey, who dropped by the media desk yesterday, sadly for him after busting, not far off the money and a place in Saturday’s Day 2. The day ended when 12 of the 80 players who began remained, with Victor Fryda bagging the chip lead on just over half a million cookies. There is a further starting day on Friday at 3pm.

Satellites Smashing It!

Thursday’s schedule was similar to that on the opening day, with nine events scheduled and it got off to a flying start, with 508 entries in the 11am satellite, producing 50 qualifiers for the Main Event. In fact both the satellites were extremely busy with a further 459 took their seat, adding another 45 entries to the tally, bringing the number of Main Event seats won this week up to 210 already. 

Polish Glory in Thursday’s Side Events

Just two events on Thursday produced winners. It should have been three, however due to the popularity of the Main Event satellites, the late night Hyper Turbo was unfortunately cancelled. The two events that did conclude were both won by Polish players. Congratulations to…

Gregorz Wyraz who won the €330 Pot Limit Omaha, outlasting a field of 78 players to claim the €6,100 first prize. Sergej Babingev took €4,350 for his second place finish while Vladimir Cocis was third for €2,850. Vladimir was also the first player to be eliminated from the tournament, but will be glad he fired a second bullet.

Michal Janczaski who was the second Polish winner of the day. He won the evening’s €200 Dark Knight, which had 85 runners. defeating Terence Ponsonby to pocket the €3,657 first prize. Ponsonby cashed for €2,530 while Spain’s Jose Matos completed the podium, taking €1,670 for his third place finish.

Results of these and all other completed events can be found on the soon to be updated results page.

Friday’s Action At The Battle of Malta

The schedule today at the Battle of Malta has many similarities with what was on offer on Thursday. The day begins with a Main Event satellite, which is already in play at the time this report was published. It has all the signs of being another smasher, with almost 300 entries before the end of the second level. There is also another Main Event satellite at 9pm.

The fourth and final starting day of the Mystery Siege of Malta is next up at 11.30am. It’s an unusually early start, but is required, in order to be completed before Day 2 of the event begins, at 7pm. Despite the early start, it’s expected to be packed as players make one last attempt to secure a shot at the mystery bounties, which kick-in on Day 2.

The next event is a private event run by Redtooth. It’s usually a fun event and we’ll report more on this during Friday’s blog coverage.

Day 1e of the Main Event begins at 1pm and could be the biggest one yet, but it has to top 533 to take that status. This flight will be the main focus of our blog coverage today.

The second of two starting days in the Winamax 6-Max event, which has a €400 buy-in (€340+€60) starts at 3pm. Today’s non Hold’em offering is another €330 (€300+€30) Pot Limit Omaha.

The single day Hold’em side events today are the €200 (€170+€30) White Knight at 6pm and the €150 (€130+€20) Hyper Turbo at 10pm.