October 19, 2023
Day 1a Chip Leader Tayfun Rodoplu
Turkey’s Tayfun Rodoplu may not have had the best start of the day after unsuccessfully firing two bullets on Day 1a of the €1.5 million guaranteed 2023 Battle of Malta €600 Main Event at Casino Malta and the Eden Arena at the Intercontinental Malta. However, the third time was a charm as he was all smiles as he built up a healthy chip lead near the end of the day before sending Emilian Mansour Diop to the rail on the bubble to end the day with an overwhelming chip lead by parlaying his 25,000 opening stack into a massive pile of 900,000 in chips.
Day 1a attracted a total of 154 entries with 23 players finishing the day in the money. 2018 Battle of Malta Main Event champion Julien Stropoli from France held the chip lead for a while until Rodoplu went on a run to remember and ended the day in decent shape with a second-place stack of 470,000. While this is still far behind Rodoplu, Stropoli finished miles ahead of his nearest competitors in Manoel Filho (215,000), Dario Marinelli (214,000), and Angelo Barone (184,000).
Check out the full chip counts from Day 1a below and we will see you back on the floor tomorrow. Until then, have an amazing evening!
| Player | Chips | Big Blinds |
| Tayfun Rodoplu | 900,000 | 225 |
| Julien Stropoli | 470,000 | 118 |
| Manoel Filho | 215,000 | 54 |
| Dario Marinelli | 214,000 | 54 |
| Angelo Barone | 184,000 | 46 |
| Dawid Szopinski | 177,000 | 44 |
| Cory Desmond | 163,500 | 41 |
| Oliver Said | 162,500 | 41 |
| Dimitrios Samantsidis | 161,500 | 40 |
| Enrico Grella | 152,500 | 38 |
| Ori Hasson | 143,500 | 36 |
| Matthew Micallef | 130,000 | 33 |
| Alessandro D’amore | 128,000 | 32 |
| Lukas Pazma | 123,000 | 31 |
| Tomas Martini | 109,000 | 27 |
| Dan Sfarlea | 94,000 | 24 |
| Taras Khilko | 76,500 | 19 |
| Yvonne Stiedl | 65,000 | 16 |
| Maria Katsourides | 56,000 | 14 |
| Antonio Papa | 54,500 | 14 |
| Jianyi Lu | 51,000 | 13 |
| Aivar Roze | 27,500 | 7 |
| Iuliana Olteanu | 24,000 | 6 |
