Antoine Talvard

The 2023 Battle of Malta Spring Edition €600 Main Event kicked off its first of five opening flights with a bang with 273 entries getting into the mix. It seems based on this alone that the €500,000 guarantee will be decimated but time will tell by how much.

The day ended Antoine Talvard parlayed his 25,000 opening stack into a massive pile of 691,000 in chips to end Day 1a with the chip lead. Talvard snagged the chip lead early in the day and never looked back. In the process, he ruined the Day 1a dreams of many players.

Meanwhile, old-school Italian poker legend Dario Minieri was in the house and advanced with the second most chips with 605,500. Minieri and Karev Tralla were going back and forth with both winning big pots against each other and other players at the table as well. Tralla built up his stack to 300,000 in chips but lost a bit of his stack after doubling two short-stacked players before losing a pot of more than 300,000 when his queen-ten suited didn’t get there against Minieri’s aces. At this point, it appeared possible for the first time that Talvard’s chip lead was in jeopardy but Talvard kept plugging away and should be able to sleep well after his amazing Day 1a performance.

Dario Minieri

There was a gap between these two players and the rest of the field. Pachalis Papadopoulos was the only other player to bag over 400,000, while Vitali Raffaele and Guilio Di Salvo were the only two other players to advance with more than 300,000. Several other players passed 200,000 to end the night including Francesco Ipogino, Rob Hendrikx, Fabio Peluso, Marcus Larsson, Egidijus Digrys, and Josef Gulas.

Players Advancing With More Than 200K on Day 1a

The Main Event action will resume at 1 p.m. tomorrow for the start of Day 1b. Both Arved and I wish y’all a good night and hope to see you back with us for all of your Battle of Malta updates tomorrow.