2024 The Festival Rozvadov Live Blog

The results from the final day of The Festival Series in Rozvadov were not covered in the live blog, as our attention was fully focused on the conclusion of the Main Event. And what a conclusion it was, but that’s another story…click here for more on Presiyan Tsvetanov’s epic win.

There were a few other tournaments on the 10th and final day, notably a couple of €1,100 high roller events, Open Face Chinese and No Limit Hold’em. At the other end of the bankroll spectrum there were two tournaments with entry level €125 buy-ins, one NLH, the other Five Card PLO.

Open Face Chinese

Opening the day, even before the Main Event resumed, was the Open Face Chinese High Roller. It was never expected to be a busy one and started with just five players. The total number of entries didn’t quite make it into double figures, halting at nine, at least three of which were re-entries. 

It only paid two places and the last pair were Mati Pirn and Twitch streamer Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon. Both players had narrowly missed out on trophies earlier in the series. Mati took the runner up spot in the Blackjack while Scott had flirted with the winner’s enclosure on more than one occasion. 

After a lengthy and hard-contested final session of play, it was Scott who took down the title and the first prize of €5,130. For anyone interested in watching how it all openly unfolded, he streamed it all live on his Pokerbrahs Twitch channel and it’s now available to rewatch.

Scott may not have defended the Player of the Series award that he won in Bratislava, but he will have gone close, with one win, one second and one third place finish plus two further cashes to his name at The Festival in Rozvadov.

NLH High Roller 

The final event of the series to end was the €1,100 No Limit High Roller, which had 41 entrants, creating a prize pool of €38,950. It was not until after 4am that this one drew to a close with New Zealander Johan Lees emerging victorious, to take the €14,412 first prize. 

The €125 Five Card PLO

The last of many Omaha tournaments was a five card version and there were familiar faces on the final table, notably Player Of The Series in-waiting Thomas Gugerbauer, who’s third place finish surely cemented his status as the POTS, although we may have to wait for a few more days before this is confirmed. Runner-up Barrie Dear from the UK claimed his best result of the series, his 5th cash overall. The winner of the top prize of €1,812 chose to remain anonymous. 

The final €125 NLH event had 103 runners and was won by Michal Mrakeš for €2,958.

Full Results from these tournaments and all events at The Festival in Rozvadov can be found here.

And that was that, another edition of The Festival Series is in the can. But it doesn’t need to be over yet, you could relive it all again through the day-by-day updates on the blog, or you can venture onto our various social media channels for a wide variety of coverage from the hardest working team that i’ve ever had the privilege to be a part of. See you in Malta!

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Roll the Credits…

Photographer: Mairo Toom

Videographer: Nikit Hellsjesus

Video Editor:  Aleksandr Pljuw

Hospitality: Anastasia Buk

Interviewer: Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund

Social Media: Melvin Schroen

Commentator: Vaclav “Lemon” Dusek

Blogger: Jonathan Raab

Hugs: Jason Glatzer

Enforcer: Karev Tralla

Commander in Chief: Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk

Fade to Black…

Presiyan Tsvetanov has won the Main Event of the Festival in Rozvadov to capture the €80,000 first prize and a seat in the €10,350 Main Event of the World Series of Poker Europe. He triumphed after a long heads-up battle with Czech player Michal Riczak. 

Bulgarian Tsvetanov had gone into the final heads-up stage of the tournament with a 4-1 chip deficit, but clawed his way back into contention with an early double up holding AT versus Riczak’s K6. Tsvetanov then turned the tables and assumed the lead, but it took over two and a half hours to reach its conclusion.

In the final hand, with the blinds at 300k/600k and a big blind 600k ante, Presiyan had applied the ultimate pressure against his short-stacked adversary, open shoving with 10 8 , which was snap called by Riczak, who was in the lead with K Q . However, the 9 J Q flop gave Presiyan a straight and left Roczak needing a ten to make a better one. The 3 on the turn and 2 on the flop brought the tournament to close.

Congratulations to Presiyan, who scoops the €80,000 first prize. Congratudolences to runner up Michal Riczak, who left with €47,900 for his efforts. They both also scored a seat into the WSOPE Main Event, which takes place later this year.

The adventure is over for Antoine Degiorgio, who has been shunted off the final table when making a move with 3 2 on a flop of 6 Q 4 , in a hand against chip leader Michal Riczak. The Maltese Mixed Games Maestro had a flush and straight draw and was up against K K . The turn was the 10 and an unhelpful 4 on the river brought the best run of Antoine’s poker life to an end. He leaves with €33,900 plus WSOP Main Event Seat.

Not even a ‘Mela’ exited Antoine’s mouth, as forever the gentleman, he immediately rushed to hug and congratulate the last two players left, who will now fight it out for the title.

Despite favouring mixed games, Antoine’s previous best was also in No Limit Hold’em, when he won €14,006 for 1st in a €400 event at the Israeli Poker Championship at Portomaso Casino in Malta. Antoine will return to Malta on Monday evening on the 7pm flight from Munich. I’ll be on that flight too and I really hope the Maltese poker community makes an effort to welcome him back when he walks out of the Arrivals Hall at Malta International Airport! Antoine, you da man!

Heads Up for the Title

Michal Riczak has a huge chip lead going into the final two versus Bulgarian Presiyan Tsvetanov. These are the chip counts as the heads up commences:

Michal: 41m

Presiyan: 8.4m

Watch the Heads Up on The Festival’s Twitch Channel

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Not long after Yann Lormel was dusted out of the tournament another big hand took place. This one was a more straightforward affair, a classic you might say.

Barnabus held Q Q versus the A K of in Michal Riczak in another all-in pre-flop situation. The K on the flop was enough to nudge Nagy out of the tournament in 4th place for €25,600 and a WSOPE Main Event Seat.

Hungarian player Barnabus Nagy is an experienced player who has graced many final tables all over Europe. He made the final table of the Eureka Poker Tour Main Event in Varna, Bulgaria in 2012, where he finished in 8th place. I was there for that event, as The Eureka Poker Tour was my creation. He went on to win an event on the Eureka Poker Tour, the big field Prague Poker Cup in 2015, where he cashed for €55,750. This score doesn’t quite match that feat, but it is the second biggest cash of his life. He’ll be back at Kings Casino later in the year to take his seat in the WSOPE Main Event.

Chip Counts Three Handed

Michal: 26.15m

Antoine: 11.65m

Presiyan: 10.6m

Aces do look nice and they are almost always going to be a hand you will risk your tournament life with. Unfortunately for Frenchman Yann Lormel, they don’t always hold up, as was the case when he found himself all-in holding the A A versus Presiyan Tsvetanov’s A 2 . Presiyan had made the call, but Yann was still well in front on a flop of Q 6 8 . The turn brought the 5 giving Presiyan a flush draw and his luck was in when the 10 hit on the river.

Yann has been one of the more aggressive players in the latter stages of the tournament and was one of the top three stacks for much of the second day of the tournament. He continued to dominate today and went into the final table as the chip leader with over 10m chips. However his opponents on the final table started to play back at him and eventually he was punished for it.

Yann’s best ever score was also here in Rozvadov, in July 2022, when he took down the Dach Masters Open for €39,500.

Runen777, the second and last anonymous player at the final table has been sent to the rail in 6th and takes home €15,300 plus a €10,350 seat in the WSOPE Main Event. Soon after Erik exited in 7th, Runen777 began to pick up a few hands, first an AK, then AJ, which he won small uncontested pots with. 

However it was all over for the player of indeterminate nationality, when he made a 4m chip all-in move with A 10 over the top of Michal Riczak’s opening bet. The Czech chip leader called with 8 8 and the board blanked to send Runen777 spinning to the rail in 6th, for €15,300 plus a WSOPE ME Seat.

Michal has extended his lead and now has almost 20m chips.

Having been left with less than a small blind, Erik found himself all-in soon after the restart and although his J 8 was dominating both the J 7 of Michal Riczak and the 9 8 held by Yann, the 7 on the flop weas enough to end his tournament.

Erik has played a strong game throughout the tournament, has been the most aggressive player on the final table and just misses out on a career best score. His best result remains last year’s Estonian Championship, where he finished 2nd, cashing for €11,000. 

Latest Chip Counts

The remaining seven players have now gone on a break. We’ll update chip counts shortly, but there was a huge hand just before the break that left Estonian Erik Polluveer with fumes of the stack he once had. He held A 10 on a A Q 7 9 A board and made the call to Yann Lormel’s re-raise, only to find himself up against Q Q . Erik was left with less than a small blind.

Chip Counts at the Break

The second player to depart was anonymous German player ASSO, who moved all-in with 5 5 from early position for his last 2.295m chips. Fellow short-stack Erik Polluveer from Estonia woke up with K K and also moved all-in with an almost identical stack. However Yann Lormel also made the call with A K to put both players at risk.

The 7 Q 8 3 4 board blanked everyone, trebling up Erik, while ASSO was sent to the rail in 8th for €7,500.

It took almost an hour for the first player to be eliminated from The Festival Series Main Event final table. The unfortunate player to have had his final table cut short is Rickard Olsson from Sweden, who secures his biggest ever live cash of €5,950.

It was a brutal exit, as Olsen, all-in pre-flop with A K had connected on a flop of 10 K 4 , losing to the straight of Michal Riczak’s Q Q when the board ran out J 9

The final table has now begun and can be viewed on either The Festival Series Twitch Channel with English commentary and on the Stream Like a King Twitch Channel (Kings Casino) in German. When they get down to six left it will go live on Czech TV.

The Final Nine

They started with 989 players and 980 have fallen, meaning we have now reached the final table of the Festival in Rozvadov Main Event. Full chip counts and seating draw for the final nine coming soon. The players who narrowly missed out on the final table were

10th place: DOV-HOZ (nickname)

11th place: Kai Wattenberg

12th place: Claudiu Descultu

Twenty-four players returned today for the final day of the Main Event and half of them have now exited, leaving twelve poker disciples still chasing divinity…and a very nice €80,000 payday.

The current chip leader is Czech Michal Riczak on 8.7m

Other news we have recently discovered is that the final table will be screened live (on a 30-minute delay) on Czech national television. Just how the players who wish to remain anonymous are going to cope with that remains to be seen.

However if you want commentary in English, you can watch on The Festival Series Twitch Channel.

Recent Exits

The first hour of the day has been a quick-fire one and there are now 16 players left. The table that started on the TV table has now been swapped, but the stream is half an hour behind. Coverage in English is by Václav ‘Lemon’ Dušek on The Festival ’s Twitch Channel. 

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17th-24th Placed Finishers

Four events concluded on Saturday at The Festival in Rozvadov. Unfortunately three of those winners chose to remain anonymous, which means that most of the article that I have posted in the news section is about the winner of the €250 PokerListings 30k Texas NLH, Aleksandar Georgiev from Bulgaria.

Congratulations to all winners, full details and payouts on the results page.

The last three tables are back in action, having just resumed after one of Franke’s final speeches of The Festival in Rozvadov. These are today’s contestants, all looking to make the final and have a pop at poker immortality by joining that exclusive club of Festival Series Main Event Winners. The €80,000 first prize and WSOPE Main Event ticket is also worth winning, but there’s a long way to go before we get heads up.

There is of course a feature table today, operating on a 30-minute delay, which can be viewed on The Festival Series Twitch Channel with English commentary and on the Stream Like a King Twitch Channel (Kings Casino) in German.

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Here are the chip counts, starting stacks and seating draw for the last 24. Table 37 is the feature table.

Today is the 10th and final day of The Festival Series first visit to Rozvadov. But as Franke said in one of his speeches yesterday, we expect to be back! It’s been a jam packed Festival Series with highs and more highs and not very many (if any) lows. 

But we’re not done yet, there’s still a full day of poker ahead of us and the main focus of the blog today will be on the 3rd and final day of the €550 Main Event. They are down to the last 24 players, who resume play at 1pm, to settle the matter of the €80,000 first prize, plus a WSOPE Main Event seat.

The first event to start today is the Open Face Chinese High Roller. That’s not the only high roller event today, the NLH High Roller, with the same €1,100 buy in starts at 6pm. 

It’s not all high stakes action as there are two more reasonably priced €125 events, an NLH Texas Freezeout at 3pm and 5 Card PLO at 4pm.

Yep, that’s all folks, tune in again tomorrow for our final day coverage. But before I head to the buffet for a post midnight snack, here’s a brief update on the other tournaments that are still in progress.

The Festival Queens are still fighting for the crown. There are nine left and the top five get paid.

The PokerListings Cup is down to 16 players.

The PLO Highroller has three players left with Italian Bruno Stefanelli looking masterfully in charge of proceedings.

The Saturday PLO Turbo Midnight Madness is down to seven players, including leaderboard contender Ivo Gadze securing his second cash of the day, after busting the Main Event earlier this evening.

See you in the morning!

We are down the last 24 players in the €550 Festival Series Main Event at Kings Casino in Rozvadov. They will return to restart play at 1pm, eyeing up a seat on the final table and shot at the €80,000 first prize. The top six will also win €10,350 WSOPE Main Event Seats.

Recent Exits

Chip Counts of the remaining 24

Both the PLO High Roller and the Poker Listings Cup are on the bubble now and the Festival Queens (ladies event) is now down to the final table, but only six will get paid.

There are now 29 players left in the Main Event and they need to lose only five more until play ends. At this stage the big chip leader is Alexander Bachman, who has 5.5m. It not even close, the second largest stack currently belongs to Presiyan Tsvetanov on just under 3m chips, with Yann Lormel and Antoine Degiorgio on 2.4m each. There may be some big stacks on the feature table, but that’s on a 30-minute delay, so if you want to find out if there is anyone on there getting close to our chip leader, check out the coverage on Festival Series Twitch Channel with English commentary and on the Kings Casino Twitch Channel (Kings Casino) in German.

Mairo Toom, The Festival Series photographer, who has been providing excellent pictures all week has now given us another gift, as he’s done a breakdown of nationalities of the players still in the main event, with 29 left.

There are currently still five tournaments still in play here a on the 9th Day of the Festival in Rozvadov. Don’t worry, this is not a good night post, I’ll be plugging on until the Main Event gets down to the last 24 players, when they will suspend play for the day. There are still 36 left as I write this and its getting serious, as the big money gradually gets closer.

PLO High Roller

The €1,100 PLO High Roller has reached the final table, but only four get paid and there are nine left. Vincent de Neve has held the lead all the way through and is still dominating with almost three times as much as his nearest challenger. There were 38 entries in total and first prize is a over €11,000.

Festival Queens

The €125 Festival Queens attracted 41 female players, of which 23 are still in contention, including Yilva ‘Jevakim’ Thorsrud, who is playing in her 1,000th live tournament. Andreas ‘Wiseguy’ Hoglund surprised her earlier with a cake to celebrate reaching this impressive milestone. Something else I learned about Yilva today is that she is one of the best shuffleboard players in Europe and is happy to take on all-comers, offering them odds of 3-1 to beat her! I have a feeling this will get tested at The Festival in Malta in September.

Best of the Rest

The PokerListings Cup is now down to 34 players and the chip leader, with almost 500k is Bulgarian Aleksandar Georgiev (average stack is 140k). And finally, the Saturday PLO Turbo Midnight Madness, possibly the sanest tournament in the room tonight, is down to the last two tables. Karev Tralla is still in the mix!

They are now near the end of level 20, with potentially five more to play, however they will stop at 24 players if they get there before level 26. Ivo Gazde, the highest player on the leaderboard is no longer live in the tournament, busting in 78th place while on the TV table. This throws the race for the €1,600 Festival in Malta package wide open. 

The €250 PokerListings Championship is the biggest NLH one-day side event of the series. Registration has closed and 89 of the 214 who started are still playing. Many of the leaderboard contenders are taking part in this one rather than the High Roller PLO, including Bulgarian Lachezar Angelov Tsenov. It might be a shrewd choice as the size of the field ensures a lot of leaderboard points will be awarded.

The ladies Festival Queens event is on its first break and has grown to 28 players. Only three have busted so far, the first of which was Anastasia Buk. Today’s field includes 2-7 Triple Draw winner Ylva ‘Jevakim’ Thorsrud and Eva Jiretorn, who has made two final tables already this week. Blackjack Tournament winner Maili Tannbaum is also playing, as is old school UK player Lynn Beaumont, who just confided in me that she’s going to start studying GTO and will crush the next time she visits The Festival Series.

Some people like the fact that ladies only poker events they exist, other dislike it. Let’s take a look at the reasons for and against women only tournaments:

Against: 

• All players should be equal, there’s no physical advantage for men, as there is in many sports
• Its derogatory, according to some women who prefer to play against all-comers.
• They rarely get big fields

For:

• It helps to promote the game of poker among women
• It provides women who like poker with an escape from misogenistic behaviour of some men, when women are present at the table
• Women’s tournaments invariably smell much better than open tournaments

What is your opinion on ladies only tournaments? 

Player of The Series contender Belorussian Siarhei “The Machine” Narozhny has been knocked out in 89th place (€1,134). We’re not sure how he exited, but it must have been explosive as he was sitting on a reasonable stack not long before he hot the rail. The extra points he has picked up will help him close the gap on Thomas Gugerbauer, who did not make Day 2 of the Main Event. It’s highly likely he will jump straight into the €1,100 High Roller PLO, so this might not be his only cash of the day.

Ivo Gadze is the highest placed player on the provisional leaderboard left in the Main Event and a deep run here would give him a great chance of taking the top spot.

Recent Payouts

Maltese Mixed Games Maestro is in the zone today. He’s in the money and up to around 650,000, a bit over average. He has a tough but friendly table and a look of sheer concentration on his face. Not a wine glass in site and as I passed his table, he was raking in a pot to add to his growing stack. 

It was a one-hand bubble and everyone left is now in the money and will pick up a min cash of at least €1,034. As per usual there were a flurry of exits in the next few hands after they reached the money. These are the first players out to be paid in The Festival Series in Rozvadov Main Event.

They’re on the bubble in the Main Event,108 players left, 107 get paid.

Play has resumed in the Main Event after the dinner break, but the players who were on table 96 are missing. That’s because they have been shifted onto table 37, the live streaming table here at Kings Casino. It has just gone live on the Festival Series Twitch Channel with English commentary and on the Stream Like a King Twitch Channel (Kings Casino) in German.

Ivo Gazde and Ferry Ikink are the big stacks on the table.

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Today’s €250 PokerListings Cup is now in play and has 77 at the end of the first level. The €1,100 PLO is also taking place now, but has only 11 runners so far. The start of this event was delayed by 30-minutes due to the high turnout in the €90 satellite for it, which is not yet over, but will dump another eight players in as soon as it concluded.

The Queens Cup ladies are also limbering up for the start at 8pm, including The Festival’s very own Anastasia Buk, who will be joining the game from the start, but possibly splitting her attention between that and the Player Party which is also happening today at Casino Admiral, across the road from Kings Casino.

Players on the main event have been sent o a 30-minute dinner break. They’re not quite on the bubble yet, as 23 of the last 130 will be going home empty handed. 

Out

• Nikolas Bokowski
• Maurice Trapp
• Andre Sorm
• Oliver Kubalek
• Sami Pullianen

In

• Siarhei Narozhny
• Antoine Degiorgio
• Alexander Dovzhenko
• Earde Bearda
• Ivo Gazde
• Ivo Petkov
• Jarmo Salonen
• Mats Rosqvist
• Norbert Krull
• Stefan Ott

They have been playing for over an hour now and the Day 2 field, which began with 249 players has quickly whittled itself down to 182. Only 107 players will be paid and sadly these early exiting players will be leaving empty handed:

• Karev Tralla
• Matthias Kribben
• Aleksander Giorgiev
• Paul-Adrian Covaciu
• Rolf Bechstroem

This is what the remaining players are shooting for:

Players are way back in the Poker Arena at Kings Casino for the start of Day 2 of the €550 Festival Series Main Event. Play recommenced after Franke gave another of his now famous speeches, ending with a standing ovation for the floor staff, catering staff and dealers.

Chip Counts

These are the top 20 chip counts at the start of Day 2

There’s too many players left to list all their chip counts, however you can find these in previous blog posts from the end of each starting day. Here’s some links to help you find them more easily:

Day 1a Survivors Chip Counts

Day 1b Survivors Chip Counts

Day 1c Survivors Chip Counts

Day 1d Survivors Chip Counts

Day 1e Survivors Chip Counts

Day 1f has just ended with 61 of the 183 players who took part squeezing into Day 2 at the last opportunity. There’s too little time before the second day starts to get chip counts, as play resumes at 4.30pm. When the cards return to the air, there will be 249 players left in, all aiming for a slice of the €500k prize pool.

Earlier we reported that there were 184 players in Day 1f and that the total number of entries in the Main Event was 990. However, a recount has brought this down by one player, as in fact only 183 players participated, reducing the overall total to 989.

There were three more winners on Friday in the Open Face Chinese, PLO/PLO8 and the Texas Midnight Madness. Read the story of these events in News section. Full results from these three events and all other completed tournaments can be found on the Rozvadov results page on this blog.

Registration in Day 1f of The Festival in Rozvadov Main Event has closed with 183 entrants, bringing the final total for the event up to 989, just ten players short of meeting the €500,000 guarantee. At the beginning of level 10 there were 97 players left and four more levels until the short day ends.

Day 1f of the Man Event began at 11am an by the 4th level of the day there were 117 entries, with five levels of late registration to go. If there is an overlay, it won’t be by much. But what else is there in store for the rest of the ninth day of the series?

Apart from this final flight, it’s a later start than usual for the other tournaments on the schedule. First up at 3pm is the final satellite of the series, with a €90 buy-in. The target of this satellite is the €1,100 2-day PLO Highroller, which begins at 6pm. Prior to that, Day 2 of the Main Event starts 1t 4.30pm.

Tonight there are three further side events, starting with the €250 Poker Listings Cup at 7pm. Festival Queens is the ladies tournament, which begins at 8pm, costing €125 to enter for those who’s gender qualifies them to play. And the final action of the evening is the €125 Saturday PLO Turbo Midnight Madness at 10pm. It might start off tame, but by midnight hour, it lives up to its name and goes completely crazy, especially if Franke is playing and buying everyone beers.

By the time late registration closed on Day 1e of the Festival in Rozvadov Main Event, 221 players had entered, but only 49 of them would make it through to Day 2. Norbert Krull bagged the largest stack of the flight (673,000), but is still some way off the 761,000 chip lead posted by Jarmo Salonen on Day 1b. Several players who are prominent in the Player of the Series also made it to the end of Day 1e, including Ivo Gazde, who is near the top of the list, on 544,000. Matthias Kribben, who won the PLO/PLO8 didn’t waste any time after his victory yesterday, jumping straight into Day 1e. He made it through, but with a short stack.

Summer may now have finally arrived in the western part of the Czech Republic. The rain that we’ve had for much of the week has stopped, the sun is shining and the 188 players left in The Festival Series Main Event are getting ready for Day 2, which begins at 4.30pm. But they won’t be alone, as there is one final turbo structured starting day which is just beginning now in Kings Casino Rozvadov. Day 1f turbo runs on a 15-minute clock and has 9 levels for late entry. There have been 806 entries in total from the first five flights and this one needs 194 players to meet the €500,000 guarantee.

Will it get there? We’ll let you know as the day progresses. News of the Day 1e survivors and their chip counts coming soon.

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

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.

It’s the end of today’s blog coverage, but there’s still plenty of poker being played at Kings Casino in Rozvadov. 

The Main Event still has the best part of three levels left to play and there are still 39 of the day’s 109 entrants still left in. 

The €300 Mystery Bounty is down to the last six players and the €125 PLO Wednesday Night Turbo, which had 113 entries still has two tables left.

On Thursday there are two further starting days for the Main Event, the first of which begins at midday. We’ll be back in the morning with news of how tonight’s ongoing tournaments ended up and chip counts from the Main Event Day 1 survivors. As a Maltese resident, I’m completely unashamed to say that I’m rooting for Antoine Degiorgio to make it through the day. At the time of posting, with over two levels of the day left to go, Antoine has a slightly above average 168,000. Good luck sir!

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The €125 Roulette Tournament has been won by Thomas Gugerbauer, who’s score of 138,200 was far ahead of second placed Rolf Arne Bechstroem’s 90,000 total. There were 91 entries, making it by far the busiest roulette tournament ever held at The Festival Series. 

Gugerbauer’s win was the result of one extremely lucky spin where he covered the zero and all its splits with as many chips as possible. That spin alone earned him 122,000 points and was good enough for first place. many tried to knock him off the top spot, but all failed. 

However, as per yesterday’s blackjack tournament, it was not until the very last few spins that the result became inevitable. Third placed Esko Virri had chances to win, having accumulated over 60,000 with five spins to go. However he played it cautiously to ensure third place rather than risking it all for glory. The Full Result to follow.

By winning the roulette, Gugerbauer became the first double winner of The Festival in Rozvadov, going back-to-back after taking down Tuesday’s PLO Knockout. He is having a really good festival, as he also took second place in the €250 PLO Masters and now moves into pole position (to be confirmed) in the Player of the Series race.

Top spinning Thomas!

Tonight’s roulette tournament is proving to be just as exciting as yesterday’s blackjack was. There’s still 30 minutes left for late registration and the current leader is Thomas Gugerbauer, who posted a massive 138,200 score, which nobody has come close to yet. 

The early running was made by Rolf Arne Bechstroem, who scored 90,000, but took nine bullets to get there. He still lies in second and has a big lead over third placed Sander Laprik on 55,000.

The spin that rocketed Gugerbauer to the top of the leaderboard was a bold play with huge amounts of chips on the zero and all the surrounding splits. It took quite a while to pay out the bet, which amounted to 122,000.

Franke has had (at least) seven entries, none of which proved fruitful. He went all in on lucky number seven each time, but didn’t manage to hit.

Registration is closing soon, but as we have already seen, anything can (and probably will) happen. Will Franke have another last minute bash at hitting the seven?  Will Thomas Gugerbauer retain his lead? We’ll find out soon!

The €550 Main Event is now in level 6 and now has 99 entries, which means it i still 901 players away from hitting the guarantee. Obviously the guarantee won’t be hit for several more starting days, if at all. There have been a few overlays here this week already, most notably The Hendon Mob Championship, which missed its €200,000 guarantee by over €20,000. Could the Main Event post an even bigger one and give all players a bit of great value to get their teeth into?

Amongst the players who started their tournament today is Seven Card Stud winner Siarhei Narozhny, who is one of the players in contention for the Player of the Series award. 

The unofficial front runner for that title, Sascha Manns has already fired one bullet and missed. He cashed in 39th place in the Mystery Bounty, his third score of the series and then loaded his gun for his first tilt at the Main Event. However the barrel jammed, backfired and sent him to rail within 90 mins of taking his seat. He can easily afford a few more bullets though, having already cashed for over €15,000 this week, including a €3,000 bounty in the Mystery.

Other players in their seats today include the godfather of the Maltese Mixed Games scene (heck, the godfather of all poker in Malta) Antoine Degiorgio, plus Party Poker online qualifier Michael Sowale from London, who hasn’t used his online seat yet, as he won his way in today via an €80 satellite.

Late registration remains open until the end of level nine and they will play 13 levels in total.

The Mystery Bounty is now down to the last two tables and its getting serious. All the big bounties have long gone and the remaining contestants are now fully focused on the first prize of €27,150, which includes an entry into the WSOPE Main Event. The average stack is now just under 2m and the chip leader, Mikael Hanouna has about 5.5m. Other well stacked players still in the running include Viorel Gavrila, Igor Kubarev, Maksim Belomestnoi and Aleksander Giorgiev. 

I spoke to Aleksander earlier and he’s running good at the table, but terrible when it comes to picking the bounties. Earlier on, two of the €10,000 bounties were pulled one after the other and he was next in line to press the red button that starts the chest opening sequence. There had been great cheers and gasps when the big bounties were pulled, but these turned into groans when Aleksander got the minimum €100 prize. He has since taken several more bounties and every single one was for €100. Still, it’s got to better than when he bubbled the H.O.R.S.E at the recent Battle of Malta, where he had been one of the early chip leaders, oof…not to mention being taken out by reporting colleague Frank Visser, oof oof.

The bounties came into play at the beginning of the second day, but only 63 of the 95 players made it to the money. By the time they got there, about 90 minutes into the day, all three of the biggest bounties, worth €10,000 had been pulled, but there are still 3 x €3,000 valued prizes left to pull. 

One lucky Mann, with the first name Sascha, has already added to the loot he banked in the H.O.R.S.E.S and the 8-Game, pulling the first of four €3,000 bounties. He took it calmly, with no overt celebration, just a wry smile, acknowledging that he is the golden child this week in Rozvadov.

The bubble has also just burst in the €125 PLO 4/5/6 card and there are 13 players left to shoot for the top prize of €3,354. Lachezar Angelov Tsenov is still in, notching up his third cash and going for his second trophy of the series, but he is relatively short stacked. Scott Kenyon has also recorded his third cash of the festival and has an above average stack, but the runaway chip leader is Massimo Navarra who has a quarter of the chip in play and is shipping pot after pot.

The big one has begun, the €500,000 guaranteed Main Event of The Festival in Rozvadov. This is the first of six starting days in the €550 buy-in headliner, which is the biggest draw of the Festival Series. They are still on the first level of the day, with 47 players playing. Players may have a maximum of 2 bullets per flight and late registration closes after level nine. They play 13 x 40 minute levels on the first day.

Spotted in the field today is last night’s Seven Card Stud winner Siarhei Narozhny, who is one of the front runners for the Player of the Series award. 

Yesterday’s Blackjack tournament was a heap of fun and kept everyone guessing until the very last hand. Today the casino games tournament is roulette. The registration is open until 11.30pm and players may join the game at any time. The goal is to win as much as possible with 10 spins of the wheel, but there are a few rules to consider.

The Rules

• Players receive 10,000 points each
• No outside bets
• Call bets are allowed but must be placed before the wheel spins
• Minimum bet is 100 points per spin
• Maximum bet is 2000 per box/split
• You can bet all your chips on one spin, maximum bets only apply to each individual bet

Full rules are available in this excellent article, written by The Festival’s social media manager Melvin Schroën.

The biggest roulette tournament ever held at The Festival Series was in Bratislava in 2021, when 34 players entered and already it looks like that record is going to be blown away. Within the first hour and half of the table opening, there had already been 18 entries and most of the casino regulars haven’t even arrived at the casino yet. We’re going to call this early, it will get well over 100 runners.

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The fourth and final starting day of the €300 Mystery Bounty has concluded, with 29 players joining the 66 who made it through from the first three flights for a Day 2 field of 95 players.

Due to the quick turnaround we won’t be getting any chip counts from the players who qualified from this final flight. These are the players who made it through the day:

Mystery Bounty Prize Pool

And this is what they’re playing for:

What About the Mystery Bounties?

Oh yes, lets not forget about those. From the start of Day 2, all players have bounties on their heads. When a player is eliminated, their vanquisher gets to open the chest to find out how much they have won? The biggest bounties are worth €10,000 each and there are three of them. This approach is genius, as the big prizes stay in circulation for longer, increasing the excitement for players for much longer.

Registration has now closed in the final flight of the €300 Mystery Bounty with 187 players making one final attempt to sneak into Day 2, which begins at 5pm. There are still 112 players left in and they will play down until there are 29 left.

The total field of 620, absolutely destroying the previous best for this event. The ball has been well and truly smashed out of the park! The total prize pool has not yet been confirmed and first prize they are shooting for remains a mystery, but will be confirmed soon, along with details of bounties, which will start to be claimed on Day 2.

The first of today’s two PLO tournaments began at 2pm and they are falling thick and fast, with 19 of the 57 entries (so far) hitting the rail within the first hour of play. Lots of re-entries are expected in the €125 buy-in event, which has a fast structure, on a 20 minute clock. Late registration will remain open for another 4 levels.

The first Main Event satellite of the day has also just begun and there is another one scheduled for 8pm this evening. 

Just as I was about to hit publish, a loud chorus of people chanting ‘Flips, Flips, Flips, Flips’ made their way into the casino, having returned from today’s sports day and BBQ, which means that Franke’s Flips will be starting earlier than scheduled. More info on how that contest is progressing coming soon…

There’s no hump day at The Festival in Rozvadov, as the series lasts for an even ten days, but this is the the first day of the second half of the series. Once again there’s a pretty packed schedule, with a little something for everyone.

First up at midday is the final starting day of the €300 Mystery Bounty, which already surpassed its €100,000 guarantee yesterday and is going to climb further before late registration closes after the first ten levels. This flight is a turbo structure with a 15-minute clock and they play down to 15% of the field. The survivors will join the 66 players who have made it through the first three starting days when Day 2 begins at 5pm.

Omaha fans are in for a treat today, with two tournaments on today’s schedule. The first of these is a €125 PLO 4/5/6 Card tournament, which will be played with a maximum of seven players per table. The late night side event at 10pm is a PLO Turbo, also with a €125 buy-in.

The casino games event today is a Roulette Tournament that starts at 4pm and runs throughout the evening costing €125 to play. Registration closes at midnight.

And last but absolutely by no means least, at 6pm today is the first of six starting days for The Festival Series Main Event. The €550 event will be the main focus for the rest of the festival.

The Kings Cup in the Games Zone, our pub games fun tournament also continues today, having reached the third day, with 30 players left in contention. Those left in the darts, air hockey and Fussball competitions include streamers Ylva Thorsrud and Scott Kenyon, plus tour regulars Lisabeth Sunde and ‘Vambola.’  The Kings Cup concludes on Friday, when the winners of each game will walk away with a 250€ ticket to the Poker Listings Championship on Saturday.

The recap of yesterday’s action is now available in the news section.

The fifth day is drawing to a close here at Kings Casino, but there are still several tournaments still in play and one that has concluded.

Seniors 

The tournament that is over is the Seniors event, which is a good job, as its way past their bedtime. There were 68 entries in total, generating a €14,535 prize pool and paying out nine spots. It was won by Swede Joakim Olin after a deal was done three handed, leaving Joerg Mueller in second and Stig Moen in third. 

Mystery Bounty

Day 1c had 237 entries and is now in level 12, with play schedule to end when 36 players remain. There are still 79 players left, but a long way to go until the end of the day. Spotted in the field today and still in command of chips are mixed game specialists Nikolas Bokowski, Sascha Manns and Bruno Stefanelli. 

Seven Card Stud

Thirty players entered the €220 Seven Card Stud Fixed Limit and it is now down to the final table, with six players left in, but only three getting paid. Siaehei Narozhny, who came second in the Mixed Games Main Event is still in and until recently held a significant chip lead. However he has lost a few pots and is now average stacked, but looking very focused. 

Finishing second seems to spur players on, as it did for Sascha Manns who’s Mixed Games Main Event victory came just one day after he finished as runner up in the 8-Game. Will Narozhny go one better tonight? Well it could be a long one and I certainly won’t be awake when it does end, but we’ll update further on the outcome in the morning.

PLO Knockout

The €125 PLO Knockout was a popular event, with just under 100 entries (96) and they are also now on the final table, having reached the money not so long ago, with 11 players getting paid. As I write this, Antoine Degiorgio has just busted in 8th. There are two players left in who have already collected trophies this week, in the shape of Bulgarian Angelo Lachezar Angelov Tsenov, who is looking to pick up back to back trophies, after winning last night’s €250 PLO Freezeout. The other champ still in is Ivo Gadze from Croatia, who won Sunday night’s Win The Button tournament.

It’s now time for this senior citizen (yes, I am old enough to play the Seniors) to get a mug of cocoa and retire for the night. Sleep well and put the bad beats out of your mind, its just a game! Good night Larry!

The €125 Blackjack tournament reached its crescendo on the very final hand of the last heat, with Estonians Maili Tannbaum and Mati Pirn watching restlessly amongst the large crowd that had gathered around the table. Former champion Andreas ‘Wiseguy’ Hoglund took his seat in the final heat, but ran out of chips before the final hand.

However the player in seat four was on a tear and going into the final hand he was on 27,000 chips and a win (with no splits or doubles) would have tied him for the lead and push Mati down to third place. However, it wasn’t to be, as he hit a hard 13 and faced a decision on whether to double or just draw a card. He chose not to double, pulled a face card and busted, to settle the tournament in Maili’s favour.

We’re still waiting for official result and payouts of the biggest blackjack tournament in the history of The Festival, with 93 entrants and a prize pool of €10,230, more than double the €5,000 guarantee!

The €125 Blackjack tournament is entering the last half hour and its close at the top.

Estonians still occupy the top two spots with Maili Tannbaumon 29,000 while Mati Pirn lies in second with 28,000. There have been 84 entries so far and there’ still time for a few more heats.

Maili and Mati both played in the same heat and Maili got off to a great start with a blackjack on her first hand. The dealer busted five times during it and Maili only lost two of her ten hands.

Will anyone knock her off the top spot before registration closes?

Having decided to give the Seven Card Stud a miss, our Mixed Games Main Event Champion Sascha Manns has chosen to play the Mystery Bounty. After he took his seat Franke took this opportunity to present him with his winner’s drawing, which has now been found….albeit a little sketchy.

Today’s flight of the €300 Mystery Bounty is the last of the regular starting days, but there is one final turbo structured Day 1d on Wednesday, prior to the start of Day 2. There are ten levels for late registration and they will play until the end of level 18. At the first break of the day there were 154 entries, pushing the total number of entries up to 349.

Side Events

In other news, the Seniors ended up with 68 entries and they are down to the last two tables. The Seven Card Stud now has 28 players and there is one level left for late registration.

Tonight’s side event starts a little earlier than usual at 9pm and is a €125 PLO Knockout, with each bounty worth €50. There is also an €80 satellite to the Main Event, which has just started.

Blackjack Tournament Update

The Blackjack tournament is ongoing and so far over 60 players have taken part, with another three hours before the event concludes. It’s already by far the biggest blackjack tournament The Festival has ever staged and will get even bigger by the time registration closes at 23.30. Estonian fingers should be crossed for the next few hours as Maili Tannbaum leads the way with 29,000 while Mati Pirn lies in second with 28,000. The €5,000 guarantee has already been smashed.

Want to see photos from the events at The Festival in Rozvadov? Click on the ‘Galleries” button above and then click on the pics to view the full galleries from each event. There’s also a gallery where we are uploading the drawings of the winners, but where the heck the one of Sascha is we just don’t know? Seems to have gone missing, sorry about that Mr Manns, you’ll just have to win another event…

No, this is not a post about the rock band, but about the state of play at Kings Casino Rozvadov during The Festival Series, which is now on its fifth day out of ten. The €550 Main Event begins tomorrow and this afternoon the €250 Seniors, the €220 Seven Card Stud and a €50 satellite to tonight’s Day 1c of the €300 Mystery Bounty. 

Late registration in the Seniors is closing soon. There have been 66 entries so far, with 35 still in the running for a boost to their pensions. Franke is still in, as is Ukrainian Alexander Dovzhenko. Michael ‘Mick’ Jäger is also still in, hooded, not suited and looking to get some satisfaction at the poker table today. 

The Seven Card Stud is running with 22 players, including Nikolas Bokowski who won the Sviten, but Mixed Games Main Event winner Sascha Manns is giving this one a miss in favour of taking his seat in the Mystery Bounty this evening. 

The satellite to the Mystery Bounty was a busy one, with 170 entries. There are 57 players left fighting it out for the 24 seats that it generated.

The Blackjack tournament is also underway, with non-stop heats running until 11.30pm.

There are casino games tournaments on the schedule too, with the first of these, a blackjack tournament starting at 4pm this afternoon, and continuing on a rolling basis all evening, with the last buy-in at 11.30pm.

Blackjack tournaments are very different to casino blackjack, as the object is not to beat the house, but to beat the other players, by making the most profit from a set number of hands. The hands are all played against the dealer, therefore it’s mostly a staking strategy game, as you take it in turns to place your bets, with a dealer button moving round the table, so that each player in the hand acts first.

However for this tournament, there are a few differences. Instead of playing against the players in a heat with the best two players progressing to the next round, which is the usual format, in this the goal is simply to win the most from ten hands of blackjack. The scores will be recorded and the top 10% will win prizes, distributed in the same way as in a poker tournament.

Rules

• Buy-in: €125 at the poker room cash desk, from 16:00-32.30
• Players per Table: Min 1, Max 5
• Number of hands payed per round: 10
• Starting Chips: 10,000
• Minimum Bet: 100
• Maximum Bet: 2,000
• One Box Per Player
• Standard Casino Blackjack rules, but no surrender allowed

Games will take place on blackjack tables close to the bar/restaurant near the main entrance of the casino. The highest scores achieved so far will be displayed on a screen near the table.

As we have frequently been pointing out, The Festival Series is about so much more than poker. We’ve set up a games zone for players to chill in and enjoy when they fancy a break from the poker tables. There’s an air hockey table, Fussball, darts and a football darts game too. 

Kings Cup in the Game Zone

Today we’re holding a competition in the fun zone, or the games area which is its official name. It started yesterday when we had Day 1a and today between 15:00-17:00 is Day 1b. It’s completely free to enter and all are welcome to come and compete in Air Hockey, Darts and Fussball games, with a chance to win a seat into the €250 PokerListings tournament on Saturday. There are three tickets in total to be won, in each of the three games.

The best performing players will return at 5pm this afternoon when Day 2 will start and the tournament reaches its climax.

The first event to start on Tuesday at The Festival in Rozvadov is the €250 Seniors, a no limit Hold’em tournament, which is only open to players who are at least as old as Franke. Last year Franke was only 49 and the seniors event in Bratislava was for players who were 49 or older, however this upset a few people and this year the required age is 50. 

Play began with 38 players seated as the first hands are being dealt.

The Hendon Mob Championship, won by Majid Alimoradpour and the Mixed Games Main Event won by Sascha Manns were the highlights of the fourth day of The Festival in Rozvadov. More info about their victories other news can be found in the end of day report.

Tuesday is one of the quieter days of The Festival in Rozvadov, but there’s still lots going on. Today’s schedule includes the Seniors, 7-Card Stud and a PLO bounty tournament, in addition to the third flight of the Mystery Bounty. There is also a blackjack tournament and more Franke’s Flips.

The cash game challenge also continues today and in the fun games area, the Kings Cup will take place, a fun competition with Air Hockey, Darts and Fussball, which is free to enter and will award three tickets to the €250 PokerListings Cup to the winners of each game. It will run from 3-5pm.

While we have mostly focused on the two key final tables today, there have been several other events taking place today. Here’s a brief roundup of what’s been going down here in RozVegas on the fourth day of the Festival Series.

€125 Half ’n’ Half

The half Hold’em half PLO event had 113 entries and paid out 14 places. It was won by Earde Bearda from Netherlands, who took the most in a four way-deal, €2,607.

€250 PLO Freezeout

Bulgarian Lachezar Angelov Tsenov took the most (€2,839) in another four-way deal to become the €250 PLO Champion. There were 45 entries in total.

€300 Mystery Bounty Day 1b

The second flight of the Mystery Bounty had 113 entrants and with five levels left to play there are just 25 players left. We will update further on this in the recap of Day 4 article, which will be published tomorrow morning.

€125 Texas Progressive Knockout

The last side event of the day was another busy one and a rare chance to play a live progressive bounty tournament. They are currently on the bubble with 21 players left and only 20 getting paid, from 171 starters.

Franke’s Flip Flops

Franke’s Flip Flops has been a roaring success so far, with dozens of Flips having already taken place. They are being played in very good spirit with lots of laughter, oohs and aahs echoing around the venue during the 2 hours that they run for each evening.

Cash Game Challenge

There have also been two further heats of the Cash Game Challenge. Unfortunately these were not live streamed due to a technical error, but we are hoping that will be fixed for the remaining heats later this week. We’ll update further on the scores of this challenge tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the least busy day of the ten-day festival, but we will return to keep you updated on the proceedings, with a little more focus on the off-the table activities that The Festival Series is so famous for. Until then, that’s all folks!

Iranian Majid Alimoradpour has emerged victorious after a gruelling 3-hour heads up encounter with Marek Soukop from the Czech Republic. Tehran resident Majid has not only added a Cz flag to his THM profile, he’s actually going to be added to the database for the very first time, as this is his first cash in a live event. Very impressive flag hunting!

He scooped the first prize of €35,250, including a seat in the €10,350 WSOPE plus a €2,000 package to The Hendon Mob Championship in Cape Town. Runner up Marek Soukop also received the same prize, as the pair had done an equal chop after the first hour of heads up play. They played on for a further two hours for the trophy and the Cape Town package.

Although it ended up being an extremely long heads up battle, it could have been over on the very first hand, as they got it all in with Majid holding pocket tens versus Marek’s AQ. A queen on the flop enabled Marek to double up and take a narrow lead. From then on it became a more cagey affair, with the chip lead flip flopping a few times. But eventually Majid ground out a lead and after three hours of intense rivalry, it was eventually settled in Majid’s favour.

On the final hand, Marek raised from the button, Majid moved all-in and Marek made the call. Majid had another pocket pair, this time eights and he found himself up against K5. The board ran dry, the eights held and the rest as they say, is history. 

Majid follows in the footsteps of many successful Iranian poker players, or those of Persian origin, such as Antonio Esfandiari, Amir Vahedi and no less than three former WSOP champions: Mansour Matloubi, Hamid Dastmalchi and most recently Hossein Ensan, the 2019 winner. 

Part of his Majid’s prize includes a seat into the 2024 WSOPE event here at Kings Casino in Rozvadov, so he will soon have a chance to shoot for a bracelet.

Majid seemed genuinely delighted with his win, thanking both Kings Casino and The Hendon Mob for staging the event during his post-victory interview with Andreas ‘Wiseguy’ Hoglund.

The Final Table Result

Sascha Manns is already well known as a regular of The Festival Series and really needs no introduction, but we thought we’d do it anyway. 

Sascha defeated Belorussian Siarhei Narozhny after a fairly short heads up encounter for €8,788, but to be fair, the result was never in doubt. Last night Sascha narrowly missed out on the 8-Game title and returned this afternoon, still in the zone and determined to finally get a trophy.

There was definitely no horsing about today. He was one of the fifteen players from 46 starters who returned for the second and final day of the championship. Manns took the chip lead early on in the day and never looked back, but refusing to count his chickens before they were hatched, he remained fully zoned in on the goal.

Although the points haven’t been calculated, with a win and a second place finish, Manns is surely now at the top of the unofficial Player of the Series leaderboard.

Congratulations once again to The King of Malta*, who is now also the King of Kings here in Rozvadov. Which country will he conquer next?

The Full Result

*A few years ago Portomaso Casino in Malta held a few editions of a tournament called the King of Malta. Sascha won the second edition and reigned for two years, until Lawrence Bonnici took his crown in 2019. Sascha narrowly missed defending his crown, finishing 3rd in that edition, but you know what, if they ever do revive that tournament, it’s a certainty that Sascha will return to try and reclaim his kingdom and show his loyal poker subjects that he’s still the one wearing the ermin.

P.S. The player who came second in the King of Malta tournament to Sascha was none other than The Hendon Mob’s Roland Boothby.

P.P.S. Antoine Degiorgio claims he was the original King of Malta, but there’s no record of him assuming the Malta poker throne on The Hendon Mob database.

P.P.P.S. It would be rude not to mention Giulio Spampinato, who was also a King of Malta and to add that on that occasion, Roland Boothby was also the runner up. Close, but no sceptre.

The H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Games Main Event is now also heads up, with Sascha Manns from Germany commanding a chip lead over Belorussian Siarhei Narozhny. Sascha has 1.3m chips to Siarhei’s 540k. 

Meanwhile, in The Hendon Mob Championship, the chip lead has been flip flopping. Majid reassumed the lead soon after losing it, but the balance of poker power has now swung back in favour of Marek.

Tomas Svec has been eliminated in third place, leaving Iranian Majid Alimoradpour and Czech Marek Soukop as the last two players to fight it out. Both players took pots off Tomas, but it was Majid who sent him to rail, taking just under a 3-1 chip into the final stage of the tournament.

It was very nearly a one-hand heads up match, as they got it all in immediately with Marek holding AQ versus the pocket tens of Majid. A queen flopped, to give Marek a slight chip lead.

It’s not nice, nobody likes it and it’s always slightly uncomfortable for the rest of the players when the bubble bursts on the final table. I have to say, all the remaining contestants were incredibly respectful and nobody outwardly celebrated the fact that they are all now at least €2,256 richer than they were before the exit hand. 

As per yesterday in the Hendon Mob Championship, we’re going to respect the privacy of the player and not reveal his name. It’s also sad to see Yoshi exiting the tournament.

Despite the big pay jump between 3rd place and 4th place, it didn’t take long for the next exit to occur and that unfortunate soul was Matthias Steinberg, who will be somewhat consoled by the €10,400 prize. Just enough for him to buy himself into the €10,350 WSOPE Main Event later in the year.

Unfortunately I missed the exit and the players are so focused on the prize that they all shrugged and said they didn’t remember how or who took Steinberg out! Go figure?

It’s quite possible it was Majid Alimoradpour, as he seems to have by far the largest stack of the remaining three. The other two players remaining are Tomas Svec and Marek Soukop.

Alexander Dovzhenko has trotted back to paddock, after falling at the last fence, which means that with just six runners left on the course, its now bubble time!

After being seven-handed for quite some time, there have now been a flurry of quick exits in The Hendon Mob Championship. The first of these was Visa Kiviharju from Finland, who was eliminated by Tomas Svec. Visa can now load his card up with the €4,700 payout he received for his 7th place finish.

The Super Six wasn’t super for very long and it was overnight chip leader Martin Georg Wolf who took 6th, after being ousted by Matthias Steinberg. Martin has a good record here at Kings Casino and he’s sure to be back again. This time, he pocketed €6,400.

The Famous Five was also a short lived stage of the tournament, as another starting day chip leader, Robert Palasz from Poland had his tournament abruptly ended, also by Tomas Svec.

The championship is now at the Fantastic Four stage and its a big money jump between 4th and 3rd, especially when you take into consideration that the top three all get a €10,350 WSOPE ticket as well as the prize money.

Although our coverage today is largely focusing on The Hendon Mob Championship Final Table and the Mixed Main Event, there are also side events taking place.

The first side event of the day was the €125 Half ’n’ Half and no, that does not mean half a plate of spaghetti with half a pizza. The poker version is half Hold’em and half PLO. Its quite a popular one and had 113 entries. Late registration is now closed and there are 36 players remaining.

The second side of the day is a straight up PLO event, with a €250 buy-in. It is currently in level 4 with 8 levels for late registration.

There are now seven players left in the Mixed Main Event, which is one place away from its bubble and therefore two places away from the money.

The horses that have so far ejected their riders include Antoine Degiorgio, Paddy Schmidt, Bruno Stefanelli, Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon and Barrie Dear.

Two players have now been eliminated from the final table, while the magnificent seven continue their quest for glory. 

The first player to hit the rail was Ivica Malovan, who had gone into the final as the lowest of the nine finalists. The Croatian player takes €2,530 home for his efforts.

Having been reduced to an un-hateful eight contenders, German Rainer Sollfrank became the next player to bite the felt, losing his tournament life in flip against Martin Georg Wolf, when his AT failed to improve against pocket sevens. He collected €3,200 for his 8th place finish.

Martin Georg Wolf topped the chip counts on his starting day and maintained that lead going into the final day of the €250 tournament. He has now failed to continue that trend, but sits in a tidy second place as the money begins to get serious. Wolf has now been overtaken as chip leader by Czech player Tomas Svec.

And this is what they’re playing for, good luck to all!

It’s been a swift day so far in The Hendon Mob Championship, with the final table being reached within 90 minutes of play. Unfortunately there is a technical problem with the live stream today, so it won’t be possible to watch the action remotely, but we’ll keep our eye on the the action and will keep you updated on how its progressing.

Chip counts to follow shortly.

Last night Sascha Manns was in the zone. He was super focused throughout the €250 8-Game and ended up taking second place for a payout of €3,355. He was beaten heads up by Nikolas Bokowski in the early hours of the morning and just a few hours later they both returned for the final day of the Mixed Main Event, with a H.O.R.S.E.S format. 

Manns will be determined to get that winners trophy this time and Bokowski will be going for his second. If either of them makes it deep they will be strong contenders for Player of the Series, hoping to pick up a €1,600 package to The Festival Series in Malta. Manns used to be a resident of the small Mediterranean island (which I have also called home for the last decade) and will savour a chance to return to his old stomping ground, where he is considered a local within the Maltese poker community.

There is another fully fledged Maltese player still in the H.O.R.S.E.S as well, possibly the best known Maltese player on the scene. That player is the very likeable and jovial Antoine Degiorgio, who drives the mixed games poker scene in Melaland (only Maltese residents and frequent visitors will get this joke, sorry).

Best of luck to all riders today, they still have a long way to go, with several more laps of the track to complete before the winning line will come into view.

The cards are once again the air as another fun filled and action packed day gets started. Both the H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Games Main Event and The Hendon Mob Championship (THMC) have started their final days with two tables left in each. 

I managed to catch up with THMC chip leader Martin Georg Wolf at the breakfast buffet here at Kings Casino this morning and he’s brought a couple of fans with him to rail him to potential success here today. Martin first discovered poker in 2003, inspired to play by the Moneymaker effect, like so many other players of his generation. He mainly played online, occasionally venturing into live casinos for local events, but then he drifted away from the game for a few years. 

When he returned to the live scene last year he tasted immediate success here at Kings Casino, taking third place in The German Poker Tour event for a lifetime best €28,350 cash. After this he decided to play more, what he considers to be semi-professional. He competed in last year’s WSOPE Main Event and made the money. Now he is going for first place, to try to better his GPT score.

The Festival Series wishes Martin and all of today’s remaining competitors the best of luck!

Welcome to the fourth day of The Festival in Rozvadov. Yesterday was a busy one as both The Hendon Mob Championship and the H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event held their last starting days. The Hendon Mob Championship also moved into Day 2 and is now down to the last 16 players, who will fight it out for the first place prize of €30,900.

Mixed Games remained a key part of the schedule on Sunday when it was the turn of 8-Game to be the format for the afternoon tournament. There was also a Win The Button NLH side event and another two Cash Game Challenge sessions.

The Festival news page includes full story of the third day.

Monday at The Festival in Rozvadov

The final days of The Hendon Mob Championship and the H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event restart at 1pm. The second flight of the Mystery Bounty begins at 6pm and there are three other side events, including a €250 PLO. Further heats of the cash game challenge are also scheduled and Franke’s Flip Flops continues between 8-10pm.

The third day of The Festival Series in Rozvadov is still ongoing, but it’s the end of our coverage on the blog. It’s been a busy day, with both the H.O.R.S.E.S. Mixed Main Event and The Hendon Mob Championship now down to 16 and 15 players respectively. 

The first starting day of the €300 Mystery Bounty also began today, with the first of three starting days. They are on level 12 now withj 24 of the 83 starters still in. They will play until the end of level 18 tonight.

The €250 8-Game has been a popular one and there are still 13 of the 69 starters still in the running, with seven getting paid. The late night starting €125 Win The Button side event ha 156 entries and there still 49 players left. The the top 17 players will be in the prize money. Both of these tournaments will conclude this evening.

The first round of Franke’s Flips also took place tonight, with ten heats taking place. We’ll update you further on that in Monday’s blog.

Until tomorrow, keep calm and carry on pokering!

The last standing (technically sitting down) players in the €250 event have now bagged their chips and headed off for an early night to prepare for the final day tomorrow, when they will reach the business end of the poker equation.

They will return at 1pm to resume the charge for the final table and a shot at the €30,900 first prize, a €10,350 WSOPE tickets (for the top 3) plus a €2,000 package added by The Hendon Mob for their Cape Town event later in the year.

The most experienced player left in the field was Paul-Adrian Covaciu with over $1.1m in lifetime cashes, but he won’t be featuring on the final day, as he was eliminate in 18th place for €1,210, shortly before Iwan Tjew became the last exit of the day, departing in 17th for €1,370.

The chip leader going into the final day is Martin Wolf, who was the also the chip leader from Day 1c, having taken 874,000 cookies into Day 2. Wolf is the only surviving starting day chip leader left in the field. Robert Palasz and Matthias Steinberg, who topped their opening flights and had by far the two biggest stacks going into the day are still in contention, while all the other starting day chip leaders cashed.

End of Day 2 Chip Counts

They’re playing down to 16 players tonight and there are now 24 players left in the field. A table redraw has just been done and they will play down to the last 16 players before play ends for the day.

The Festival Series founder is still in, buying beers for anyone who’s willing to join him in little refreshment. He just called over that he made the bluff of the century…but got caught and lost a 1.2m chip pot. Ouch!

The most notable player left in the field (apart from Franke) is Romanian Paul Adrian Covaciu, who has over $1.1m in lifetime cashes, according to The Hendon Mob database. His results include victory in the Swiss Classic held here in Rozvadov last March for €64,350. That’s not his best result though, as he took fifth place in the 20223 WSOPE Main Event, also here in Rozvadov, for €321,838.

Stop Press!

News just in, Franke is now sadly out of the tournament, taking 23rd place for €1,050.

The final starting day of the €550 Mixed Games Main Event ended with just two of the nine players making it over the finish line for a place in tomorrow afternoon’s final day. Belorussian Siarhei Narozhny ended with the largest stack of the day on 220,000 while Paddy Schmidt from Germany is on 139,500. They join the thirteen other players who secured their Day 2 seats in the first two starting flights.

Play resumes for Day 2 at 1pm on Monday,

Tonight’s first Cash Game Challenge live stream has started, on a 30-minure 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 goal is to make the most profit (in terms of big blinds) from any single heat. The winner receives a €1,600 package to The Festival in Malta in September.

The stream can be viewed on The FestivalOG Twitch Channel and on the Kings Casino Twitch Channel, with German commentary. English commentary is provided by Andreas ‘Wiseguy” Hoglund and Vaclav ‘Lemon’ Dušek.

American player ‘Stallion’ who finished second in yesterday’s €5/5 NLH Cash Game Challenge is back for another session. These are the chip stacks they started the session with.

Right now there is absolutely loads going on in the tiny Czech village of Rozvadov. Mostly poker, but not exclusively. Kings Casino is buzzing, with four tournaments running concurrently, including the first starting day of three in the €300 Mystery Bounty, which is now going into the fifth level of the day, with 70 players.

The Hendon Mob Championship is getting serious now that they’re in the money, with 44 players left, including Franke, who just won a big pot to take his stack over the 1m mark and well above average.

The 8-Game is now up to 56 entries and the final starting day of the Mixed Games Main Event has just begun the final level of the day with three players left from the nine that entered.

Tonight’s first Cash Game Challenge heat is a €2/€2 PLO and once again it will be live streamed on The FestivalOG Twitch Channel from 8.30pm (its on a 30-minute delay). Later there will be another heat, which will be €2/€2 NLH.

Franke’s Flips are also running from 8-10pm, where players can play a rake free flip tournament.

But there’s way more than just poker going on, as this is also the weekend for the Rozvadov Town Festival, which is taking place next to the football pitch across the main road from Kings Casino. Its mostly rock and metal bands and unfortunately has suffered because of the weather. I do think it needs a more catchy name, though, how about Rozkilde?

Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon made the money in The Hendon Mob Championship, but busted soon after making the money, losing a million chip pot. He’s not jumped into the €250 8-Game tournament, which is now up to 44 entrants and is streaming live on his Twitch Channel.

But Scott is not the only player streaming live from the 8-Game, as on the very next table is Norwegian Streamer Ylva ‘JevaKim’ Thorsrud who is also live on her Twitch Channel. 

It will be really interesting if they both end up on the same table and get in a hand together!

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Well, that didn’t take long. After a short hand-by-hand bubble time, the 90th player busted, holding AsKd on a flop of 3d5c3h. He did hit his ace on the turn, however his opponent had pocket fives and there was no miracle Ace on fifth street to send the unfortunate soul home empty handed. We’re not going to report his name, because that would just not be a fun thing to do. Privacy respected.

There’s now 90 of the day’s 121 starters left, which means they’re now on the bubble in The Hendon Mob Championship. One unlucky player will be going home with nothing, but the remaining 89 players will be taking home at least the €484. Obviously they all want to ladder well beyond min cash territory, with sights firmly fixed on a seat on the final table and shot at the €30,900 first prize.

This is what they’re playing for:

Day 2 of The Hendon Mob Championship has begun, with 121 players taking their seats. Before play started Franke gave his now traditional pre-day 2 speech, followed by a few words from The Hendon Mob’s Roland Boothby. 

Roland made two very special announcements, first that this is the biggest edition of The Hendon Mob Championship that has ever been held, with 825 entries, beating the previous best by five players. It’s also a great value event, as it missed its €200,000 guaranteed, creating an overlay over €25,000.

The second announcement by Roland was that the winner will receive an additional previously unannounced prize of a package to The Hendon Mob Championship in Cape Town, South Africa, which takes place in November.

Both Franke and Roland made it into Day 2 tournament and Roland also announced that there’s a bounty on his head. It didn’t take lon for that prize to be won, as Roland busted within the first hands of the day.

Here is the complete list of chip counts and seating draw for all the players who made it into Day 2

Although the biggest events at The Festival in Rozvadov are No Limit Hold’em, it’s a very varied tournament schedule, specially designed to appeal to mixed game players. There is at least one event every day that is not Hold’em. In addition to the final starting day of the Mixed Games Main event, the €250 8-Game is also in play, with 38 players entered so far.

Already spotted in the field are Antoine Degiorgio, Carlo Braccini, Bruno Stefanelli, Nicolas Bokowski, Andreas Dyll, Rolf Bechstroem and Sascha Manns.

In other news, there are now nine players in the Mixed Games Main Event and Day 2 of the The Hendon Mob Championship is about to start.

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The final flight had a turbo (15-minute blinds) structure and was the busiest of the starting days in the €250 buy-in event, with 187 entrants. By the time level 16 had been completed and play had stopped, 44 players remained, who now have just one hour to rest and rejuvenate before Day 2 starts at 5pm.

In total 116 players made it through from the five starting days at Kings Casino in Rozvadov plus the remote starting day at Kings Casino Prague. They will be joined in Day 2 by the winners of The Hendon Mob Championship Pineapple Flips, of which five have taken place so far and a few more will start before play restarts.

Matthias Steinberg posted the largest stack of the flight and is second overall, with 1.6m chips, but still over 600k behind Day 1d chip leader Robert Palasz.

Late registration has now closed in the final starting day of The Hendon Mob Championship, which had 187 entries, bringing the total number of entries up to 777. However, Flips to Day 2 are now in progress and the first one drew a large crowd of spectators.

The format is a bit like Crazy Pineapple. All players are dealt three cards, they discard one and then turn their hands over and deal the board. The Festival Series Founder Franke entered the first one and both he and one other player both had K9 offsuit. Another player had pocket sevens and was in the lead until the river, when a King hit the board, leaving Franke and his opponent to play another hand to determine the winner.

In the second hand Franke had KT and was up against Q9. This time a King hit on the turn, to end the spin, leaving Franke as the winner, taking a 400,000 average stack into Day 2, which starts at 5pm.

The final flight of the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event is also running and Franke is in that too, but he stepped away from the table for a few hands during the Razz rotation to win his flip. It’s a small field so far, with  six players so far, however it is only on level three and there are ten levels for late entry. Also playing is Jason Glatzer, still glowing from yesterday’s bubble avoidance coup.

Day 1d was literally a carbon copy of Day 1c, as both flights had exactly 176 entries, with 21 players taking stacks into Day 2.

The overwhelming chip leader from Day 1d was Robert Palasz from Poland, who bagged up an incredible 2,230,000, thee times more than second placed Rainer Sollfrank from Germany. Here are the chip counts of all the Day 1d survivors.

Welcome to the third day of The Festival in Rozvadov. On yesterday’s second day of The Festival in Rozvadov two further flights of €200,000 guaranteed The Hendon Mob Championship were staged, as was the second of three starting days in the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event. The €250 PLO Masters and the €125 Saturday Knockout also took place, as did the first heat of the Cash Game Challenge.

Read the full story in the Day 2 wrap.

Sunday Schedule at The Festival in Rozvadov

The third day of The Festival in Rozvadov kicks off with the fifth and final flight of The Hendon Mob Championship. The HORSES also has its last starting day and the €300 Mystery Bounty has its first starting day. There’s also a €250 8-Game starting this afternoon and the 10pm late slot is filled with a €125 NLH Win The Button tournament. 

Day 1e Turbo, the final starting day of The Hendon Mob Championship has already begun, with 69 players in their seats shortly after the start. A further 250 players are required to meet the €200,000 guarantee. Late registration closes shortly before 2pm.

Further heats of the cash game challenge are also scheduled and Franke’s Flip Flops, a rake free flipout competition, has its first session of the series.

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.

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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.

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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.

Its the end of the first day of The Festival in Rozvadov and its just beginning to warm up ahead of what will surely be a busy weekend in Kings Casino. Well, it’s not entirely true to say that the day is over, there are still three tournaments running, but this is the last post of the day by the media team and we are off now to rest and rejuvenate before Saturday’s action kicks-off the weekend.

We’ll be back in the morning with news of the first two winners of the week, as both the Sviten Special and the Crazy Pineapple tournaments will conclude tonight. Sleep well and don’t have nightmares.

Just six of the sixteen players who participated in Day 1a of the Mixed Games Main Event progressed to Day 2. Dutch player Koen Roos holds a narrow chip lead over Nicolas Bokowski.

Roos managed to bag the chip lead, despite never having played Sviten Special before. In fact he only read the rules of the game two weeks ago. However, he didn’t quite read the correct rules of Sviten Special, but watched a video on how to play the very similar variant Drawmaha and was unaware of the rule that when you discard only one card, it is dealt face up. That took him by surprise, but after playing just five hands, he’d figured out how to play.

Replying to a question about whether he liked playing the Sviten Special part of the rotation, Koen was decisive, saying “Yes, I love it, but maybe because I won a lot of my chips on those hands.”

Antoine Degiorgio, Malta’s mixed games ambassador also made it through the day. He noted that nobody on his table today seemed to know the game, but noted that this was probably because of the €250 Sviten Special tournament, which also took place tonight, attracting a field of 48 players. He expects more Sviten Special players will take their seats for the remaining starting flights on Saturday and Sunday.

POS		NAME	CHIP COUNT
1.		KOEN ROOS	151,000
2.		NICOLAS BOKOWSKI	140,500
3.		SCOTT “Pokerbrahs” KENYON	131,500
4.		ANONYMOUS	88,500
5.		ANTOINE DEGIORGIO	70,000
6.		BENJAMIN MAXIMIL BAUERMEISTER	58,500

The first day of The Festival in Rozvadov was always expected to be a relatively quiet one, but even though the day is drawing to a close, the Crazy Pineapple has been the busiest event of the day. By the start of level 3 there were already 90 entries and still a further two hours to go until late registration closes. The final total is likely to increase significantly, especially as we have just heard that a group of 15-20 Norwegian are currently en route from the airport to Kings Casino.

Scott Kenyon, fresh from bagging up in the H.O.R.S.E.S is one of the late entrants. He’d already been playing for eleven hours today, so thought he might as well carry on the session.

As a game, Crazy Pineapple isn’t as crazy as the name suggests. It’s basically the same as Texas Hold’em, but with one key difference. The twist is that players receive three hole cards instead of two, but after the flop, all remaining players in the hand must discard one of their hole cards.

Day 1a of The Hendon Mob Championship ended with nine of the 70 entrants progressing to Day 2 on Sunday.

POS		NAME	CHIP COUNT
1.		DOMINIK MARTAN	629,000
2.		AXEL BAYOUT	568,000
3.		DUSHKO BOGOEVSKI	498,000
4.		KONSTANTIN ROLF NOVOA FERRERAS	470,000
5.		STEFAN ALEXANDRU DRUSCA	455,000
6.		FEDAI YOLCU	288,000
7.		SEBASTIAN SZACHNOWSKI	266,000
8.		STEFFEN SCHAFFRATH	180,000
9.		JOERG BAUMGARTEN	143,000

The second flight of the day is underway in the €100,000 guaranteed The Hendon Mob Championship. There are ten levels for late entry, which means that the latest anyone can enter today is around about 11.30pm. By the start of level three, there were 56 entrants and there’s also a satellite still running for it, which will award ten seats to the flight.

They play sixteen levels on the starting day flights and the format is ‘Best Stack Forward,’ which means that even if you survive until the end of the first day, you can also enter another starting day. If you survive to the end of another starting day, your biggest chip stack will be the one you take with you into Day 2.

Day 1a is approaching the end with just 1 full level left to play. There are ten players left from the 70 who began the day.

While the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event is one way to get a game of Sviten Special today, for purists we’ve dropped the long face and scheduled a €250 Sviten Special event today as well. It’s midway through the second level now and there are 30 entries so far and ten levels for late entry.

Peter La Terra is in the field, as is Sascha Manns, who is one of the early chip leaders after scooping a big pot with Queens full of sixes for his Omaha hand and two pair (queens and threes) for the five card draw hand. 

Sviten Special is a split pot game, which combines Omaha and Five Card Draw. If you’re not sure how to play it, check The Festival Series’ guide on how to play the great game of Sviten Special.

Following a short delay to allow the satellite to complete, the Day 1a of the €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Games Main Event is now in running. They will play 12 x 30 minute levels on each of the three starting days.

Mixed games specialist Scott Kenyon managed to bag a seat in the satellite, despite it being run using a Hold’em format. Also in the field at this early stage of the day is Malta’s mixed games ambassador Antoine Degiorgio, who is here for the entire 10 days and will be basking in mixed games heaven, hoping to take a trophy home with him.

German player Nicolas Bokowski is also playing. He finished 3rd in the €2,000 WSOPE Mixed Games Bracelet event here at Kings Casino in 2021. He had a great series then, cashing six times and making three final tables.

One of the most experienced players in today’s field is Ukrainian Alexander Dovzhenko, who has over $2.7m in lifetime cashes, with results on TheHendomMob database going back as fas as 2001. His best live cash was in 2009, when he was runner up in EPT Kiev, for €220,000.

With results dating back even further than Dovzhenko, Italian Bruno Stefanelli is a mixed game specialist. In 2023 he made the final table of the €2,000 Pot Limit Omaha bracelet event at WSOPE.

Day 1a of the Mixed Games Main Event with a H.O.R.S.E.S format was due to start at 3pm, however the runners and riders have not yet made their way to the starting line. There will be a one hour delay and the new starting time is 4pm. This is due to the satellite for the event still not being completed.

Mixed Games are one of the main attractions at The Festival Series and this weekend is a veritable extravaganza, with the Mixed Games Main Event with a H.O.R.S.E.S format staging the first of three starting days starting at 3pm. But that’s not all, the €225+€25 Sviten Special and the €110+€15 Crazy Pineapple are also taking place on the opening day of the festival.

The Festival’s strong focus on non-Hold’em games attracts players from Europe’s thriving mixed games community. Scott Kenyon, who was the winner of The Festival Bratislava Leaderboard in 2023 is here, streaming live on his Twitch Channel. He cashed four times in Bratislava on his way to topping the leaderboard, including two final tables. Although he did not secure a trophy, he is hoping to rectify that situation here in Rozvadov. Scott is going to be streaming every day throughout The Festival Rozvadov on his Twitch Channel, where he is known by his online moniker ‘Pokerbrahs’

The question recently came up about what Scott does when nature calls and he needs to take a number one, or god forbid a number two. The asker of the question was Jason Glatzer, who’s curiosity got the better of him, posing the riddler to Scott while he was on air. The answer was however less exciting than the question, as Scott simply leaves the camera at the table when he needs to relieve himself.

The €250 Hendon Mob Championship (THMC) became one of the key events at The Festival Series in 2023 and we are delighted to host them again at all the 2024 events. THMC is the first event on the schedule and today the first two starting days will take place. 

This is the fourth edition of THMC at The Festival and its expected to be the biggest one yet, anticipated to exceed the 384 who played at the Nottingham edition in 2023.

The first starting day began at 11am and the second is at 6pm. So far, its a relatively quiet start to the day with around 50 players in their seats during the first few levels, with more expected to join later.

Franke and The Hendon Mob’s Roland Boothby welcomed players at the start of the event and then both took their seats.

Good luck to all flag hunters!

It’s finally arrived, the first outing for The Festival is soon about to get underway at Kings Casino, Rozvadov in the Czech Republic. It may be almost June but 2024 hasn’t properly started until The Festival hosts its opening event of the year. And now that time has come, happy new year everyone!

This is the first time that the series has visited Kings Casino Rozvadov and it’s the most ambitious event that The Festival has staged in its short history. There are over 60 events on the very unique schedule that the tour has become known for. If you’re expecting i find a program of non-stop Hold’em tournaments you might be disappointed, as The Festival is about so much more than just poker games with two hole cards. 

The Festival’s Unique Tournament Schedule

There are of course plenty of No Limit Hold’em events on the schedule, but unlike many poker festivals, non-Hold’em games are more than just an afterthought. The Festival doesn’t just chuck in one or two Omaha events to tick the non-Hold’em box, it elevates the status of non-Hold’em games and puts them at the very centre of the  tournament schedule. 

There are non-Hold’em tournaments every day and on some days there are more of them scheduled than Hold’em ones. This is to the delight of many poker enthusiasts and an older generation of players who discovered poker when it wasn’t so heavily focused on Texas Hold’em.

Kings Casino Welcomes The Festival

Kings Casino is the biggest and busiest poker venue in Europe and this year it celebrates its 21st birthday. Owner and high stakes player Leon Tsoukernik has a dedicated team of staff that keep the venue running all year long, with tournament series running for most of the year. 

There are in fact very few ‘regular’ weeks at Kings Casino, as there tends to be a significant event taking place almost every week. The venue has hosted the WSOPE every year since 2017 and has hosted many other major tours and events. Leon had a dream over twenty years ago to build the biggest poker venue in Europe and he achieved that many years ago, as Kings Casino has been the number one poker venue in Europe for well over a decade.

Such a well equipped casino with very experienced staff is the perfect location for The Festival to start the 2024 season.

Festival Highlights

One of the wonderful things about poker festivals is the ability to make your own personal schedule of poker events that you wish to play. The Festival in Rozvadov is a perfect example of an event where no two players might have the same playing schedule. With 6-8 events starting every day in a wide variety of poker variants, players have the opportunity to create unique personal schedules that simply wouldn’t be possible at any other poker festival. 

Where else can you start your day with a bit of PLO, progress to a Mystery Bounty, then fire a roulette tournament and finish off with another PLO competition? Don’t send any answers to this question, its rhetorical, as there is obviously no other poker events anywhere else on the planet that has such an eclectic mix of games.

KEY EVENTS

These are the key tournaments taking place at The Festival in Rozvadov

• Event #1 – The Hendon Mob Championship, buy-in: €220+€30, €200,000 GTD
• Event #3 – Mixed Games Main Event H.O.R.S.E.S., buy-in: €500+€50 €25,000 GTD
• Event #17 – NLH Mystery Bounty, buy-in: €270+€30, €100,000 GTD
• Event #32 – Blackjack Tournament, buy-in: €110+€15
• Event #39- The Festival Rozvadov Main Event, buy-in: €500+€50 €500,000 GTD
• Event #40 – Roulette Tournament, buy-in: €110+€15
• Event #58 – PLO Highroller, buy-in: €1000+€100, €25,000 GTD
• Event #59 – PokerListings 30K Texas, buy-in: €225+€25, €30,000 GTD
• Event #65 – NLH Highroller, buy-in: €1000+€100, €30,000 GTD

Opening Weekend Key Events

The €250 Hendon Mob Championship gets the Festival in Rozvadov started at 11am on Friday 31st May, with the first of five starting flights. The second starting flight of the €200,000 guaranteed event is also on Friday, at 6pm. There are two further flights on Saturday and a final turbo structured flight on Sunday before those who make it through to Day 2 recommence play. 

The Hendon Mob Championship Schedule

• Day 1a: 11am, Friday 31st May
• Day 1b: 6pm, Friday 31st May
• Day 1c: 11am, Saturday 1st June
• Day 1d: 6pm, Saturday 1st June
• Day 1e Turbo: 11am, Sunday 2nd June
• Day 2: 5pm, Sunday 2nd June
• Day 3: 1pm, Monday 3rd June

The first day of The Festival in Rozvadov also features the Mixed Games Main Event, with a H.O.R.S.E.S format and a €550 buy-in. For those not familiar with it, it’s the same as H.O.R.S.E, but with Sviten Special added into the rotation.  

Emphasising how important mixed games are to The Festival players, the H.O.R.S.E.S event has three starting days, with the second flight starting on Saturday afternoon and the third on Sunday. Those who make it through the starting days will reconvene on Monday for the second and final day of the event.

H.O.R.S.E.S Schedule

• Day 1a: 3pm, Friday 31st May
• Day 1b: 3pm, Saturday 1st June
• Day 1c: 1pm, Sunday 2nd June
• Day 2: 1pm, Monday 3rd Jun

Sunday sees the start of another marquee event on the schedule, the €300 Mystery Bounty tournament with a €100,000 guarantee. It has its first starting day at 6pm on Sunday evening, with a further three flights taking place over the  next few days. This tournament will be the main focus of the early part of next week, concluding on Wednesday, side by side with the start of the Main Event.

Non-Hold’em Tournaments

In addition to the Mixed Games Main Event, there are several other non-Hold’em tournaments scheduled for the first weekend of The Festival in Rozvadov. This includes Sviten Special and Crazy Pineapplw, which both take place on Friday. Pot Limit Omaha is Saturday’s non-Hold’em offering while Sunday’s schedule includes an 8-Game tournament.

• €250 Sviten Special, Friday 31st May, 5.30pm
• €125 Crazy Pineapple, Friday 31st May, 10pm
• €250 PLO Masters, Saturday 1st June, 4pm
• €250 8-Game, Sunday 2nd June, 4pm

Other Sides and Satellites 

But of course those who prefer No Limit Hold’em are also very well catered for at The Festival in Rozvadov. The Hendon Mob Championship is the main Hold’em option all weekend, however there is also a €125 Bounty side event on Saturday evening and a Win The Button tournament on Sunday. 

There are also satellites to the Main Event, the H.O.R.S.E.S and the Mystery Bounty on the opening weekend schedule.

Live Streamed Cash Game Challenges

Live streaming on Kings Casino’s state of the art feature table begins on Saturday, with four cash game challenges scheduled for the opening weekend.

Franke’s Flip Flops

Franke’s Flip Flops has become a popular tradition at The Festival events. Within the hospitality lounge area at the back of the main poker arena, three-handed fast paced flips on-demand flips tournaments will take place every evening between 20.00 and 22.00. They will be rake free and there’s a prize package valued at €1,600 for the player who wins the most flips throughout the festival. 

Perhaps even more sought after than the prize, is the trophy, Franke’s actual flip flops, framed!

Off the Felt Activities

The Festival has always been about more than just poker. Yes, there are casino game challenges and rake free flips, but it’s also about more than just competition and gambling games. This is a very serious and very important  part of the Festival and it is defined by fun! Whether it’s drinking games, excursions, sports activities or even treasure hunts, the off-the-table activities are one of the key defining features of The Festival experience.

Franke and the team have been hard a work this year preparing a stellar schedule off-the-table activities for The Festival in Rozvadov.

Friday’s Schedule at The Festival in Rozvadov