2024 The Festival Rozvadov Day 8

It’s all going off here at Kings Casino in Rozvadov. The Friday Texas Midnight Madness is well underway and up to 163 entries, including Matthias Kribber, who wasted no time, buying straight into the event after clocking up his second victory of the series in the €125 PLO/PLO8. Pretty much everyone who is anywhere significant on the leaderboard is having a crack at this one and if I didn’t have to write this, i’d be in there myself.

The Open Face Chinese Tournament which started at 2pm has just ended, with Franke getting heads up with David Reiber, but falling at the final hurdle to deny himself a trophy at this series. However the week is not over yet and he still has a few more chances to win enough to cover the bar bill, as the second place prize of €2,650 that he received won’t even cover half of it.

Main Event Day 1e is swimming nicely along and has now breached the 200 mark, having accommodated 206 players so far, with well over an hour to go until registration closes. The total number of entries in the showcase event is now up to 791 and requires over 200 more players to meet the €500k guarantee. There’s a good chance it will get there during Day 1f Turbo, which begins at 11am on Sunday morning.

It will be a long and exciting weekend that brings The Festival Series to a close, so we’re off to replenish our batteries, before the players make their final charge for a seat on the final table. That’s all for tonight folks! Happy pokering and may your aces always hold!

The fourth starting day of the €550 Main Event has concluded, having attracted 213 entries, the largest of the flights so far. However that record is unlikely to stand for long, as Day 1e already has 178 with five levels left for late registration. There have now been 760 entries in total and 1,000 are required to hit the guarantee. There is one final starting day, the turbo structured Day 1f, at 11am on Sunday 8th June.

Stefan Ott must have successfully gone OTT (over the top) quite a few times today, as he posted the largest chip of the flight, at just over 600,000, putting him in second place overall, but is still someway behind Jarmo Salonen’s 733,000.

These are the chip counts of the 51 players who made it through Day 1d.

The €5/€5 NLH Cash Game Challenge is now live on The Festival Series Twitch Channel. These are the starting stacks.

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The €250 Open Face Chinese Tournament is now down to the last four players, all of whom are in the money. The Festival Series founder Martin ‘Franke’ van Zweigbergk is still in and is one of the three big stacks. He’s up against two German players, German Reiber and Benjamin Schultz, both experts at the game. 

It’s getting tight and at this stage anyone can win the €3,670 first prize? Will Franke take it down? Does he need the win to cover his bar tab this week? These questions and more will be answered soon…

This afternoon there was a treasure hunt held in Rozvadov after The Festival Series’ Head of Hospitality  Anastasia Buk went missing during a scheduled walkabout with VIP players. Just to confirm, everyone was invited because all players who attend are considered VIPs. Those out on the walkabout were left with a few clues about where the funsters had disappeared to and after a following a series of false leads they eventually found her in the bar next to the Kings Casino Shisha Lounge, buying beers for all.

She’s still there now partying away with the guests at the karaoke evening, which she ignited singing a duet “I’m Sexy and I Know It.” 

The Game Zone within the Poker Arena is a netted off area at the back of the room where players can relax and play a variety of fun games to pass the time in between poker sessions. Its where we’ve been hosting the Kings Cup all week long, a fun and free-to-enter challenge in three pub game disciplines: darts, table football (or fuss-ball if you prefer) and air hockey.

It’s been playing most afternoons with the field in each game gradually getting whittled down and tonight is final night, where the winners of all three games will be determined, each champion receiving a free entry into tomorrow’s €250 Poker Listings Cup. 

These are the match ups:

Darts:

Toivo O vs Artur 

Air Hockey:

Vit R vs Vambola

Fussball: 

Sven M, Scott K & Vambola (3-way final)

Come along, cheer on the competitors and join the famous Festival Series spirit.

If you wind back six days, you might just remember the first few sessions of the Cash Game Challenge. There was quite a fun €5/€5 NLH cash game and an even more exciting PLO session, which was pretty crazy indeed. Chikitta Banana was one of the stars of the Omaha, as was “Stallion” who featured in both streamed sessions.

Tonight the TV table will once again host two sessions on play, starting with NLH, followed by PLO, both with stakes of €5/€5. The rules are simple, players must sit with a minimum of 100 big blinds and play for two hours. At the end of the sessions the scores will be totaled up and the player who made the biggest profit (in big blinds) across all sessions played during the week will win a €1,600 package to The Festival Series in Malta.

The target they are chasing today is 252.5 big blinds, which was the profit made by Ville Turja in the fifth session of the challenge, held on 3rd June. 

The action is being streamed on a 30-minute delay and can be viewed with English commentary on the Festival Series Twitch Channel, soon after 8.30pm.

For German commentary, it is available on the Kings Casino Twitch Channel

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Late registration has just closed for day 1d of the Main Event, with 213 entries, bringing the total up to 588, with two starting days yet to start. Day 1e is also taking place this evening and is just about to start. There is also a satellite underway for it, with 133 players vying for 16 seats.

Tonight’s €125 PLO/PLO8 event has also recently started and 52 players have already joined the game. A lot of the usual suspects are getting invlolved, including several who are chasing Thomas Gugerbaauer at the top of the provisional leaderboard. This includes Rolf Bechstroem, Lachezar Angelov Tsenov, Barrie Dear and Scott Kenyon. Eva ‘Chic’ Jiretorn is also playing today, looking to improve on her 4th place finish in the €250 H.O.R.S.E.

The Open Face Chinese field has narrowed down considerably, with leaderboard contenders Sascha Manns and Siarhei Narozhny still in contention and both now on the same 3-handed table. Franke is also still in and going strong, holding a narrow chip lead with 12 players left from a field of 57.

Usually it takes several weeks to sort out who has won the leaderboard and it may still take some time to be officially confirmed once the series is over, however, we have a provisional list to share with you now, of the top 25 players, based on results of players who have cashed in the events completed up until now.

HOWEVER, PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE SCORES DO NOT INCLUDE PARTICIPATION POINTS FOR EVENTS THAT PLAYERS DID NOT CASH IN.

This does give a reasonably good indication of who is leading the way. The trailblazer at this stage is Thomas Gugerbauer, who is 37 points in front of Rolf Arne Bechstroem and Siarhei Narozhny, who have 80 point each with Sascha Manns in 4th on 77 points.

HERE ARE THE UNOFFICIAL STANDINGS AFTER DAY 7

Open Face Chinese is a poker variant with a difference. It is quite different to most other forms of poker and you can read all about how to play in an article on the Festival Series website.

Today’s tournament is now in level 5 and 28 of the 41 players who joined are still open facing away happily, some more than others. One who might not be enjoying it quite so much is Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon, who after uttering the immortal words “I don’t tell bad beat stories’ proceeded to do just that. He’s now on his second bullet, but has vowed not to have a third.

Day 1c of the Main Event ended in the early hours of the morning, with another 31 players joining the 57 who had already qualified for Day 2. The chip leader is one of the players who has exercised his right to remain anonymous and use a nickname instead of his real name. He’s known here as Cashewchili. There are several other players who made it through who also use their nicknames. That’s their right, however its also our right to hope they don’t win the event, as we would like to be able to celebrate their success and ‘Unknown player wins The Festival Series Main Event” isn’t a great headline. Nothing personal.

Yesterday’s Fun With Slots Winner Andre Sorm from Estonia one of the players who made it through the day and is happy to use his name, so he wins the feature picture for this post.

It’s going to be a busy one today, which is why the first of today’s two starting days for the Main Event began at 11am. There are 77 players already pokering away at this early stage of the flight, with just one player busting so far. 

Amongst the early risers is Aleksander Georgiev, who is looking for another deep run, having finished 9th in the Mystery Bounty. Also spotted in the field is Dane Martin Wendt, an old school blast from the poker past, who i’ve not seen at an event in well over a decade. He famously won the William Hill Grand Prix, a televised event in 2007.

Welcome to the biggest day of the The Festival in Rozvadov! There have been three starting days of the €550 Main Event so far and the two that take place today, on Friday 7th June 2024, are expected to be bumper fields. If they are not, players are in for a huge treat as a massive overlay could be on the cards. There have been 375 combined entries so far across the first three flights and it requires another 625 players to hit the €500,000 guarantee. Will it get there? keep your eye on this blog for further updates and news as the day progresses

Results and chip counts from Thursday’s events coming soon.

Friday’s Schedule at The Festival in Rozvadov