2024 The Festival Malta Day 1

The Mixed Game Main Event ended at about the same time as the Hendon Mob Championship. There were 35 entries in total, with 14 players surviving the day with their riders still in their saddles. Franke fired 2 bullets, but unfortunately just missed making it into Day 2.

Norwegian Eirik Presttun posted the biggest stack of the flight and is the only player to have over 200,000. Second placed Lachezar Tsenov on 117,000 is the only other player with a six-figure stack at this stage. Here are the chip counts of those who made it through the day.

We’ll be back early tomorrow afternoon, when Day 2 of The Festival begins. Until then, sleep safely and don’t let the mosquitoes bite.

Just thirteen players made it through to the second day of The Hendon Mob Championship with Smaling Kuner bagging the largest stack of the day on 270,000. Another player who made it through the day was Bulgarian Ivo Petkov, 5th in chips. He cashed in 31st place in the Rozvadov Main Event and also made a final table in a side event.

Other players who made it through the day include Kenny Burke from the UK, Maltese James Paris and Swedish Gia Carnestrom, who is remarkably the only Scandinavian who made it through the day.

Franke played in this at the same time as he played in the Mixed Games Main Event, but busted in 18th place, narrowly missing making Day 2.

Chip Counts of the Day 1a Survivors

The first day of The Festival in Malta is now slowing down as the end of play draws closer.

The Hendon Mob Championship satellite drew 51 entries, creating a prize pool of €1,530, generating six seats into the event. It’s now down to the last eight players. There would only have been five seats in the event if it weren’t for Jason Glatzer, who max late reg’d during the last break. However, he lasted only one hand, busting from the big blind as soon as he sat down.

The Hendon Mob Championship Day 1a is now in the 14th and last level of the day, having had 54 entrants. David Lappin did indeed bust soon after my last post about this, but he’ll no doubt be back tomorrow for another crack at making Day 2. There are 16 players left.

The Mixed Games Main Event ended up with 35 entries, two of which were Franke, as he busted close to the end of late reg and jumped back soon after. He’s just busted his second stack and there are fourteen players left. They are also now on the last level of the day.

Amongst the 14 players still in are Lachezar Tsenov, Frank Visser, Barrie Dear, Jens Voertmann and William Lynch.

By the time late registration closed, The Hendon Mob Championship had reached 54 entrants, 24 of whom are still playing. They are currently on level 12 and will play until the end of level 14. Day 1b starts at 5pm on Monday.

Spotted in today’s field is David K Lappin, the Unibet sponsored pro and half of the presenting team of the Chip Race podcast. He started the day well and a built a big stack within the first few levels, but has fallen back and is now in the danger zone and in will-he, won’t-he limbo with regards to his chances of making Day 2.

As today is the first day of the festival, it’s also the day for welcome drinks. A small gathering of around 35 people turned up for a glass of fizz or a cup of tea after.

The drinks were organised by Alona Sergeevna, who is our hospitality host here this week. It’s her first time working at The Festival, after which she will go back to her usual day job as a swimming instructor.

It’s obvious that her real job has prepared her well for this week as she’s dived in at the deep end and is doing swimmingly well.

The Mixed Games Main Event (H.O.R.S.E.S) is now in the 9th level of the day and the field has grown to 32 players. Late registration ends after level 10. There were just 13 players in the Day 1a in Rozvadov for this event, so it looks like we could be in for a bumper sized field once the second starting day has taken place, tomorrow afternoon.

Quite a few players have joined the field as late entries, including Frank Visser, who just finished 3rd in the Vamos Open Face Chinese tournament. Scott Kenyon also jumped into this one after an early exit in the OFC.

The winner of the Vamos Open Face Chinese was Siarhei “The Machine” Narozhny, one of the top performers at The Festival Rozvadov, where he won the Seven Card Stud and finished as runner-up in the Mixed Games Main Event. He hasn’t joined the H.O.R.S.E.S today, but is a racing certainty to play in Day 1b tomorrow afternoon.

Siarhei was mentioned earlier today in the Faces in the Crowd article as one to watch here in Malta and he has immediately staked his claim to be a main contender. We expect “The Machine” to feature heavily in the storyline of this week’s festival.

The final event of the first day is now in play. It’s a €40 satellite to The Hendon Mob Championship. Late registration is open for the first eight levels, which are twenty minutes long each, which means there’s plenty of time for late entrants to join in.

Day 1a of The Hendon Mob Championship is now on level 8, the final level for late registration, with 47 entries so far.

The cash game challenge and Franke’s Flip Flops are two of the core events that always take place at The Festival Series. They are back on the schedule once again here in Malta of course, but there’s been a change to format of the events this time. 

It’s not a huge change, essentially both competitions are the same, but the winners will be determined in a slightly different way.

Both competitions will have grand finals, which will be flips and in fact the players who secure seats into the grand final flips don’t even need to be present in order to participate.

Franke’s Flip Flops Rules Change

In Franke’s Flips, the player who wins the most flips per day will win a seat into the grand final flip. Players who top the daily leaderboard will also be able to win more than one seat into the final. For example, if defending champion Rolf Arne Bechstrom wins the most flips on every day of the event, he will take all the seats in the grand final. 

Previously the winner was determined by totalling up all the results throughout the week and awarding it to the player with the most wins, usually Rolf.

Cash Game Challenge Rules Change

In the Cash Game challenge, the player who makes the biggest profit each day (in big blinds) will win a seat in the Grand Final. There are two cash game challenge heats each day, for six days, so the Grand Final will be held with 6 players.

Previously editions of the Cash Game Challenge had been a race to see who could post the biggest profit (in big blinds) and did not have a grand final.

The Grand Finals Rules

Both the Cash Game Challenge and Franke’s Flips Grand Finals will be 4-card PLO and there is an additional twist for the Grand Final. The Grand Finals will be flips and the player who has the best (winning) hand in the first flip will be eliminated. This will be repeated until we have a winner, who will be the player with the worst hand once they get heads up.

The winners of both the Cash Game Challenge and Franke’s Flips Grand Finals will each win a €1,600 Festival in Bratislava package.

Further details on these rule changes can be found in this article by Melvin Schroen

The weather in Malta is usually hot, it’s a hot country, the most southern in Europe, so no surprises there. There are some parts of north Africa that are further north than Malta, which has the longest summer season in Europe.

I’ve been living in Malta for ten years and in the first year i was here it touched 30c on 30th November, so we still have a lot of summer still to come here. 

One thing that is not always reliable in Malta is the weather forecast, which is not always the fault of the weather apps, but they really are inaccurate sometimes and here’s why. 

Malta is a tiny island, slap bang in the middle of the Mediterranean sea and as such, it only takes a slight change in the direction of the wind for rain or storms that weren’t predicted to hit to suddenly be on a path to cross the Maltese archipelago. 

Often i’ll look at the weather app and it will say “no rain predicted for the next 10 days” only for it to bucket down later that same day.

So what’s in store for us this week, will the current heatwave that has enveloped the island recently continue, or will Wednesdays pool party face cancellation due to high winds? 

Let’s take a look at what the iphone weather app says and we can cross-check throughout the week to see how accurate it was.

Today is expected to be the hottest of the days at The Festival in Malta, with temperatures touching 32c, but feeling a little hotter due to the humidity.

Monday: Rain expected from 8am until lunchtime, but then clearing up for the afternoon, but with gusts of up to 15MPH, it could feel a little cooler than the 28c that is forecast.

Tuesday and Wednesday: No rain expected but stronger winds with gusts of up to 26MPH 

Rest of the week: well, as I already explained there’s no point looking that far ahead, the forecast is likely to change.

The Mixed Games Main Event H.O.R.S.E.S is now in running, with 18 runners and riders assembled across three tables. Franke has chips but his is currently AWOL from his table.

In these circumstances its not uncommon to find him playing in another tournament at the same time, but this doesn’t appear to be the case this time, probably just a toilet break, after all, when you drink as much tea as Franke does, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Antoine Degiorgio, Barrie Dear, Lachezar Tsenov and Jens Voertmann are amongst the field. But this race is a marathon steeple chase, not a 5 furlong sprint, so there’s not much yet to report, all players are still in.

However news has just been received that the Rozvadov Mixed Games Main Event Champion Sascha Manns definitely won’t be winning this one, as he won’t be arriving in Malta until Tuesday.

The HendonMob Championship has 30 players in their seats at this point and will soon be approaching its first break of the day.

On the Vamos Poker Tour side of things the Main Event is now down to 5 players and sadly Mairo Toom is no longer in contention for the trophy, having exited in 6th place. He went into the 9-player final as the shortest stack and laddered up like the legend that he is for a payout of just under €4,500. He had been whittled down to less than half a big blind by the time he was eliminated.

The Open Face Chinese players on the Vamos Poker Tour are also now deep in concentration with ten players takling part. These ten include Scott Kenyon, who is streaming it live on his Pokerbrahs Twitch channel and Siarhei Narohzny, who once again has brought his fan club (his wife) to cheer him on from the rail.

Newly wed mixed games supremo Frank Visser is also playing, as is his wife and this is apparently the only variant she plays. Things could get interesting if they get heads up.

The players for today’s H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event are begging to assemble near the start line, with several of the usual suspects already installed in their starting boxes. These include Barrie Dear, Lachezar Tsenov and Franke. Scott Kenyon is also mulling around, but he has his eyes set on the €250 Open Face Chinese, which is part of the Vamos Poker Tour final day schedule.

The casino has been running satellites for several of the mixed game events including the Sviten Special and today’’s H.O.R.S.E.S. Antoine Degiorgio has reportedly won three seats, so he is also expected to be one of today’s entrants.

Will he have as good a series as he did in Rozvadov, where he took third place in the Main Event (NLH version) for a lifetime best cash of €44,250, which included a WSOP Europe Main Event ticket.

Franke has delivered the first of his now famous speeches and cards are now in the air for Day 1a of the very first event of The Festival in Malta, The HendonMob Championship. The tournament has three starting flights one per day over the first three days of the festival.

So far there are just 10 players in their seats, but with ten x 30 minutes for late registration, the number of participants is expected to steadily climb.

The Vamos Main Event final table has also just resumed recently, with Festival Series photographer Mairo Toom taking his seat, albeit as the short stack of the nine remaining players. He has 950,000 chips and needs to finish in at least second place to cover the money he sank into the streamers challenge, which he narrowly missed out on scooping.

That honour went to Vaclav ‘Lemon’ Dusek, who is also present here this week and will be covering the events in his unique and entertaining way on our social channels – links below.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitch

The story of the Festival has just beginning but already we are asking ourselves questions like:

• Who will win the main event?
• Who will ride their H.O.R.S.E.S over the finish line in first and second place?
• Who will be the star players that make multiple final tables?
• …and who will be the jokers in the pack, who are relevant for some tournaments, but somewhat absent in others?

Read the article on the homepage entitled Faces in the Crowd for look back at some of the top performers at The Festival in Rozvadov. Will any of them feature prominently in The Festival in Malta’s evolving storyline?

There are other questions about The Festival in Malta that we will do our best to find the answers to this week on the blog, such as:

• How many wines will be tasted at the wine tastings?
• How many players will K.O. themselves during the boxercise classes?
• Will Rolf Arne Bechstroem win his third Franke’s Flip Flops title?
• How big will Franke’s bar tab get?
• Will the water in the pool at the pool party be replaced with beer and how long before Franke orders a refill?

Stay tuned to the blog all week to find out the answers to these questions and more…

It’s time folks, the Festival in Malta begins today and we’re off to a flying start with both the €550 Mixed Games Main Event and the €250 The Hendon Mob Challenge holding their first starting flights.

Here’s today’s schedule:

It’s a very unique day today as not only does The Festival Series begin, the Vamos Poker Tour is ending. This is why we only scheduled three tournaments today, because there are another three on the Vamos schedule, including a Festival favourite, Open Face Chinese, with a €250 buy-in.

The Vamos Main Event takes place today also, resuming play at 2pm. The Festival Series photographer Mairo Toom has made the final table of that and we’ll be keeping a close eye on that also. Good luck Mairo!

The Festival reporting team is back once again to deliver the news, not only via this blog, but via our other social channels as well. Check out interviews, montages and short clips on our various social social channels, using these links:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitch

Coverage will begin on Sunday 8th September, directly from the tournament floor at Portomaso Casino in St Julians. We’ll be bringing you regular updates on the proceedings throughout every day of The Festival in Malta, delivering news from the tables and stories about everything that is happening, both on and off the felt.

The opening day of the series sees the €250 The HendonMob Championship and the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Main Event begin their first starting days. Will Sascha Manns be in attendance to attempt to add to the Mixed Games title he won in Rozvadov? Will Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon go one better than the second place he snatched in the Rozvadov Player of the Series race? And how big will Franke’s bar bill be this time?

These and more questions will hopefully be answered during the course of the week and we will find out who the new champions will be. Every event has a trophy and those trophies are framed caricature drawings of each event winner. You can view the Rozvadov winners’ gallery by clicking on the picture of Jari Johannes Virta below, to see his winners drawing and those of all the event winners at Kings Casino.

In the meantime, while you wait for the games to get going on Sunday, check out the full tournament schedule for The Festival in Malta.

If you’re new to Malta or to the Festival Series itself, read this great synopsis by Melvin Schroen of what to expect when you visit The Festival in Malta.

And you’re probably also aware that The Festival has not one, but two main events, the first of which is the Mixed Games Main Event, which used a H.O.R.S.E.S format, which adds Sviten Special to the usual H.O.R.S.E rotation. To find out more, read this excellent piece about the history of the Mixed Games Main event by Iva Dozet.

Its also very likely that you’ve heard that The Festival Series is great for its off-the table hospitality activities. To find out more about what’s in store during the festival week, Melvin Schroen has laid out all the details for you in a carefully crafted article.

Fancy a bit of boxercise before hitting the tables? No, nor do I, but some might like to do this and Franke has recruited Maltese pro boxer Christian Schembri to run a daily session from Tuesday to Saturday. Get the stress of those bad beats out of your system before you get battered around the poker table again later in the day.

We’ll be back on Sunday when the games begins, until then be good…and if you can’t be good, at least be lucky!