The Festival Series – Day 10 Recap – Main Event Day 2 Played Down to 22
The penultimate day saw Day 2 of the marquee event of the Festival Series get fully underway here at King's Resort in Rozvadov. Two new high roller champions were crowned in €1,100 buy-in events of No-Limit Hold'em and Open Face Chinese. Let's jump in.
Main Event Day 2 in Full Swing
The final turbo flight gained a total of 147 entrants, all of whom wanted to qualify for Day 2 to claim a chunk of the gargantuan prize pool on offer at King's Resort.
Ultimately, someone had to miss out, and it was Alexander Raab who bubbled 1G after calling off a three-bet jam from Maxim Ksenofontov from the big blind over his initial middle position open.
He missed out on being one of the 135 players who took to the felt in the second-largest Main Event in The Festival's Series history.
The field quickly whittled down to the sub-100 mark after around an hour of play, due to the chip distribution around the room, with some players being super short and some super deep.
Walter Engelen had a deep run in his only tournament here in Rozvadov, finishing 45th for €1,620. This may not sound like much of a return given the €550 buy-in, but he was actually in for €1 as he qualified for the Main Event by winning a package online.
The field was down to the final 22, which was reached by around 2.30 a.m. this morning. There is a distinctly international flavour about the remaining players left in this year's Main Event, with 16 different nationalities being represented in the field, which just goes to show the pull the Festival Series has, and the power of poker has to bring people together from around the world.
Estonian Richard Koppel took the chip lead, bagging 6,375,000 for his efforts. He holds an advantage of 2,000,000 over second place, which is Israeli player "No Mercy."
€1,100 Open Face Chinese
The €1,100 Open Face Chinese High Roller attracted a small field of seven unique entrants. The Festival Founder Martin "Franke" von Zweighbergk, was the unfortunate victim of the bubble, prompting him to declare, "I hate poker!" as he strolled back to the media desk.
After nine and a half hours of play, it was Fabian Bartuschk of Germany who took down the title, besting Czech national Vlastimil Cerny in a heads-up duel that lasted a couple of hours.
Bartuschk fired four bullets into the tournament, meaning he would only turn a profit with a win.
If you would like to learn more about Open Face Chinese, check out this article to learn more about the rules and strategy.
Open Face Chinese High Roller Results
| 1 | Fabian Bartuschk | 🇩🇪 | €5,532 |
| 2 | Vlastimil Cerny | 🇨🇿 | €3,532 |
| 3 | Jiri Heidtke | 🇨🇿 | €2,156 |
Schedule Today 16.6.25
| 16.06.2025 | Tournament | GTD | Prize |
| 13:00 | The Festival Main Event - Final Day | 500 000 € | 0€ |
| 15:00 | NL Texas Freezeout | 10 000 € | 150€ |
| 16:00 | 5-Card PLO | 10 000 € | 200€ |
That's all for now, folks. Stay tuned to the blog for coverage of the final day of The Festival Main Event from King's Resort. The blog will be focusing more in-depth on hand-for-hand play occurring on the outer two tables before moving on to the final table coverage.
The feature table will be streamed from 1.30 p.m. local time on The Festival Series Youtube channel and The Festival OG on Twitch.
