Excitement, Elation and 585 Entries (and Counting) – The Festival in Bratislava – Day 4
After the fourth day here at The Festival Series in Bratislava, we’re approaching the hot part of the event. We got a glimpse of the commotion and excitement that is The Festival Series yesterday and we expect nothing less but mayhem, drama and elation today.
But let’s first look at the day that was yesterday.
280 Main Event Entries in Day 1c
The most important Festival Event, the Poker Main Event attracted a whopping 280 entries, bringing the total count to 585. This means we’re more than well on our way to smashing the €500k guarantee as there are two more starting flights today and late reg is open until the second level of Day 2.
After the dust settled yesterday, Attila Kuna emerged as the overall chip leader with a massive 384k stack – almost 100k more than the next-best player. We’ll see whether he will be surpassed today.
Those are the top overall main event counts:
| Player | Chips | Blinds | Flight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attila Kuna | 384,000 | 154 | 1c |
| Ronald Zapantis | 296,000 | 123 | 1b |
| Yasen Dichev | 278,000 | 116 | 1b |
| Rickard Larsson | 256,000 | 107 | 1a |
| Hans Erlandsson | 263,000 | 105 | 1c |
| Michael Sklenička | 250,000 | 104 | 1b |
| Carsten Lund Larsen | 245,000 | 102 | 1a |
| Wang Lu | 253,000 | 101 | 1c |
| Markku Tammisto | 219,000 | 88 | 1c |
| Siegfried Rath | 201,000 | 84 | 1b |
| Fotios Ntamaris | 211,000 | 84 | 1c |
| Fronimakis Ioannis | 209,000 | 84 | 1c |
| Aaron Frese | 194,000 | 81 | 1a |
| Sergejs Cugainovs | 193,000 | 77 | 1c |
| Kenneth Aspestrand | 180,000 | 75 | 1a |
| Kristiansen Eirik | 177,000 | 74 | 1a |
| Michel Molenaar | 177,000 | 74 | 1a |
| Simon Ye | 184,000 | 74 | 1c |
| Giorgi Tqemaladze | 180,000 | 72 | 1c |
| Nils Linden | 170,000 | 71 | 1b |
High Roller Night Shift
Down in the Ashoka room of the Banco Casino, our NLH High Rollers gathered to play a friendly game of €1,100 No Limit Hold’em. We guaranteed €30,000 in this event, but with 86 runners, this guarantee was easily surpassed and after it struck 6:13 am in the morning, the German Manuel Fischer struck gold, defeated Jason King in the heads-up and took home a whopping €22,400.
Those are the full results:
| 1 | Manuel Fischer | €22,400 |
| 2 | Jason King | €13,900 |
| 3 | Catalin Dragomir | €10,600 |
| 4 | Adam Kharman | €8,200 |
| 5 | Peter Behr | €6,500 |
| 6 | Dominik Desset | €5,300 |
| 7 | Kasper Nielsen | €4,300 |
| 8 | Chen Keren | €3,300 |
| 9 | Rolf Jauring | €2,600 |
| 10 | Robin Hegele | €2,300 |
| 11 | Patrik Ciklamini | €2,300 |
Dudas Takes Down Half & Half
Earlier in the night the Half and Half was decided. This was a €125 tournament where NLH and PLO were switched as variants. After 10 hours, Sandor Dudas triumphed over Arnold Neumaier and took home almost €3k.
| 1 | Sandor Dudas | €2,977 |
| 2 | Arnold Neumaier | €1,830 |
| 3 | Laila Hawaszadeh | €1,410 |
| 4 | Emmanouil Zacharakis | €1,080 |
| 5 | Anne Bezdek | €860 |
| 6 | Tibor Benko | €665 |
| 7 | Asgeir Lund | €500 |
| 8 | Aslan Tanis | €390 |
| 9 | Siegfried Rath | €325 |
| 10 | Jakob Pilgaard | €260 |
| 11 | Joe Jackson | €260 |
| 12 | Anna Malmi | €260 |
| 13 | Kurt Engfors | €260 |
Totti Lind crowned as PLO King
Late in the evening we started with the big PLO mix tournament where regular PLO, 5-card PLO and 6-card PLO were played.
This rather special poker variant attracted 61 runners and after all was set and done, none other than the Swede Totti Lind emerged victorious.
| 1 | Totti Lind | €4,433 |
| 2 | Toni Mykkaenen | €2,610 |
| 3 | Björne Lindberg | €1,695 |
| 4 | Michael Wehner | €1,305 |
| 5 | Joel Holmberg | €1,045 |
| 6 | Ylva Thorsrud | €780 |
| 7 | Didier Rabl | €650 |
| 8 | Nikolaos Zacharakis | €520 |
Andras Matrai Wins Big Surprise
One of the last events to start yesterday was our Texas “Surprise”. For some reason, we didn’t manage to hide the surprise very well. Or, let’s say it was hidden in plain sight, right in the schedule. The surprise was an added package for our next stop in Nottingham. This was scooped by Andras Matrai, who won the tournament a few minutes before 7 am against Jan Hribernik.
| 1 | Andras Matrai | €3,895 |
| 2 | Jan Hribernik | €3,737 |
| 3 | Eirik Kristiansen | €1,945 |
| 4 | Adam Jindra | €1,535 |
| 5 | Jakub Matusiak | €1,235 |
| 6 | Eden Azulay | €1,010 |
| 7 | John Tunstall | €785 |
| 8 | Kalle Kulju | €485 |
| 9 | Karev Tralla | €335 |
Full House Today
We’re expecting a very crowded tournament area today as we’re preparing for a busy Day 1d in the Main Event which will be followed by a turbo 1e flight in the evening.
In parallel, we will also run multiple side events, albeit it is possible some of those will be slightly postponed as the tables might be needed for the Main Event Mayhem.
This is the schedule for today:
| Time | Event | Buy-In | Re-Entries | Chips / Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 | MAIN EVENT DAY 1D - 12 Levels €500,000 gtd. | 500+50 | 2x per flight | 30k / 40 |
| 13:00 | Pokerlistings Championship | 225+25 | 8 lvls | 30k / 30 |
| 13:00 | Open Face Chinese | 225+25 | 6 lvls | 20k / 30 |
| 14:00 | Heads Up Texas, CAP 32, Final 4 players | Closed | Closed | - |
| 16:00 | The Festival Queens | 110+15 | 25k / 25 | |
| 19:00 | NL Texas 15.000€ gtd. €15,000 gtd. | 110+15 | 8 lvls | 20k / 20 |
| 20:00 | Cash Game Challenge €5/5 Texas (*) | 500 | - | |
| 20:00 | MAIN EVENT DAY 1E Turbo - 12 Levels €500,000 gtd. | 500+50 | 2x per flight | 30k / 20 |
| 21:00 | PLO/PLO8 | 110+15 | 6 lvls | 15k / 20 |
| 23:00 | Texas Turbo Midnight Madness | 110+15 | 8 lvls | 10k / 15 |
| 22:30 | Cash Game Challenge €5/5 PLO4 (*) | 500 | - |
