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- Recap of Day 1 Of The Festival in Malta
Recap of Day 1 Of The Festival in Malta


The opening day of The Festival in Malta was a unique one, with the opening events on the schedule running side-by-side with the final day of the Vamos Poker Tour. As expected it was quite slow start, as most of the 1,000 players who are expected to attend the festival have not yet arrived on the island.
However many familiar faces were in attendance for the first day, including several players who featured prominently in the last Festival event in Rozvadov. Franke’s Flip Flops double winner Rolf Arne Bechstrom is here and yesterday he made day 2 of the Vamos Mystery Bounty tournament, cashing and taking a bounty in the process.
Also participating in the last Vamos event on the schedule, the Open Face Chinese, was Siarhei “The Machine” Narohzny, who went on to win it. Frank Visser, another Festival regular was also in this tournament, but finished 3rd of the ten players who entered, bubbling as there were only two prizes. Scott 'Pokerbrahs' Kenyon also played in this event, but busted early and jumped straight into the H.O.R.S.E.S.
Meanwhile on The Festival side of the schedule The Hendon Mob Championship had its first starting day, with 13 of the 54 players who started the day bagging chips for Day 2. The chip leader is Smaling Kuner from Netherlands. The second starting day of this key event begins at 4pm on Monday.
The €550 H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event also began on Sunday and 14 of the 35 entrants have made it through to Tuesday’s Day 2. This was a great field for the opening day and the final number of players in the event is likely to significantly exceed the 45 who played in Rozvadov.
Just two players bagged stacks larger than 100k, with Norwegian Eirik Presttun leading the way on 202,000 with Bulgarian Lachezar Tsenov in second place on 117,000. He was one of the top performers in Rozvadov and will be here all week looking for further success. Barrie Dear, Frank Visser, Jens Voertmann and William Lynch also made it to the end of the day, however Franke busted (his second bullet) in 18th place. Full chip counts of the remaining players can be found in this post on the live blog.
The third and final Festival Series event of the day was the €40 satellite for The Hendon Mob Championship. It generated 6 seats for today’s Day 1b heat.
But the day wasn’t just about poker, lots of players were just arriving in Malta and when people arrive for The Festival, we like to throw a little welcome drinks party. Alona, the Festival’s new hospitality host did a wonderful job of making everyone feel welcome. She’s even been featured on our social media posts, with a pretty nifty outfit change in one of the clips.
Speaking of which yesterday's social media coverage of the event was energetic, with Vaclav "Lemon" Dusek fronting the coverage. To follow these stories, access The Festival Series' social channels via the following icons.







