The Festival Series has just begun its second event of 2025 at Portomaso Casino, St Julian’s, Malta. It’s a packed schedule with 42 events, many of which award points that count towards the Festival Series Malta Leaderboard. Players earn points for finishing in the money, the higher the finish, the more points awarded. Participation points are also awarded and once all the events have been completed, whoever tops the table, will be declared the Player of the Series, winning a package worth €1,600 to the next event, in Bratislava.
The Rozvadov Player of the Series Kare Hallamaa from Finland is here this week and has already established himself as a challenger for the title, determined to go back-to-back. In a recent facebook post he challenged the entire world to come and try to stop him. Kare took the lead in the Player of the Series race halfway through the Festival in Rozvadov and more than held on to claim the title, ending up with 241 points. Kare’s nearest challenger was his friend and Finnish compatriot Ville Hakala, who ended up on 199 points.
But Kare is not the only player who may have his sights set on becoming the POS, as multiple winner Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon has also returned for another week of action. Scott, who live streams his action from the tables (when permitted) won the Bratislava Player of the Series titles in 2023 and 2024 went close in both Rozvadov and Malta last year, finishing second at both.
At The Festival in Malta Last year Scott was in pole position to win the Player of the Series title, but left the island a day early, missing the final day of action. He was pipped to the post by Aleksiy Baranovskiy who needed to win the final event of the week to overtake Kenyon…and did just that.
Scott was uncharacteristically absent from The Festival in Rozvadov this year, but he’s back in Malta to try to right the wrong of 2024, banish the memory and seek out an unprecedented 3rd Player of the Series title.
It’s still early days so we don’t know exactly who else will turn up to play this week, but already several other possible POS contenders have been spotted at the venue. Antoine Degiorgio was a leaderboard contender here last year, finishing in 5th place and will hope to challenge once again. Edinburgh resident Barrie Dear is also here and will be hoping for another strong challenge, having finished 6th on the Rozvadov leaderboard.
Whether the likes of Siarhei Narohzny, Sascha Manns or Lachezar Tsenov will be in the running remains to be seen, as most players have not yet arrived. A tea-total Franke could even be the surprise package this time!
It will be a few days before the story of the race for the 2025 Festival in Malta Leaderboard takes shape, as the opening events of the week are mostly flights to multi-day events and satellites. The first tournament that awards leaderboard points to be completed will be Monday evening’s €110+€15 NLH Win the Button Midnight Madness.
However, don’t be fooled by the event name, it actually starts at 8.30pm. The midnight part of the name refers to an unusual twist, which will see any remaining participants turned into pumpkins if they have not finished it by midnight. Madness indeed, Cinderella, eat your heart out!*
We’ll be keeping a close eye on how the Leaderboard story unfolds, scores will be updated daily from Tuesday onwards.
*Sadly, nobody will be turned into a pumpkin, the true story is that the Midnight part of the event name is a typo.
