2023 The Festival Bratislava Day 1

The €60 Super Satellite guaranteed 10 seats to tomorrow’s Day 1a of the €500,000 guaranteed The Festival Series Bratislava €550 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event.

The qualifier proved to be popular with 120 runners smashing their way through the guarantee for 12 seats and a 13th player taking home a €208 prize.

Johann Kubelka hit the rail on the bubble before the hand-for-hand action continued. Leif Iversen then hit the rail to collect the cash prize leaving a dozen players with a cheap seat into tomorrow’s start of the Main Event.

Congrats to Reggy Zijler, Jona Boman, Nikodem Morawski, Carl Dobrzelewski, Kristin Flataker, Andrew Hanak, Jan Bobak, Jan Visvader, Boris Maratanovic, Lubos Mihari, Tr1ckster, and Gabriel Iso for winning their way into the Main Event through the super satellite and the best of luck tomorrow in Day 1a when the action kicks off at noon on Tuesday.

The Festival Series’ return to Banco Casino has been amazing thus far with tons of action and fun throughout the first of eight days. The Festival Series Bratislava boasts 54 numbered events including a wide variety of poker variants and casino games including Blackjack, Roulette, Slots, and Sports Wagering.

Value Town’s Martin Kanaker was the star of the opening day after becoming the sole player to win an event, while others set themselves up handsomely for Day 2 in two other events. The cash games were hopping on the casino floor including a super dealer’s choice affair started by Wouter Schuurbiers and Sviten Special author Martin Smith after both players busted from Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES.

Read on to learn more about what transpired on Day 1 of The Festival Series Bratislava at Banco Casino:

Martin Kanaker Wins Event #4: €125 Crazy Pineapple

Event #4: €125 Crazy Pineapple could maybe have been dubbed the Crazier Pineapple event as there was more than just going than just the actual tournament. The event attracted a tidy field of 50 entries, which is amazing considering The Festival Series Bratislava qualifiers from nearly 20 partners have yet to arrive for a €5,225 prize pool.

Two fun things happened before late registration closed. First, players across two tables decided to play a stand-up game that is usually just in streamed cash games or home games where players had to stand up until they won a hand. The first time this took place it got a little messy with players moving tables and others hitting the rail, but they tried again. Sweden’s Martin Kanaker lost this bet and had to pay all players participating €5 each.

This was the only thing that Kanaker lost during the event as everything else went smoothly. He had another prop bet going with Adam Tomasson that both players were sweating where the last player to table seven-deuce as a winning hand got to choose where to have a fancy dinner at the loser’s expense.

Kanaker not only won this prop bet, but also wound up defeating Matthew Adams heads-up en route to the title and the €2,035 top prize to become the first winner of the 2023 The Festival Series Bratislava.

Event #4: €125 Crazy Pineapple Payouts

Bas de Laat Leads Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES

Day 1a of The Festival Series Bratislava Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES at Banco Casino attracted a tidy field of 17 players with just six players surviving on the first of the three opening days.

Dutch poker player Bas de Laat has thus far made the most of his trip from Malta as he bagged the chip lead during the first of the three opening flights after parlaying his 30,000 opening stack into 136,000 in chips. Austria’s Robin Panholzer (129,500) and United Kingdom’s John Clarkson (120,000) weren’t too far behind.

Meanwhile, United Kingdom’s Barrie Dear (49,000) and the French duo of Philippe Laval (41,500) and Liking Saiyasely (35,000) advanced with shorter stacks.

The action will resume in this event with Day 1b on Monday at 4 p.m. Expect many of the players that were unable to find a bag today to re-enter along with a bunch of new players with many more people heading into Bratislava for The Festival Series tomorrow.

Aleksandar Kamendoliev Leads Event #3: €250 Bratislava Deepstack

Day 1a of Event #3: €250 Bratislava Deepstack attracted 47 runners. Just eight players found a bag after 16 levels of 30 minutes each.

North Macedonia’s Aleksandar Kamendoliev transformed his 30,100 opening stack into a whopping pile of 375,000 to easily end the first of three opening flights with the chip lead. Sweden’s Robert Kontkanen (216,000) was the only other player to advance with more than 200,000 with Tauno Loodus, Arman Nersisyan, Brian Klindrup, Erik Risberg, Phillip Huxley, and Trang Le also advancing through Day 1a.

The action will continue on Monday at 4 p.m. with Day 1b. Stay tuned to see who else will advance to Day 2.

Today’s Schedule (Nov. 27)

Today will be a big day as not only with the €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES and the €250 Bratislava Deepstack continue but two more tournaments and a Main Event satellite are in the mixed.

Our Twitch stream will kick off today at TheFestivalOG channel as well with Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund hosting the Cash Game Challenge streams with guests. As a reminder, the player that wins the most big blinds out of all of the Cash Game Challenge sessions will win a package to the first The Festival Series of 2024 to be announced later this week valued at €1,600. Check out the full schedule below:

Sweden’s Martin Kanaker made Value Town proud by becoming the first player to win an event at the 2023 The Festival Series Bratislava after defeating Matthew Adams heads-up in Event #4: €125 Crazy Pineapple for €1,565. Morten Lie, Andre Sorm, Coolbet’s Svein Olav Eidsaeter, and Anders Beckman also managed to cash in this event. A three-way deal was made to even out the payouts before Kanaker went onto shipping the bacon.

While we will interview Kanaker hopefully later today, we did learn that he won the prop bet against fellow countrymate Adam Tomasson. The duo bet a fancy dinner of the winner’s choice. The rules were simple, the last player among the two to table seven-deuce as a winning hand would win the bet!

Congrats to Kanaker for winning the side event along with the prop bet. We will find out later which was more important.

Day 1a of Event #3: €250 Bratislava Deepstack attracted 47 runners. Just eight players found a bag after 16 levels of 30 minutes each.

North Macedonia’s Aleksandar Kamendoliev transformed his 30,100 opening stack into a whopping pile of 375,000 to easily end the first of three opening flights with the chip lead. Sweden’s Robert Kontkanen (216,000) was the only other player to advance with more than 200,000 with Tauno Loodus, Arman Nersisyan, Brian Klindrup, Erik Risberg, Phillip Huxley, and Trang Le also advancing through Day 1a.

The action will continue on Monday at 4 p.m. with Day 1b. Stay tuned to see who else will advance to Day 2.

The action will continue for 24 hours a day during the next week during The Festival Series Bratislava. We will update tomorrow with the winner of the Crazy Pineapple and the final Day 1a chip counts of Day 1a of the €250 Bratislava Deepstack.

In addition, we will provide our usual daily update as a front-page news article. Best of luck to all of the players still battling it out in the two events as well as to those enjoying cash games this evening. Have a good night and see y’all again for tomorrow’s amazing action at The Festival Series Bratislava.

Event #4: €125 Crazy Pineapple attracted 50 entries for a €5,225 prize pool. The action is down to just 11 hopefuls with Adam Tomasson and Teemu Hietala both with big stacks.

Meanwhile, we have an update (or lack there of) in the prop bet between Tomasson and Martin Kanaker. Neither player thus far has tabled seven-deuce as the winning hand so there is no five-star dinner to be treated just as of yet as the duo agreed that the player to do this the last time would treat the other to dinner at a restaurant of the winner’s choice.

This event still has a way to go. So this can change. In the meantime, there are 11 players left with six players earning at least a €315 min-cash with tonight’s first side event winner taking home €2,035 barring any deals at the final table. Check out the full payouts below:

Players have bagged chips after 10 levels of play on Day 1a of The Festival Series Bratislava Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES at Banco Casino. Just six players survived from the original field of 17 entries.

Dutch poker player Bas de Laat has thus far made the most of his trip from Malta as he bagged the chip lead during the first of the three opening flights after parlaying his 30,000 opening stack into 136,000 in chips. Austria’s Robin Panholzer (129,500) and United Kingdom’s John Clarkson (120,000) weren’t too far behind.

Meanwhile, United Kingdom’s Barrie Dear (49,000) and the French duo of Philippe Laval (41,500) and Liking Saiyasely (35,000) advanced with shorter stacks.

The action will resume in this event with Day 1b on Monday at 4 p.m. Expect many of the players that were unable to find a bag today to re-enter along with a bunch of new players with many more people heading into Bratislava for The Festival Series tomorrow.

The first of three opening flights in Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES has closed with the field locking up with 17 players.

A total of eight players remained including The Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk who hopped back in during the break.

The floor announced two more rule changes which will apply for both Day 1b and Day 1c. First, late registration will now close before the start of Level 9. Second, players will bag their stacks after Level 10 instead of Level 12 as previously scheduled.

This is on top of the rule change with Level 4 being played twice. All of the players applauded all the rule changes in this inaugural event and we expect this event to grow as The Festival Series continues offering it in 2024.

Meanwhile, Jon Kyte, who is fresh off a WSOP Circuit ring victory in a PLO event, hit the rail soon after the action resumed to leave seven players remaining.

“I will go downstairs and join the mixed cash game,” Kyte said with a smile before running off to make sure he had a seat.

Several of the players that busted the €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES decided instead of re-entering today with two more opening flights to go that they would instead start a mixed-cash game where it is super dealer’s choice. This means that any cash game that can be explained to the other players at the table will be played.

Sviten Special author Martin Smith and mixed-game guru Wouter Schuurbiers were the catalysts behind the game. Eva “Chic” Jiretorn shared that she would be joining them after she hit the rail in the Crazy Pineapple. The game is open to anyone and stakes will be the lowest available at the casino. So if you like mixed games, come out to Banco Casino where they will be running all night long.

The €125 Crazy Pineapple got even crazier than planned. Players are having fun and added a new element to the game.

Several players spanning two tables got involved with two stand-up games with each participating player in for €5 to all the other players if they were the last player standing. As is the case in specialized cash games, players were allowed to sit down after winning a hand.

The first one got a little confusing as players were being moved to tables while others busted out. However, Value Town’s Martin Manaker lost the second one and had to pay up.

This isn’t the only craziness that Manaker is up to. Despite tripling his stack, this event could hit his wallet Adam Tomasson shared and Kanaker confirmed that the duo had a special seven-deuce game.

The last player between the two to win a hand and after tabling seven-deuce will win the bet. The loser will then treat the winner to a dinner for two at a restaurant of the winner’s choice. This can be at McDonald’s but we doubt that will be the case as anything goes.

“This bet is likely for more than the buy-in of the tournament,” Tomasson proudly shared.

Check out some early photos from the €250 Bratislava Deepstack Day 1a by The Festival Series head of photography Mairo Toom.

Attention mixed game players. The structure of the €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES became even deeper with tournament organizers opting to play Level 4 (500-1,000-2,000) twice. This was promised to be the only rule change and was done in consent with all the dozen players in action.

Unfortunately, Martin Smith will have to try again either today or on one of the other two opening flights as he was the second player on the rail in the HORSES event after Eva “Chic” Jiretorn was the first player out of the event.

Speaking of Jiretorn, she is having a blast in the €125 Crazy Pineapple and is pushing for this reporter to join in the mix to make it even more “crazy” than it already is.

“I set a new record as just played my fourth hand,” Jiretorn said. “Last time, I only lasted three hands.”

Franke did mention that we “should” try reporting on action from a first-hand perspective. Although plenty of things are in this reporter’s comfort zone, that would be a first so for now it is only a “definite maybe” that I will play something this week.

The €125 Crazy Pineapple just kicked off with a starting field of 11 players. As we already mentioned both Eva “chic” Jiretorn and Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund are in the field alongside ACR Stormer Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon.

A pair of Adams are in the field in Marc Adams and Matthew Adams. We had to check if there was any relation.

“We aren’t related, but do know each other,” said Matthew Adams.

“You aren’t related as far as you know,” Jiretorn added which provided laughter to the entire table.

Anders Beckman, Charalampos Chalkiotis, Erik Scherman, Iordanis Skarlis, Martin Steen, and Karyna Strizhakova are also battling it out in hopes of winning an event on the opening day.

If you aren’t familiar with Crazy Pineapple, it is easy to learn provided you already know hold’em. The only difference is that instead of two cards, players are initially dealt three cards before they dump one of their cards if they are still in the hand after the flop.

Best of luck to all of the “crazy” players! This could go to the wee hours of the morning, so we will likely update the winner of this event in the morning.

Oystein Brenden is the defending The Festival Series Main Event champion after he bested a 617-entry field in The Festival Series Malta in May at Portomaso Casino for €60,700.

Brenden is now on the hunt for a different Main Event trophy at The Festival Series Bratislava at Banco Casino as he was among the recent entries in Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES.

The Day 1a field has reached 13 entries but one of those players will need to try again in Eva “Chic” Jiretorn. Chic is a mixed-game enthusiast who has had some success in both tournaments and cash games but today wasn’t her day as she was the first (and thus far only) player on the rail. She opted to become the first person to enter Event #4: €125 Crazy Pineapple, which kicks off at 9 p.m. and will be joined by Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon and others including The Festival Series commentator Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund.

“It’s epic!” said Chic. “It was the first ever HORSES tournament and I was the first player out. It was the same at the Swedish Championship where I was the first out as well.”

Chic has played Crazy Pineapple before at The Festival Series but had only slightly better success than she had today during Day 1a of the HORSES.

“I played the Crazy Pineapple in Malta,” said Chic. “I only lasted three hands but was out with ace-ace-queen.”

Tomorrow, however, is a different story as Chic plans to play (and win) the €250 Sviten Special. Let’s just say we have played our share of mixed game hands and tons of Sviten Special against Chic. She is fun to play with but don’t let that fool you as she is better than most and is among the best Sviten Special players we have come across.

“It’s better to be fun than boring,” Chic added before getting ready for the Crazy Pineapple kicking off at 9 p.m.

The €35 satellite concluded with six players winning tickets out of the 42 entries field. Andrew Hanak soft-bubbled the satellite with Jan Iversen winning €96 for seventh place.

Meanwhile, Ole-Johnny Karlsen, Joost Melkert, Ladislav Toncer, Marios Pavlou, Stephen Jarvie, and Andre Sorm all won tickets for the satellite and were immediately entered into Day 1a of Event #3: €250 Bratislava Deepstack.

Players with the hospitality package are enjoying welcome drinks on the casino floor. The lovely Anastasia is once again leading the way for all the hospitality events and made an announcement to the players before drinks were flowing.

Two people not enjoying adult beverages are The Festival Series’s Karev Tralla and Melvin Schroen but there is a good reason for this. Although both The Festival Series commentating Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund and this author were enjoying some small needles we respect the reasons and will try to make up for their loss.

Both Schroen and Tralla have a prop bet that began at the beginning of the month that they would not imbibe any alcohol for a year. If you catch either with a drink, please call them out but as of now, both are holding strong with their commitment.

The first of three opening flights kicked off in the €250 Bratislava Deepstack. The stacks are indeed deeper than the €550 Mixed Main Event HORSES with The Festival Series organizers adding 100 chips to everyone’s stack giving all players a starting stack of 30,100.

Several players got a laugh about the starting stack.

“It is a deep stack,” was the response by the floor with a smile when asked about the extra 100 chips.

Players will enjoy 16 blind levels of 30 minutes each during Day 1a with unlimited re-entries permitted for the first 10 blind levels providing plenty of opportunities to build a monsterous stack.

Elisabeth Balasz, who unsuccessfully fired three bullets in the satellite that is still ongoing, is among the players in the field. Also in battle from the initial dozen players to enter the action were Per Gjelten, Tauno Loodus, Adrian Ivasiuc, Runar Borge, Karl Nydahl, Arman Nersisyan, Joel Baxter, and Linus Elmes.

Best of luck to all of the deep-stack players!

We can proudly say that The Festival Series Bratislava has officially kicked off with the first non-satellite event underway in Event #2: €550 Mixed Main Event – HORSES Day 1a.

There was no typo there, it is HORSES rather than HORSE as The Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk opted to try something new with a big mixed game event that incorporates all the games of HORSE alongside Sviten Special.

The games will rotate among the six different poker formats with players starting with a big stack of 30,000 in chips and blinds increasing slowly at every 30 minutes. The event boasts three starting flights from Nov. 26-28 before players battle it out down to a winner on Day 2 on Nov. 28. Check out the different games on rotation below:

• H – Hold’em
• O – Omaha
• R – Razz
• S – Stud
• E – Stud h/l
• S – Sviten Special

While you are maybe familiar with the standard games of HORSE you might be less familiar with Sviten Special. We will break down the rules of Sviten Special later on in our coverage, especially considering there is also a €250 Sviten Special tomorrow at 2 p.m.

Franke made some introductions along with explaining the tournament before taking his seat with the event beginning with nine players. Rest assured that this is just the start as players can re-enter throughout the 12 blind levels of Day 1a and if they fail to bag can take another stab or three at it during tomorrow’s Day 1b. Players surviving the two opening flights will meet for one final day on Tuesday and battle it out until a winner is crowned.

Joining Franke in the early action are Sviten Special author Martin Smith, Wouter Schuurbiers, Bas de Laat, Barrie Dear, Philippe Laval, Liking Saiyasely, Sandeep Nene, and Georgi Voomets.

The dynamic duo of Mairo “EstonianWeirdo” Toom and Dominik Demcak are back once again to deliver quality photos of every single non-satellite event throughout the festival and more.

Toom has already been busy taking a few external shots leading into the action and a photo of the satellite event with many more to come throughout the day and extended week.

Am I just saying nice things about Toom as I am sharing a hotel room that is already trashed? OK, I am joking about the hotel room and the photos speak for themselves.

Both Toom and Demcek are friendly and chances are if you are at Banco Casino this week they will grab a photo of you. However, just in case, feel free to flag either of them down.

Event #1: €35 Satellite to Event #3: €250 Bratislava Deepstack Day 1a kicked off with a tidy field of a dozen runners. This will pick up with the event boasting eight levels of late registration, during which time players can re-enter until their heart is content.

Most satellites around Europe, especially with such a cheap buy-in, boast a hyper-turbo structure of 10 or 15-minute blind levels. This satellite provides a bit more play before some players will inevitably need to go into push/fold mode with a 20-minute blind level structure. Players start off with a deep stack of 10,000 in chips and can instantly grab 5,000 more to their stack with a €5 add-on, which also gets added to the prize pool.

While ACR Stormer Scott “PokerBrahs” Kenyon wasn’t among the original entries, he was the first player to drop by to say hi.

“I might jump into the satellite now,” Kenyon said when he learned that it was taking place on the casino floor.

Kenyon also shared that he will be live-streaming as much of his live poker action as possible at his Twitch channel.

While Kenyon isn’t on the official list yet, others including Mark McCauley, Harley Adams, Andre Sorm, Marios Pavlou, and Matthew Deller are already in the mix.

The moment we have all been waiting for is finally here as The Festival Series returns to Banco Casino, located in the heart of the Slovakian capital of Bratislava, for eight days of thrilling poker action.

Get ready for tons of fun and excitement with the 2023 The Festival Series Bratislava boasting 54 numbered events. While The Festival Series Bratislava boasts plenty of hold’em including a €550 Main Event on Nov. 28 to Dec. 3 boasting a whopping €500,000 guarantee, the budding event boasts much more with casino tournaments including blackjack, slots, roulette, and sports wagering alongside mixed games littered throughout the schedule including the start of today’s €550 HORSES which runs from Nov. 26-28.

The HORSES is similar to HORSE, The Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk added a twist. In addition to the standard limit games of HORSE in Hold’em, Omaha h/l, Razz, Stud, Stud h/l, and Razz, the tournament has added a sixth game in limit Sviten Special. We will explain more about the rules of this amazing game later in our coverage. In the meantime, we can share that Day 1a kicks off today at 6 p.m. followed two more opening flights from Nov. 27-28 with surviving players battling it out until a winner is crowned on Day 2 which starts at 8 p.m. on Nov. 28.

The HORSES event is not the only game in town today as the day begins at 3 p.m. with a €35 satellite, which guarantees at least five seats to the €250 Bratislava Deepstack.

The Deepstack kicks off the first of its three opening flights today as well at 7 p.m. followed by the fun €125 Crazy Pineapple at 9 p.m.

We will share about all of these events and much more as the day proceeds. So stay tuned to The Festival Series blog to stay up to date.

Any player that wins any event will not only be awarded a handsome cash prize but also a one-of-a-kind portrait drawing of their winner’s photo.

Cash Game Challenge

Cash game players also have something to look forward to as not only will there be ring games in a variety of poker formats around the clock but also a live-streamed Cash Game Challenge where the top performing player of the week will be awarded a €1,600 package to the first The Festival Series stop in 2024.

Franke’s Flip Flops

Franke’s Flip Flops has become a fun staple to The Festival Series after it was added last year. It has proven to be popular and, of course, it will be back for The Festival Series Bratislava.

Starting on Monday and running through Saturday, a designated table will be created for rake-free flips to a variety of events. Players can get lucky without a house edge to earn a buy-in at an event of their choosing for a fraction of the cost. The player that wins the most flips will win a package to the next The Festival Series stop to be announced shortly and a coveted framed pair of Franke’s actual flip flops.

Rolf Bechstrom at The Festival Series and will attend The Festival Series Malta compliments on the house. The emotions run high in these flips and we recommend giving them a try or at least watching some of the action from the rail. There will also be a chance for one skilled player to win a package to the next The Festival Series stop in the Player of the Festival contest which we will also elaborate on throughout our coverage.

Today’s Action