Breaking News: Malta Player of the Series Revealed
It’s now been a few days since The Festival in Malta came to an end and just like the players, the staff who work the series have spent some time resting, recovering and recharging our batteries. Now that we have done that, we’ve taken a look back at the full results of the festival to find out who the Player of the Series was? Wow, it was it a close one, going down to the wire. Here are the top seven players, in reverse order.
7th: Karev Tralla (119 points)
Karev, The Festival Series’s very own Enforcer Extraordinaire had a pretty good series. As well as sorting out hotel rooms, finding lost luggage, locating spare mandolin strings in Attard and prising the rent out of the local landladies, he was also pretty adept at the poker tables.
His victory celebration when taking down the Tuesday Madness have elevated him to legendary status within the Festival team. Following on from that success he made several more final tables, including being in a 4-way chop for the 2-7 Triple Draw. Karev, a Michael Phelps lookalike, is now back in the swimming pool to resume training for the 2028 Senior’s Olympics 100m breast stroke.
| Tournament | Place | Leaderboard Points |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday🤪Madness | 1st* | 32 |
| Wednesday🤪Madness | 7th | 21 |
| Big O | 4th | 27 |
| 2-7 Triple Draw | 4th* | 26 |
| Other Events Participation Points | 2 events | 13 |
6th: David Lappin (125 points)
David is a player who often makes headlines, given that he publishes an article or two per week on various poker related topics. He’s also not shy to take to social media when something upsets him. Gladly he wasn’t too unhappy this week and let his performance on the tables do most of the talking.
He was involved in a remarkable coincidence this week, with his second places in both the PLO Masters and PLO Freezeout, losing out to Jacco Hester on both occasions. Daniel Orlowski took third in both as well for a deja vu podium finish. David also made back-to-back finishes in the Tuesday and Wednesday Madness events.
| Tournament | Place | Leaderboard Points |
|---|---|---|
| The Hendon Mob Championship | 41st | 7 |
| PLO Masters | 2nd | 23 |
| Tuesday🤪Madness | 6th | 23 |
| Wednesday🤪Madness | 5th | 24 |
| PLO Freezeout | 4th | 23 |
| Other Events Participation Points | 3 events | 25 |
5th: Antoine Degiorgio (126 points)
Antoine finished third in the Main Event of The Festival in Rozvadov and although he didn’t have any success in the two Main events in Malta, he did make the money five times during the series. His best result was 3rd in the HORSE and all his cashes came in five different formats.
Antoine ended up finishing one point ahead of David Lappin, to be the highest placed Maltese resident on the series leaderboard. He’s heading back to Kings Casino soon to take his seat in the WSOPE Main Event, which was included as part of his prize in the Rozvadov Main Event.
| Tournament | Place | Leaderboard Points |
|---|---|---|
| Sviten Special | 6th | 24 |
| Tuesday🤪Madness | 9th | 18 |
| 8-Game | 12th | 14 |
| HORSE | 3rd | 21 |
| Big O | 5th | 25 |
| Other Events Participation Points | 3 events | 24 |
4th: Lachezar Tsenov (134 points)
Lachezar was the fifth place finisher on the Rozvadov leaderboard and has gone one-better this time, improving to fourth. He was ever-present throughout the series and played in many events, four of which he cashed in. His best result was second place in the Saturday Madness tournament which was won by Joe Grech and he also was involved in a 4-way deal in the Mixed Games Main Event (H.O.R.S.E.S), taking the second biggest prize in the chop, but eventually finishing 4th.
Will Lachezar improve even further at the next Festival Series event in Bratislava? We’ll find out in a couple of months time.
| Tournament | Place | Leaderboard Points |
|---|---|---|
| HORSES ME | 4th* | 35 |
| Wednesday🤪Madness | 12th | 14 |
| PLO 4-5-6 Card | 4th | 27 |
| Saturday🤪Madness | 2nd | 32 |
| Other Events Participation Points | 7 events | 26 |
3rd: Lewis Aikman (136 points)
Lewis Aikman was something of a sensation here this week. He is virtually unheard of in the live poker world, as he has only ventured away from the online felt in the last few months and had only four lifetime cashes to his name before the week began. He has now doubled that tally with an impressive set of results, cashing in four of the five events her played.
His first success came in The Hendon Mob Championship, where he was runner-up, before going on to win the NLH High Roller, where he faced his friend Stephen McCabe heads up for a glorious Scottish 1-2. He also made day two of the Mystery Bounty tournament and due to these deep runs, didn’t have much chance to play many other events. The one other side event he cashed in was the final event of the series, in which he took seventh place, but a win would have shipped him the POS title, by one point. The only event he did not cash in was the Main Event, which he entered at the start of Day 2.
| Tournament | Place | Leaderboard Points |
|---|---|---|
| The Hendon Mob Championship | 2nd | 43 |
| NLH High Roller | 1st | 49 |
| Mystery Bounty | 14th | 12 |
| KO Deepstack🤪Madness | 7th | 21 |
| Other Events Participation Points | 1 event | 11 |
2nd: Scott Kenyon (151 points)
Scott ‘Pokerbrahs’ Kenyon won The Player of Series in Bratislava, finished second in Rozvadov and was in pole position going into the final day of the series, with a 27 point lead over his nearest rival.
He once again had a strong Festival Series, taking 2nd place three-times (8-Game, PLO 4-5-6 and Big O) and 3rd in the Open Face Chinese. He didn’t even play the Main Event, as he had to leave one day before the Festival ended.
By the time he boarded his flight home on Sunday morning, there were only two players who could have overtaken him on the leaderboard. Both made it onto the final of the last event on the schedule (KO Deepstack Madness) with one needing a win (Lewis) and the other needing third place to secure the title. I think we know what happened next…
| Tournament | Place | Leaderboard Points |
|---|---|---|
| 8-Game | 2nd* | 29 |
| PLO 4-5-6 Card | 2nd | 33 |
| Open Face Chinese | 3rd | 30 |
| Big O | 2nd* | 33 |
| Other Events Participation Points | 7 events | 26 |
1st: Aleksiy Baranovskiy (153 points)
And our winner, the Festival in Malta’s Player of The Series is Aleksiy Baranovskiy, who’s 3-way deal in the final event of the week enabled him to pip Scott Kenyon to the post, taking the title by just 2 points.
Aleksiy was the side event hero of the week, taking the runner-up spot in both the Tuesday and Wednesday Madness and winning the Texas Surprise tournament before locking up the POS title in a 3-way deal on the final table of the very last event, the KO Deepstack Madness.
He wins the €1,600 prize package for The Festival in Bratislava for his efforts, proving himself to be the most consistent player of the series, but only just! Congratulations to Aleksiy, The Festival in Malta Player of the Series!
| Tournament | Place | Leaderboard Points |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday🤪Madness | 2nd* | 29 |
| Thursday🤪Madness | 2nd | 32 |
| Texas Surprise | 1st | 39 |
| KO Deepstack🤪Madness | 3rd* | 29 |
| Other Events Participation Points | 6 events | 24 |
Commiserations to Scott, who could now be in a state of shock after reading this. Perhaps he is regretting his decision to fly home early…or to miss out playing the main event…or to have not dealt in the two events he did…or just to have played one more side event. Any of these actions would have delivered him a second Player of the Series title. Unlucky fella, that’s poker!
Festival Series Coverage
If you didn't make it to The Festival and want to catch up on the action you missed, or you were there and want to relive it again, check out the live blog coverage, where you will also find photo galleries with pictures by the one and only Mairo 'estonianweirdo' Toom and full results from all events at The Festival in Malta.
There is also a wealth of coverage on our various social media channels. Video coverage including daily highlights and interviews produced by Nekit, Aleks and front man Andreas ‘Wiseguy’ Hoglund. To view the coverage, check out The Festival's YouTube Channel.
The Festival's Instagram, Twitter and Facebook pages also have a great variety of irreverent, informative and entertaining coverage by Vaclav "Lemon' Dusek and Melvin Schroen.
We're a hard-working team, we're dedicated to delivering the best coverage we can and we can't wait to do it all again at Banco Casino in Bratislava from 18-24 November.
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