The Blogger needs his beauty sleep; however, Lemons are immune to fatigue, which is why our resident escapee from the fruit bowl will be powering on through the night to provide content via Facebook.
That’s all for now, folks. Stay tuned for much more to come.
Dennis Packert has taken a very early lead in the Main Event as he topped the progressing field of five. Below are the players who have made the cut.
| 1 | Dennis Packert | 641,000 |
| 2 | Joel de Reuver | 424,000 |
| 3 | Tonis Viik | 400,000 |
| 4 | Jari Rattya | 253,000 |
| 5 | Toni Sarkama | 183,000 |
Here are the 13 progressing through to Day 2 of the €550 Main Event.
| Place | Player | Chips Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jaroslav Stulhofer | 843,000 |
| 2 | Ole Fagerslett | 466,000 |
| 3 | Walodik Gregorian | 310,000 |
| 4 | Petru Prepelita | 279,000 |
| 5 | Baas de Laat | 252,000 |
| 6 | Michael Gehrmann | 223,000 |
| 7 | Christoph Hillinger | 186,000 |
| 8 | Oleksii Lezhepkov | 186,000 |
| 9 | Peter Toth | 170,000 |
| 10 | Christopher Rapf | 128,000 |
| 11 | Viktoria Lecenkova | 84,000 |
| 12 | Mody Rubinstein | 72,000 |
| 13 | Helen Newton | 40,000 |
Only 11 will cash in the Half n Half. Below are the payouts.
| Place | Payout |
|---|---|
| 1 | €3,017 |
| 2 | €1,870 |
| 3 | €1,290 |
| 4 | €955 |
| 5 | €735 |
| 6 | €565 |
| 7 | €450 |
| 8 | €360 |
| 9 | €290 |
| 10-11 | €250 |
Friend, associate, and Olympic Park Casino Tallinn Poker Director Jaan Vaabel has swapped the floor for the felt at Banco Casino Bratislava to play a spot of HORSE.
Vaabel has helped accommodate The Festival Series this year in Tallinn, providing a Weekend stop in the Summer, running from July 1 – 5, and a full Series stop in the Winter, which will run from November 20 – 29.
The Estonian has had an interesting career path, from being an IT lecturer, a policemans assitant, to Poker Director of Tallinn’s largest casino, Vaabel clearly knows what it takes to run a tight ship.
To learn more about Vaabel, check out this interview that he did with The Festival.
And to see our full schedule, click here.
In 1/A of the €550 Main Event, 10 are left battling it out for progression into Day 2 of the tournament, where only 5 progressors from this flight will be guaranteed a min-cash. Home nation representative Patrik Ciklamini remains in with a chance to making it to Day 2
In 1/B of The Hendon Mob Championships, 13 will progress out of the 23 that remain. Dutch crusher Bas de Laat has a live chance of making it through to Day 2 in that event. Last time out in Bratislava, de Laat cashed in the Main Event for €6,500 for his 11th-place finish.
The terrific trio from thehendonmob.com have taken to the felt in the €125 NLH/PLO Bomb Pot Feature in an attempt to log their own potential successes on the prestigious poker results database.
Roland Boothby, Wesley McKenzie, and Hans Kleinsman (second bullet) are all in the field, hoping for Festival Series glory and a lovely 1st place next to their names.
Come and join in the fun!
For the bargain hunters in attendance at Banco Casino Bratislava, consider registering the €60 Main Event satellite! 10 players will come away with a Main Event ticket worth €550, so it’s worth a stab, especially if you are intending on playing the week’s marquee Hold’em tournament.
Currently, 47 are in the field and registration remains open until 10.40 p.m.
Joakim Bakke seems keen to play as many events as possible, as he is one of the four early registrants into the €250 HORSE tournament that is due to commence at 8 p.m.
To learn more about the games, click here.
| Pos | Player name | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joakim Bakke | 25,000 |
| 2 | Marcin Besz | 25,000 |
| 3 | Jyri Tapio Merivirta | 25,000 |
| 4 | Joel Mikael Vaajala | 25,000 |
| 5 | Markus Juhani Vaajala | 25,000 |
| 6 | Sergej Vladimirov | 25,000 |
A field of 16 has assembled for one of the “explosive” tournaments of the week, the NLH/PLO Half Bomb Pot Feature tournament.
Current Player of the Series leader Komil Khamidov is in the field, as is Heads-Up Runner-Up Ralf Mikk and Peder Behr. The game changes once every eight hands, and the bomb pot feature will come into play once every nine hands.
| # | Name | Stack |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peder Behr | 20,000 |
| 2 | Ugo Bodino | 20,000 |
| 3 | Lewis Caton | 20,000 |
| 4 | Paul Davies | 20,000 |
| 5 | Komil Khamidov | 20,000 |
| 6 | Pyry Kyrojoki | 20,000 |
| 7 | Linus Lauermann | 20,000 |
| 8 | Mark McKenzie | 20,000 |
| 9 | Ralf Mikk | 20,000 |
| 10 | Luca Punchina | 20,000 |
| 11 | Stanislav Smolinsky | 20,000 |
| 12 | Lachezar Tsenov | 20,000 |
| 13 | Thomas Udness | 20,000 |
| 14 | Robert Wagner | 20,000 |
| 15 | Jenny Westerlund | 20,000 |
| 16 | Cheng Wei Yin | 20,000 |
The field in The Hendon Mob Championship 1/B saw an over 3x increase on yesterday’s number, with 105 total entrants taking to the felt this afternoon.
Of the total, only 52 remain in search of a stack for Day 2, and of the field, 10 or 11 will progress to Day 2 of this prestigious event.
Is that you?
Monday, despite being a relatively quiet day, had the most incredible atmosphere here at Banco Casino. Laughter and joviality was in abundance as friends off the table became adversaries on it. Many returning faces showed up, setting the scene for the competitive spirit that defines what it’s like to attend and take part in The Festival Series.
Amongst those who have rocked up so far are many with strong track records at the Series, including back-to-back Main Event champ Sebastian Kotowicz. Could he achieve the improbable and to back-to-back-to-back? Or maybe he’ll challenge for the Player of the Series this time.
Dutch Maltese resident Bas de Laat, who narrowly missed the Main Event final table last time is also here. He’s better known as a mixed games specialist and there was a time a few years ago when scooped or went close in almost every HORSE or 8-Game tournament that was held on the island. He arrived last night in time for the Knockout Madness.
Many of those in today’s Mixed Games Main Event (TORSES) can be considered strong contenders for the Player of the Series title, including Scott Kenyon, who is live streaming his game on Twitch. Mark Gork, Barrie Dear, Benjamin Sweetman, Wouter Schuurbiers and Franke are amongst those still in Day 1b.
Jenny Westerlund is also here, but after three unsuccessful bullets in Day 1b of The Hendon Mob Championship, she’s setting her sights on the Half and Half next. Could she become the first female Player of the Series?
However, its unlikely that any of these players will walk away with the title, because the eventual winner is surely you! Good luck at the tables!
Niclas Thumm has taken to the felt of The Festival Series for the first time in his poker career. The German crusher is a well-known online player who goes under the alias “flushiiisback.”
Thumm is also a former streamer on Twitch and plays predominantly on PokerStars. However, he has seen success in the live poker sphere, with his biggest score coming in the 2023 PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold’em Championship in the Bahamas, where he finished 6th for $1,001,200 in the $25,000 buy-in event.
Will Thumm add to his glittering CV with a win at The Festival? It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him walk away with a beautiful personalised trophy come the end of the week.
The defending The Hendon Mob Championship Champion Ondrej Chlapek is in the field in pursuit of a successful title defense.
He won the event last time out in Bratislava for a career-best score of €19,346. Can he emulate Sebastian Kotowicz in becoming the first player to win the same event at back-to-back stops?
The Festival Founder Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk has celebrated his 25th birthday for perhaps the 25th time, as Boss has turned the young age of 52!
Boss isn’t the only birthday boy, as one of our resident rockstars, Pljuw, shares the same birthday! Here are some snaps from a surprise get-together.
Robin Panholzer, Wouter Shuurbiers, Jonas Jurksaitis, Jorn Inge Havl and Matteo Crapanzano appear to be the biggest stacks in the TORSES field at the extended break.
So far, 48 have entered, and 35 remain in play. Birthday boy Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk is still in on his second bullet, as are Siarhei Narozhny and Itay Kimhi. Kimhi’s second bullet has gone better than the first, as he has one of the healthiest stacks in the room.
The €125 Razz PKO winner, and current Player of the Series leader, Komil Khamidov, appears to be a man of many talents.
Khamidov, despite “not knowing the rules,” won the event for his first-ever Festival Series cash at his first Festival Series! The Polish national is also a rapper, and his music can be found on YouTube. Not only that, he is a former eSports professional who had his own team, Komil&Friends. Their game of choice was League of Legends, but the team has since disbanded.
He clearly has a knack for games and is a high ELO in chess, with a rating of 2085 according to the International Chess Federation. This score puts him in the 98th percentile of chess players worldwide!
Khamidov has accumulated $131,101 in live tournament earnings so far, according to thehendonmob.com.
The €2/€2 No Limit Hold’em session didn’t run, but there was clearly an appetite for “The Great Game” of PLO.
The winner was Yevhenii Havriushenko, who netted a profit of 227 big blinds. He will progress to the final flip-off, where a package worth €1,600 for the next Festival stop in Rozvadov will be up for grabs.
The games will run again tonight, with €2/€2 NLH running at 8 p.m. and €2/2 PLO starting at 10 p.m.
Six of today’s events at The Festival in Bratislava count towards the Player of the Series race, including the Main Event, which has the first of six starting flights, plus the continuation of The Hendon Mob Championship and the Mixed Games Main Event (TORSES). None of these three will be completed today, but there are three that will wrap up by the small hours of the morning:
Event 11 – €125 Half ’n Half (NLH/PLO) Bomb Pot
Event 14 – €125 H.O.R.S.E
Event 15 – €125 NLH Win the Button Madness
Tomorrow’s updated Player of the Series leaderboard will add these events to those that have already be completed. Lots more players have arrived today, all of whom are potential contenders for the title, including defending champ Ville Hakala, who is extremely competitive and may be eyeing up more glory by the end of the week.
Three Slovakians are in the field of the €550 Main Event, all of whom will be hoping to emulate dual-Main Event winner Sebastian Kotowicz by taking down the title, especially on their home turf.
The natives in question are Patrik Ciklamini, Martin Ilavsky, and Erik Šeffer. Ciklamini has accumulated $447,702 in live tournament earnings, according to our friends at thehendonmob.com. He has one previous Festival Series cash, which came here at Banco in 2022, where he finished 134th for €665.
Ilavsky has amassed $514,521 throughout his career and has attended numerous Festival Series stops across the continent. His previous cash also came in the Main Event, but in 2024, where he finished 51st for €2,150.
Šeffer has banked $143,897 from live tournaments, and every dollar has been earned in his homeland. His best score at the Festival Series came in 2021, where he finished 9th in the Main Event for €4,600.
Like your standard run-of-the-mill human being, poker players also require food. If you’re after a solid burger, head outside to the Jump Street Burger van located outside the ground-floor entrance to Banco Casino Bratislava.
For players in attendance at The Festival, if you order a burger and fries and say the magic words “The Festival,” the team at Jump Street Burgers will provide you with a free soft drink as part of the deal.
If you need some good fast food on a break, pre- or post-tournament or cash game session, head outside and give Jump Street Burgers a go.
The Festival Series has grown from strength to strength throughout the concept’s four-year-long operation. With that, awareness grows, and players are coming from increasingly faraway lands. Yesterday, 26 separate nationalities were represented in the €125 NLH Knockout Madness, but none were from the States.
However, several Americans have made the journey to Bratislava. One of whom is Baltimore native Matt Kelley, who made the nine-hour flight from the States to play at The Festival. His journey wasn’t easy, and he told The Festival about his trials and tribulations.
“I lost my passport on the plane, so I got stuck in Vienna airport for two hours. They said to me [the border guards], ‘We have to send you back home, you have no passport.’ I was adamant that it was on the plane, so they kept me in.”
“A few hours later, a cleaner who was on the plane made a call to the desk to say they found my passport on the plane! So I didn’t have to go back.”
Kelley came “exclusively for the Mixed Games” and will be hopping in 1/B of the Mixed Game Main Event – TORSES later on after a spot of lunch.
This isn’t Kelley’s first foray into the European poker scene: “I have played before at the European Mixed Poker Championship (EMPC) in Dublin, which is where I met ‘Franke’. I learned more about the Mixed Game scenes in Europe, and it’s easy enough to come to Europe from Baltimore; it’s a similar journey to going to Las Vegas.”
‘Franke’ then tastefully interjected, saying, “Yes, come in and play the mixed games and I’ll bust you” before signing off with his trademark giggle.
Best of luck to Kelley and all those who take to the felt today.
This flight of The Hendon Mob Championships has already eclipsed yesterday’s total entrants. Yesterday’s Heads-Up champion Antal Mezei is in the field, as is The Festival Malta Hendon Mob Championship runner-up Attila Erdei, who is on his second bullet.
| Player | Stack |
|---|---|
| Bo Alm | 30,000 |
| Mikael Andersen | 30,000 |
| Itzhak Aroudi | 30,000 |
| Gerhard Bock | 30,000 |
| Jiri Dusek | 30,000 |
| Attila Erdei | 30,000 |
| Arian Faraj | 30,000 |
| Michael Gehrmann | 30,000 |
| Marcus Geiser | 30,000 |
| Walodik Gregorian | 30,000 |
| Thomas Hornby | 30,000 |
| Gergely Horvath | 30,000 |
| Michal Kokocha | 30,000 |
| Linus Lauermann | 30,000 |
| Adam Lawniczak | 30,000 |
| Oleksii Lezhepokov | 30,000 |
| Wiktor Marcinkowski | 30,000 |
| Anthony Cortes | 30,000 |
| Antal Mezei | 30,000 |
| Martin Motyka | 30,000 |
| Barnabas Nagy | 30,000 |
| Teresa Newton | 30,000 |
| Michael Padmore | 30,000 |
| Petru Prepelita | 30,000 |
| Christoph Rapf | 30,000 |
| Miles Rees | 30,000 |
| Lukasz Sajnog | 30,000 |
| Rosa Sapere | 30,000 |
| Mehmet Sarigoz | 30,000 |
| Ionel Serbu | 30,000 |
| Ulf Steringer | 30,000 |
| Petros Theodosiou | 30,000 |
| Peter Toth | 30,000 |
| Attila Varga | 30,000 |
| Jenny Westerlund | 30,000 |
After the first day of The Festival in Bratislava 2026, the early leader in the Player of the Series race is PL Razz PKO champion Komil Khamidov, who has taken a narrow lead over KO Madness champion Ilija Likic. The full story and the top 20 leaderboard rankings is posted in the news section of the site.
Here is a look at the players who have taken to the felt in the second flight of the Mixed Game Main Event – TORSES. The Hendon Mob Championship 1/A chipleader, Joakim Bakke, The Festival Malta Mixed Game Main Event champion, Barrie Dear, and The Festival Founder Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk, are just a trio of the 24-strong field that have started their session bright and early.
| Player Name | Stack |
|---|---|
| Joakim Bakke | 30,000 |
| Matteo Crapanzano | 30,000 |
| Barrie Dear | 30,000 |
| Manuel Dickinger | 30,000 |
| Kjetil Flaaten | 30,000 |
| Rowan Harley | 30,000 |
| Jorn Inge Hval | 30,000 |
| Grzegorz Iskra | 30,000 |
| Jonas Jurksaitis | 30,000 |
| Dinesh Khatri | 30,000 |
| Jari Maehoenen | 30,000 |
| Sascha Manns | 30,000 |
| William Mawer | 30,000 |
| Igor Narajczyk | 30,000 |
| Siarhei Narozhny | 30,000 |
| Sandeep Nene | 30,000 |
| Antonios Onoufriou | 30,000 |
| Richard Pearce | 30,000 |
| Ivo Petkov | 30,000 |
| Antoine Profit | 30,000 |
| Aleksi Roine | 30,000 |
| Wouter Schuurbiers | 30,000 |
| Aaron Thiel | 30,000 |
| Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk | 30,000 |
The first flight of the week’s marquee Hold’em tournament, the €550 Main Event, is currently underway. In the field is Festival regular and Swedish poker legend Peder Behr, as well as Japheth Dupuis, who has flown in from the USA.
| Player Name | Stack |
|---|---|
| Peder Behr | 50,000 |
| Japheth Dupuis | 50,000 |
| Markus Gaulhofer | 50,000 |
| Dmitry Golushko | 50,000 |
| Marek Hlavicka | 50,000 |
| Nu Li | 50,000 |
| Mark Allardice McKenzie | 50,000 |
| Dennis Packert | 50,000 |
| Jari Pekka Rattya | 50,000 |
| Borgi Sami | 50,000 |
| Robert Wagner | 50,000 |
| Kent Wulff | 50,000 |
| Przemyslaw Zielinski | 50,000 |
