2024 The Festival Rozvadov Day 7

It’s that time again, another day of non-stop pokering is drawing to a close for the blog team. But while we may be off to rest our weary heads, play will continue well into the night.

Day 1c of the Main Event is now on level 10, with 57 of the flight 130 entrants still in.

Today’s H.O.R.S.E event is now on the final table with three players left from 72 entries. Swedish chess mstrEva ‘Chic’ Jiretorn, has just busted in 4th, losing to quads with a set of kings in the Omaha 8.

The 2-7 Triple Draw is down to 11 players, with 79 entries, a fine turnout for the first ever tournament of its kind held at Kings Casino.

And the Texas Thursday Madness has 19 players left, from 141 starters. 

We’ll be back in the morning with a roundup of how all these events panned out.

Former winner Rolf Bechstroem is the current leader of the Franke’s Flip Flops contest. Norwegian Rolf won the contest at The Festival in Malta and is in the lead with one day in the competition. At the beginning of the day Rolf was sitting in second place with nine wins, one behind Oliver Kubalek. However he won four of the nine flips that took place this evening to take the lead. 

There’s just one day left and only Oliver is within striking distance, with Ivo Petvok in third seemingly too far behind to catch up. There have been 81 spins so far throughout the series and for sure there will be many more tomorrow. Will Oliver claw it back or will Rolf secure his second Franke’s Flip Flops title?

The Fun with Slots session was indeed a lot of fun, held in the Shisha Lounge. Seventeen players loaded up €125 into machines and spun the wheels to try and get a spin up. The top three button pushers were given added prizes by The Festival Series on top of the money they took out of the machines. Out of the seventeen players who entered, just four made a profit. Do be gamble aware.

The top spinner was Andre Sorm, who wins a €550 Main Event seat. 2nd place went to Seniors event winner Joakim Olin, who received a €250 tournament voucher. Sami Korpela took third for a €125 tournament voucher. All prizes are valid to use at the next Festival Series event in Malta in September.

Day 1b of the Main Event is now over and of the 133 players who joined the flight, 31 have made it though to Day 2.

The chip leader from the day is Jarmo Salonen, who overtakes the Day 1a big stack Danny Larsen as the front of the provisional grid for the start of the next stage of the tournament. His stack of 733,000 sets the new benchmarks for those in the remaining starting days to chase.

Meanwhile in Day 1c there are currently 76 players still in from 114 entrants, deep into level 7. Late registration is still open until the end of level 9.  We’ll update on the survivors from this flight in the morning, as it won’t finish until well after 3am.

The first ever 2-7 Triple Draw tournament staged at Kings Casino in Rozvadov is well underway and now in level 5. Late registration was initially set for six levels, but we listened to player feedback and extended it to eight levels in an announcement to the H.O.R.S.E players earlier today. 

So far 53 players have entered and the early chip leader, with 38 players seated is none other than Maltese Mixed Games supremo Antoine Degiorgio. He busted the H.O.R.S.E early today and refocused for this one. He looks well and truly in the zone and hasn’t even ordered a glass of wine yet.

Soon starting in the Shisha Lounge is the Fun With Slots competition. Its not an official event and doesn’t count towards the Player of the Year leaderboard. There’s still time to register for some slot jamming action, €125 to play. I said slot, you filthy minded folks!

There are now two starting days of the Main Event taking place simultaneously. The earlier starting flight, Day 1b ended up with 133 entrants and with one level left to play, there are 37 of them left. We’ll update the chip counts of the survivors this evening, once that day ends.

Meanwhile registration is still open in Day 1c, which is on level 4 now and is up to 95 entries so far, with 5 levels left for more players to join. Taking her seat for the first time in the Main Event in this flight is Lynn Beaumont, who qualified via an iPoker online satellite. However she has won two more seats into the event in live satellites, so there’s more ammunition in reserve, for the unlikely event that she fails to bag a stack today.

I’ve just returned from a much needed mid-session nap to renew myself for the rest of today’s blog coverage. The beds at the Admiral across the road from Kings Casino are super comfy, so I got a great 75 minute sleep and now feel somewhat refreshed.

While I was in restful mode, the same can’t be said about the Poker Arena here at Kings, as there is now an energetic vibe in the venue. Upon re-entering the venue I overhead the immortal chant of “flips, flips, flips, flips flips” interspersed with the familiar voice of Mr Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk ringing out with “who wants a beer?”  Which can only mean one thing: Franke’s Flip Flops is back in action and going strong tonight. 

This is this penultimate day of Franke’s Flip Flops. We’ll total up the scores before the last session and let you know who’s in the lead.

Today was the day for the Chodovar brewery day trip, which according to hospitality host Anastasia Buk, was a fantastic event, enjoyed by all. Here’s a picture to preserve the memory from this great off-the-table activity.

There were 109 entries in Wednesday’s Day 1a of the Main Event at The Festival in Rozvadov. Day 1b, the first of two starting flights taking place today is now up to 128 entries in level 8, with 66 of these still in and over an hour of late registration still to go. Day 1c starts at 6pm, so there will soon be two flights of the Main Event in running at the same time. 

Most of the mixed games players are not in today’s Main Event, as this is one of the big days for mixed and non-Hold’em game. The €250 H.O.R.S.E has grown to 69 entries and 49 are still in and at 7pm the 2-7 Triple Draw starts.

You might have noticed the machine next to the turnstiles at the entrance to the Kings Casino buffet and wondered what it’s for? Well, you can buy a ticket to eat in the buffet there, which costs €10 per visit. All players get one free meal in the buffet when they enter the casino each day, but if you’re still hungry you can buy an additional meal using this terminal. 

However there is another very useful purpose for this machine, as it can be used for buying into tournaments and therefore skipping the queue at the cashier desk, which can get quite long just before tournaments are due to start. To use it you simple tap your Kings Resort player card and it brings up a list of available tournaments to play in. Its a touch screen display, very easy to use and it prints your tournament receipt, with your table and seat number on it. Saves a lot of time if there’s a queue at the cash desk, as it literally takes less than 20 secs from tapping your card to getting your ticket. 

Registration was initially due to close at the end of level 6 for tonight’s €125 2-7 Triple Draw, however it has now been extended to the end of level 8. Many of the 50 players who are still currently in the H.O.R.S.E tournament were concerned that they might miss the opportunity to play and expressed their desire to push the close of registration back. After a brief consultation with the floor staff, Franke made the announcement that their wishes had been accommodated. 

Today’s mixed game tournament is a €250 H.O.R.S.E. event, which has attracted most of the regulars, with 38 players seated soon after the start. Those who have already donned their jodhpurs include Lachezar Angelov Tsenov, Siarhei Narozhny and Aleksander Giorgiev, who made the final last night in the Mystery Bounty, finishing in 9th place. 

One lively table has Scott Kenyon, Sascha Manns and Antoine Degiorgio all seated next to each other. Spare headphones are available upon request.

There is much discussion amongst the riders about the state of the Player of the Series leaderboard, as many of the mixed games players are in contention. We don’t have an exact update for you yet, as participation points make it hard to calculate on the fly. We will compile a list of leaders based on event results only (not including participation points), which should give a fairly good idea of who’s in the running for the €1,600 Malta package.

The second starting day of the Main Event is now up and running and they are now in the third level of the day, with 79 entries. Ten players have had a short first bullet of the day and have already been sent to the rail, but there are nine levels for late entry and they play to the end of level 13.

Day 1a Survivors Chip Counts

Day 1a finished late last night, way beyond my bedtime, but now we have details of the chip counts of the 26 survivors from the 109 who took their seats. Danish player Dan Larsen bagged the most chips, parlaying his 50,000 starting stack to 524,000. Leaderboard contender Siarhei Narozhny lies in second place with 455,000. Also creeping into Day 2 is Antoine Degiorgio with 114,000.

Wednesday was the sixth day of the series, during which the Mystery Bounty reached its conclusion and the €550 Main Event began the journey that will continue until the end of this inaugural Festival Series in Rozvadov. It was one of the busiest days of the series so far, with four events ending, producing four champions.

Read the news story of the Wednesday’s winners at The Festival Series

Results from all completed events, except satellites can be found on The Festival in Rozvadov Results page

The Main Event of The Festival in Rozvadov began on Wednesday, when 109 player began their quest to obtain a slice of the €500,000 guaranteed prize pool. By the time the flight ended, after 13 levels of play, 26 players had secured their way into Day 2, which will be on Saturday afternoon. 

Before that there are a further five starting days, two of which take place today, on Thursday 6th June, the first is Day 1b, which begins and midday, while Day 1c starts at 6pm.

For those looking for a cheaper route into the €550 buy-in Main Event, there are two satellite scheduled today, costing €80 to play.

At 2pm there is a €250 H.O.R.S.E, which will be the main focus today for many of the mixed game specialists that The Festival Series caters so well for. 

There is also a special treat today and another Festival Series first, as today’s €125 2-7 Triple Draw tournament will be the first time that this format has been played as a tournament at Kings Casino. 

The final tournament of the day is the €125 Thursday Texas Turbo Midnight Madness, but don’t be confused by the name, as it starts at 10pm and if you turn up to play at midnight, you’ll be disappointed, as late registration closes after 6 x 15 minute levels (11.30pm).

News and results from yesterday’s action coming soon.