Day 4 of the Battle of Malta Spring Edition’s Main Event on Monday saw 101 contenders return to the Eden Arena at the Intercontinental Hotel to fight it out for a place on the eight-player final table of the €600 buy-in event. It was also the second day of the Amazingbet €1,100 High Roller and there were a few other sides for players to get their teeth into for the last full-day of events at the festival. 

Highlights from Tuesday April 9th at the 2024 Battle of Malta Spring Edition:

• The Main Event reached its final table of eight players
• The final day of the Amazingbet €1,100 High Roller
• Frank Visser wins Non-Hold’em Games Player of the Festival with third final table
• Live updates of the penultimate day of Main Event (Day 4) on the Battle of Malta Blog
• Photos, videos, interviews and more on the Battle of Malta’s social channels Facebook and Instagram

Battle of Malta Main Event Day 4

Twenty-four players remained at the start of the fourth day of the Battle of Malta Main Event, with Estonian Rasmus Sepping holding the chip lead. By the first break the field had been reduced to 19 players. Sepping still led the way, but Marko Luska and Erik Lindqwist had closed the gap, with the Italian trio of Alfred Cuti, Antonino Calabro and former Battle of Malta Main Event Champion Giuseppe Rosa in possession of the next biggest chip stacks.

After the first break, the second session of the day saw Erik Lindqwist assume the chip lead after winning a huge pot against Rosa to move to close to 7m chips. Three further players saw their tournament lives ended in the next level, by which time Antonino Calabro had moved slightly ahead of Lindqwist.

Down to two tables, the tournament became a lot more serious for the remaining players and play slowed. During the next passage of play former champion Rosa, who had been short stacked since early in the day, cracked the Aces of Greek player Vasileios to climb up the chip charts.  This kept his dream of becoming the first ever double winner of the Battle of Malta alive.

Jan-Jost van den Bogert had a good second session of the day and after the busting Jakub Bosko in 16th place, he became the new chip leader. Short stacks Dimitrios Gkatzas and Marko Lusko were the next to depart and by the second break of the day, Jan-Joost had moved into first place in the chip counts, over 1.6m chips ahead of Lindqwist.

It was during the third session of play that the last remaining British player Daniel Maunders began to make his move for glory, when doubling up to over 8m chips in a classic AK v Queens flip, while short stacked Fotios Ntamaris kept his hopes alive with a double-up against Lindqwist.

Start of the day chip leader Rasmus Sepping wasn’t able to emulate the dominance he had shown on day three of the event and by this stage of the day, the amiable Estonian had become one of the shortest stacks remaining. He exited in 12th place, shortly after Michal Jancaski had been busted by Zisis.

The last two remaining Antoninos in the tournament (Calabro and Arigo) were the next to hit the rail, after which just nine players remained, who would then start the event’s unofficial final table.

Just one more player had to fall for the day to end and the eight finalists to be confirmed. That unfortunate soul was Fotios Ntamaris, who’s 9th place finish had looked inevitable, as he was the only player super short stacked, taking just seven big blinds into the final stage of the day.

By the time play concluded, two players had built monster stacks, creating a hugely unbalanced table for Wednesday’s live streamed final. Daniel Maunders and Vasileios Zisis each have almost three times bigger stacks than third placed Alfred Cuti.

If you missed the action, the full story of how the day unfolded can be read on event’s dedicated blog.

Main Event Final Table Chip Counts and Seating Draw

Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	Daniel Maunders	United Kingdom	15,130,000	126
2	Erik Lindqwist	Sweden	4,815,000	40
3	Nico Frenn	Switzerland	1,965,000	16
4	Filippo Busatto	Italy	3,685,000	31
5	Vasileios Zisis	Greece	14,170,000	118
6	Giuseppe Rosa	Italy	4,750,000	40
7	Jan-Joost van den Bogert	Netherlands	4,375,000	36
8	Alfredo Cuti	Italy	5,630,000	47

 

Audrius Laimelis wins €1,100 Amazingbet High Roller Regressive (€41,800)

The Battle of Malta’s High Roller, sponsored by Amazingbet returned for its second day, with a further 71 players joining during the first three levels of the day before late registration closed for a total field of 193 players and a prize pool €183,350. Once the prize money had been calculated it was confirmed that the winner would walk away with almost €42,000. Not bad for a festival saver!

Much of the early action was covered on the blog and many of the players will be familiar from the five days of coverage of the main event, which the vast majority of the players in the High Roller had participated in.

Lithuanian Modestas Kyrzanauskas had been the last standing Lithuanian in the Main Event, but had returned for Day 4 as the shortest stacked player and was inevitably eliminated as soon the tournament restarted. He was one of the players who joined the High Roller on Day 2, jumping straight in as soon as he had busted and collected his 24th placed Main Event prize of €4,930. While Modestas did not progress far in the High Roller, it was eventually won by another Lithuanian, Audrius Laimelis, who picked up his biggest ever live score after sending Elvijs Kuceruks back to his hotel, heartbroken.

The tournament finished extremely late, not until after 6am. There was a suggestion to postpone the final table until Wednesday, however several of the players were booked on early flights, so it was played out to a conclusion.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Audrius Laimelis	€ 41,800
2	Elvijs Kuceruks	€ 28,860
3	Edgaras Kausinis	€ 18,650
4	Vidar Oie	€ 14,950
5	Michal Wargin	€ 11,850
6	Andrea Crobu	€ 9,350
7	Pasqualino Di Santo	€ 7,150
8	Nikodemas Staniukaitis	€ 5,610
9	Kakha Khazaradze	€ 4,430

Fabio Bianchi wins €330 H.O.R.S.E (€1,850)

The final non-Hold’em tournament of the festival was the second running of the €330 H.O.R.S.E and although it was a small field of only 13 players, it was conducted in great spirit with plenty of table banter. Frank Visser, fresh from his win last night in the €330 PLO Knockout tournament was going for his second victory in two days, but fell just short, exiting in 3rd place. Frank has been blogging the Battle of Malta Main Event for the whole week, but has managed to play in three of the non-Hold’em side events, after finishing his shifts. He cashed in all three, including taking yesterday’s PLO Knockout title, to claim the (unofficial) non-Hold’em Player of the Festival award. After completing the Battle of Malta main event reporting, Frank is heading home to the Netherlands, where he will be preparing for his wedding, in a few weeks time. Congratulations to Frank, for both the results this week and the upcoming nuptials.

Local Antoine Degiorgio also played in this event, but was sent home (or maybe to the bar) in 4th place, to become the unfortunate bubble boy.

The victory went to Fabio Bianchi from Italy.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Fabio Bianchi	€ 1,850
2	Pawel Laskowski	€ 1,110
3	Frank Visser	€ 740

 

Nico Benz wins €330 NLH Novibet Ultra Deep PKO (€4,660)

134 players entered the Novibet Ultra Deep, in which the players started with a 100,000 chip stack. It was won by Germany’s Nico Benz.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Nico Benz	€ 4,660
2	Andrea Melluzzo	€ 3,815
3	Viktor Katzenberger	€ 2,500
4	Johan Purbe	€ 1,680
5	Benjamin Barros	€ 1,140
6	Tiago Serrazina	€ 705
7	Vladyslav Chepinoha	€ 580
8	Rami Awad	€ 495
9	Nikolaos Ntintis	€ 435
10	Osku Karttunen	€ 380
11	Stavros Karakantas	€ 380
12	Andrius Mazeika	€ 345
13	Ashley Scott	€ 345
14	Mauriusz Wiszowaty	€ 315
15	Paschalis Papadopoulos	€ 315

Karol Bogusz wins €220 NLH Dark Knight IV (€3,800)

Karol Bogusz proved he is the real deal by winning the final Dark Knight of the festival, defeating Daniel Istrofor to claim the €3,800 first prize. It was the second day in a row that Daniel Istrofor has finished as runner up.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Karol Bogusz	€ 3,800
2	Daniel Istrofor	€ 2,710
3	Alkan Aydingoez	€ 1,760
4	Yannick Stollenwerk	€ 1,330
5	Tomas Dusanek	€ 1,030
6	Moritz Nedden	€ 800
7	Jacek Zielinski	€ 630
8	Jay Yerby	€ 490
9	Raf De Wever	€ 370