Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap! The first week-long event in The Festival Series went off with a bang - aside from the Main Event, the schedule took in 21 events covering poker variants from the Pokerlistings Deepstack to Sviten Special and Open Face Chinese Pineapple, as well as brand new events including tournament-format roulette, blackjack, and Sports betting in collaboration with The Gambling Cabin. We were also treated to some high stakes cash action on the live stream, as well as several of the tournament final tables.
The event took place September 20-26 at Banco Casino, located in the plush Crowne Plaza hotel on the edge of Bratislava's Old Town. The €550 Main Event drew 621 entries across four starting flights and was eventually won by former EPT dealer Martin Mauthner, an unlit cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth throughout, in a thoroughly entertaining final. He took home €47,600 after a three-handed deal when Mauthner was the short stack.
In side events, the Pokerlistings Deepstack was won by the UK's JJ Hazan, while the Acroud Charity Tournament was won by Norwegian scene stalwart Ylva Thorsrud and Twitch streamer Tommi "Gargamies" Heimonen took down the roulette championship. Although it looked a bit like a fix at the time, the blackjack event was won by The Festival's own Andreas Hoglund, and all three sportsbetting events were won by The Festival head honcho Franke von Zweigbergk, who still won't stop talking about it. Full results for all events may be found here.
We've had an absolute blast here in Bratislava, and we can't offer enough thanks to all the dealers, valets, floor staff and organisers at The Festival and Banco Casino for making this happen. We can't reveal details yet about the next stop, but we can tell you that there'll be an exciting announcement very soon. As we wander off into the night, we most strongly urge you to join us for the next one. Until then... 🍻🍻🍻