2024 The Festival Rozvadov Day 2

The action will continue well into the night, but this now is time for this reporter to go get some much needed sleep.

Day 1d of The Hendon Mob Challenge is still in progress, with late registration having recently closed. This flight had 176 entries, exactly the same number as there was for Day 1c. Clearly the attendance was affected by the Champions League Final, which featured German team Dortmund (who lost 2-0 to Real Madrid).

The final flight is Day 1e, which starts at 11am on Sunday, with a turbo structure. The tournament still requires a further 330 entries to avoid an overlay. Will it get there? Tune in again to The Festival in Rozvadov Blog tomorrow to find out. Alternatively, come and play.

We’ll be back in the morning with a recap of today’s play. Goodnight and don’t let the poker bugs bite!

The first of the cash game challenge heats was a fiery one and it ended with Israeli Yariv Avraham Gabriel scoring a 174 big blind victory. He sat with €1,000 and cashed out a profit of €870. Yariv and ‘Stallion’ dominated the session, both ending up big winners, with only one other player ending up in the green.

The session was live streamed and can be viewed on The Festival Series Twitch channel.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitch

By the time late registration closed, there were 21 entries in the second flight of the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Games Main Event. Exactly one third of the field made it to the day’s finishing line, at the end of level 12. Unfortunately the chip leader chose to remain anonymous when he posted his count, which is a little odd, considering all his previous results, dating as far back as 2001 are online. Get with The Festival Series program and release your name, sir!

he last news we had from the PLO Masters was that a deal was being discussed during the final table, when they were on the bubble with seven players left. Jason Glatzer was fully expecting to be the bubble boy, sitting on by far the shortest stack with just 10 big blinds left. 

Luckily for Jason, the chip leader was determined to do a deal so he could watch the Champions League final between Dortmund and Real Madrid. He proposed a deal, which was ultimately accepted by the rest of the players. 

Jason had joined the tournament as a late entry just one hand before the first break. His immediate goal was to make that first break and he achieved that in spectacular fashion by folding the first hand he played. His next goal was to survive until the second break, which he also managed to successfully complete. With 12 players left Glatzer admitted he would have been happy with 8th-12th place, but really didn’t want to bubble. With seventh place now receiving a payout via the deal, it was a job well done!

Congratulations to Matthias Kribben who took first place in the deal, also securing the trophy and the PLO Masters title.

Day 1a of The Hendon Mob Championship ended with 21 players remaining from the 176 entrants progressing to Day 2 on Sunday. Martin Wolf is the chip leader from the flight with 874,000, putting him in second place overall from the four completed starting days, 110,000 behind Adam Negreano.

These are the survivors and their chip counts.

Today’s €250 PLO Masters has now reached the final table, with seven players left from the 45 that started. They are also on the bubble, as only six players will be paid, so its squeaky bum time for short stack ninja Jason Glatzer, going for his second victory of the week. He’s not so confident of that however, as with only 10 big blinds left he’s ready to accept his fate and is already eying up a seat in the PLO Cash Game Challenge that is due to start in one hour. Does he really think he’s going to bubble or is he just emotionally preparing himself?

The seven remaining players are:

• Matthias Kribben
• Niko Kaivanto
• Carlo Braccini
• Falk Louwers
• Bruno Stefanelli
• Jason Glatzer
• Thomas Gugerbauer

Stop Press…

News just in, they are discussing a 7-way deal so they can chop it up and watch the Champions League Final….more info to follow soon.

The Cash Game Challenge has started, with the first of ten heats. This one is a €5/€5 No Limit Hold’em game, with minimum buy-in of €500. 

The stream can be viewed on The Festival Series Twitch Channel with English commentary provided by Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ and Václav “Lemon” Dušek.

The stream can also be viewed on the Kings Casino Twitch Channel, with German commentary.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitch

In addition to the five starting day flights of The Hendon Mob Championship, Flips into Day 2 are also going to be running. The format is an 8-handed flip and go, where each player is dealt three cards and must discard one before the flop. A bit like Crazy Pineapple, but with pre flop discard.

The last player left standing from each flip will proceed directly into Day 2 of The Hendon Mob Championship.

They start at 8pm tonight on a demand basis, starting whenever eight players are registered and will also run tomorrow, after the close of registration in Day 1e.

The Main Event of The Festival in Rozvadov does not begin until Wednesday, but tonight there’s an €80 super satellite at 8pm with 10 seats guaranteed. It’s the second super satellite to the Main Event. Last night’s satellite had 45 entries, producing a small overlay of €275. It could be a good night to bag your seat for the Main Event and also has overlay potential.

There are several more satellites to the Main Event on the schedule, with the next one taking place at 8pm on Monday evening.

Day 1d of The Hendon Mob Championship at The Festival in Rozvadov began at 18.00 and is on the second level of the day with 59 players in their seats so far. It’s a lower attendance than expected at this, stage, which is most likely due to the German interest in the Champions League final, which takes place tonight between Dortmund and Real Madrid. But late registration is open until the end of level 10, so we could see a late flurry of entries.

Overlay Potential

It’e early days still, but an overlay could be on the cards, as over 440 players are required to meet the €200,000 guaranteed prize pool. Tomorrow morning’s final turbo flight could yet turn out to be the biggest field of the five opening days. Overlays are fun and The Festival Series is all about fun, so yes, we do deliver!

Registration Day 1c of The Hendon Mob Championship has now closed, having attracted 176 entries, with 67 still left and five levels left to play.  Day 1d begins at 18.00 and the satellite to it started with close to 100 players.

THMC Day 1 Remote (Prague)

There was one additional starting flight yesterday, which was a remote starting day at Kings Casino Prague. a total of 59 players turned up. Six players from this flight managed to land on the Day 2 runway and will be joining  us here at Kings Casino tomorrow afternoon.

The chip leader from the remote flight is Czech player Adam Negreano, who’s 984,000 stack dwarfs the biggest stacks from Day 1a and Day 1b, which were just over 600,000. Negreanu? Negrea…no relation to Daniel.

POS		NAME	CHIP COUNT
1.		ADAM NEGREANO	984,000
2.		TOMAS SVEC	843,000
3.		RADEK HONL	593,000
4.		HELMUT PHUNG	178,000
5.		MINIMALISTA	177,000
6.		MARCEL STAMATE	175,000

Mixed Games Main Event

The second starting day of the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Games Main Event is now up to 19 entries, with still four levels for any stragglers to join the tournament. Only one rider has been unseated so far and Scotsman William Lynch has now joined the tournament. Lynch is well known to be a bit of talker, but luckily for Alexander Dovzhenko, who dislikes table chat, they are currently not on the same table.

PLO Masters

The PLO Masters is now up to 47 players, but has a long way to go if it’s going to break the series record for this tournament, which was set at last year’s Bratislava stop, which was contested by 101 players.

Omaha is an important part of The Festival Series and there are eight tournaments on the schedule dedicated to the variant. The first of these is the €250 Pot Limit Omaha Masters, which has just started, with 25 players already seated. There’s a big line of players waiting to buy-in, which will quickly inflate the size of the field during the first few levels of play.

Jari Virta, who triumphed in last night’s Sviten Special is playing, going for his second trophy of the series. Also taking his seat early is Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon, who is once again streaming all-day long on Twitch. Poker journalist extraordinaire Jason Glatzer is also threatening to join the game. He’s on fire this week, having scooped the staff tournament on Thursday night, to win a Franke inflated prize pool.

Full PLO Tournament Schedule

If you’re planning to come to The Festival in Rozvadov later this week, don’t worry about the FOMO of missing out on the first PLO event of the series, there’s several more opportunities to get an Omaha fix this week. Here’s the full schedule of Omaha events at The Festival in Rozvadov.

And they’re off!

The second starting day of the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Games Main Event began at 3pm with ten players taking their seats for the first level of the day. There were 34 players in the satellite, which has just ended, generating a further five seats. The five successful satellite players will soon join the game soon, including Craig Cooper and Sascha Manns. 

Ukrainian Alexander Dovzhenko is back for a second crack of the whip, after busting out early yesterday. Apparently he wasn’t too happy with the amount of table chatter, but had forgotten to bring his headphones. 

There are 10 levels for late registration and a total of twelve levels will be played today. The field is expected to grow considerably as the day progresses, with all entrants hoping to join the six players who made it through from Day 1a into Day 2.

The Cash Game Challenge at The Festival in Rozvadov begins today, with the first two of ten sessions scheduled. The first of today’s sessions begins at 8pm and will be €5/5 No Limit Hold’Em  with a minimum buy-in of €500. It will last for exactly two hours and will be followed by a session of €5/€5 Pot Limit Omaha, also with a €500 Buy-In.

Players who wish to play can add their name to the list at the cash game registration desk.

Watch the Challenge Live Stream

Both of today’s sessions will be live streamed on The Festival’s Twitch Channel. The game will be broadcast on a 30-minute delay. Tune in from 6.30pm CET.

How Does the Cash Game Challenge Work?

The way the challenge works is very simple, the winner of the leader board will be the one who makes the most net profit, in terms of Big Blinds. This levels the playing field, as there is no premium for playing higher stakes, enabling all participants an equal chance. The player who wins the most Big Blinds within one session, wins the Challenge! Players are however not restricted to playing just one session. Scores will be updated after each session and the top players scores will be displayed for all to see who’s winning.

What Do Points Make?

Prizes of course! But there’s nothing for second place in this challenge, its a winner takes all prize package valued at €1,600 for a trip to The Festival of Malta in September. The package includes a seta into the €550 Main Event at Portomaso Casino in St Julians. Six nights hotel accommodation, a hospitality package and a special edition The Festival cap. 

Challenge Rules

• All sessions last exactly two hours
• No hit ands runs, players must complete the entire session
• The minimum buy-in is 100 BB, but players may buy-in for more

Cards are in the air for the third flight of The Hendon Mob Championship at The Festival in Rozvadov, with almost 100 players seated by the start of level 3. This is almost twice as many players as there were at the equivalent time on Day 1a. With Day 1d scheduled for 6pm, today is already showing signs that it will be a busy one.

Day 1b concluded at close to 4am on Friday night, with 15 of the 109 players who started the flight remaining by the time play ended. Added to the 70 who started on Day 1a, this brought the total up to 179 for the first two flights. Still a lot of players required to meet the €200,000 guarantee, will it get there?

Day 1b Survivors Chip Counts

POS		NAME	CHIP COUNT
1.		MIROSLAV COVIC	605,000
2.		LUKAS KLIMA	596,000
3.		GERD SINGER	583,000
4.		ALFRED WILLY POLDRACK	473,000
5.		ALEXANDER CERNYH	382,000
6.		JAN KEFURT	379,000
7.		TESTFAHRERBMW	367,000
8.		YARIV AVRAHAM GAVRIEL	367,000
9.		MICUTU	365,000
10.		IVO GAZDE	306,000
11.		BENJAMIN BILGIC	294,000
12.		MORENO GYOEZOE HERMANUS RUTTEN	252,000
13.		CLEMENT HENRY CURE	239,000
14.		FLORIN ADRIAN BILAN	122,000
15.		OFER EDMOND SISSO	96,000

The opening day of The Festival in Rozvadov was the first of ten busy days at Kings Casino. 

The day started with the opening flight of the €200,000 guaranteed €250 The Hendon Mob Championship, in which 70 players took their seats, all aiming for safe passage through to the second day of the tournament. Nine players made it through the day, with Dominik Martan from the Czech Republic leading the way, taking 629,000 into Day 2.

The Mixed Games Main Event also began, featuring a H.O.R.S.E.S format which adds Sviten Special to the rotation of the usual equestrian mixed game. Sixteen players took part in the first starting day, including Scott Kenyon, who topped The Festival Bratislava Leaderboard last autumn. By the end of the day, six players remained, with Koen Roos sitting at the top of the pile, with a 151k chip stack.

Later in the day, the The Hendon Mob Championship held its second of five flights, where a further 109 players began their flag hunting journey, with fifteen lucky souls surviving to the end of the sixteen levels that were played. 

There were also two non-Hold’em side events which took place on Friday. The first to get going was the €250 Sviten Special, which was won by Jari Johannes Virta, who outlasted a field of 48 runners to claim the €3,796 first prize. The last tournament of the day was by far the busiest, with 176 players entering the €125 Crazy Pineapple. Bulgarian Ilia Pendev took top honours.

Sviten Special Result

• Buy-In: €250
• Entries: 48
• Prize Pool: €10,260

Crazy Pineapple Result

• Buy-In: €125
• Entries: 176
• Prize Pool: €18,392

Twenty players were paid, for the full list of payouts, visit the Results Page

Saturday’s Schedule at The Festival in Rozvadov

Friday was quite a busy one for the opening day of the festival, but Saturday will be huge. There are two further starting days for The Hendon Mob Championship, another flight of the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event, the €250 PLO Master and the €125 Texas Saturday Knockout. But that’s not all, as this evening the Cash Game Challenge begins, with the first two of ten sessions, one Hold’em and one PLO.