The Festival Malta Day 5

The €125 Texas Friday Turbo Midnight Madness was another fun event that didn’t begin until 11 p.m. in the evening. The event attracted 64 entries to create a €6,758 prize pool. Guido Stanzione won the event for €2,250 after defeating Gianmarco Scannapiego heads-up. Here are all of the payouts in the PLO/PLO8.

Frank Visser is one of the players here at The Festival Series Malta for the mixed games. He appeared disappointed after he bubbled the OFC event but made it for it in a big way. Visser defeated Ali Oznesil heads-up to win the €250 PLO/PLO8 for €2,220.

The event attracted 64 runners to create a €6,758 prize pool. Here is a look at all of the payouts:

The €125 Texas Surprise attracted 131 entries to create a €13,834 prize pool. Salvatore Ritrovato won the event for €2,230 after agreeing to a five-way deal with Alfredo Cuti, Kei Yaegashi, Leonard White, and Vadim Gercev. The other four players mentioned each received an equal prize of €2,130 each.

Aaron Kupin traveled out to Europe with his girlfriend from his home state of Florida. He was looking for some poker action and saw all the mixed games on offer at The Festival Series Malta and opted to come out and see what it is all about.

Kupin eliminated the final two players on the bubble in the €250 OFC Event and then zoomed ahead to win the €2,880 to bring the OFC trophy back to the USA.

The OFC attracted 28 entries to create an €8,206 prize pool. Here is a look at the payouts:

The Hendon Mob €250 Championship drew in 102 entries during the opening day. ACR Stormer bagged the overall chip lead with 15 players left. The returning Day 2 players will be in the money for at least a min-cash. Payouts will be posted after they are made publicly available. In the meantime, here is the Day 2 Seat Draw.

The €550 Main Event attracted 579 entries during its five opening flights to add €277,920 to the prize pool. A total of 181 players bagged chips led by Laila Hawaszadeh who parlayed a 30,000 opening chip stack into 382,500.

Blinds will start tomorrow at 1,000/2,000 with a big blind ante of 2,000 when the action resumes at noon. Players can re-enter for the first two blind levels of the day with blind levels increasing to 45 minutes in length instead of 40 minutes as featured during most of the opening flights.

Beate Etim defeated Christel Haller heads-up to win the €125 The Festival Queens Ladies Event for €1,760. Kairit Leibold, Adriana Bernardo, and Angelica Andersson also made the money.

The event attracted 47 entries to create a €4,963 prize pool. Congrats to Beate and all of the players that cashed in The Festival Queens.

The Franke’s Flip Flops has been going on all week long and tomorrow will be the final evening of flips starting at 9 p.m.

Players enjoy rake-free flips while also competing on the Franke’s Flip Flops Leaderboard. The winner of the leaderboard will be crowned the Franke’s Flip Flops Challenge. That honor also comes with a frame pair of Franke’s actual flip flops he has been wearing all week and a package to The Festival Series Bratislava at Banco Casino from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3.

Until today, there were several players tied at two flips each. But that quickly changed tonight with 14 flips run today. Sami Korpula made the most of the biggest day for the flips by winning three flips putting him in the lead with one more day of flipping to go with five flips won.

Meanwhile, Rolf Bechstrom won three flips today as well. However, he is still two behind Korpela after previously not appearing on the leaderboard. Joseph Jackson is tied with Bechstrom after winning two flips tonight as well.

If for some reason, the leaderboard ends with a tie, one final flip will take place to see who the champion will be among the tied players. Here is a look at the full leaderboard through Friday:

Earlier this week, Lithuania’s Mantas Petrauskas won the €250 Heads-Up tournament for €2,480. He will be highlighted again tonight after winning the most in the €5/€5 no-limit hold’em Cash Game Challenge with a profit of €1,624 good for 324.8 big blinds.

This is still a galaxy away from the €6,300 for 3,150 big blinds won by our very own Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk in a €2/€2 pot-limit Omaha Cash Game Challenge earlier this week.

The Hendon Mob Championship witnessed 102 entries pony up the €250 buy-in on the opening day to create a €22,032.

The action is down to just 25 players including the likes of Nathaniel Brown, Jonas Engedal, Valmar Runk, Raimo Einberg, Paula Ensink, The Chip Race Co-Host David Lappin, Colin Lovelock, Kevin Malone, and ACR Stormer Oskar “Deckflow” Ojaveer.

Day 1 will conclude when the field is reduced to 15 players. Each of the Day 1 survivors will be in the money for at least min-cash before resuming action on Day 2 at 1 p.m.

The €125 PLO/PLO8 is a fun affair where the games shift between the two games. It is quite rare to see PLO8 at any festival but, of course, The Festival Series has a bit of everything.

The event attracted 63 entries to create a €6,652 prize pool. Rolf Bechstrom, Barrie Dear, Antoine Degiorgio, Scott “Pokerbrahs” Kenyon, and Ylva “Jevakim” Thorsrud are among the 32 players remaining.

Day 1d of the €550 Main Event attracted 179 entries to make it the biggest opening flight. Laila Hawaszadeh bagged the biggest stack of the 45 survivors with 382,500 and was closely followed by Oystein Brenden with 369,000. Both these players will advance to tomorrow’s Day 2 with more chips than the previous chip leader Adam Briggs who survived with the Day 1b chip lead with 328,500.

Franke’s Flip Flops are about to begin. The Festival’s Melvin Schroen is going to attempt to be on of the players to win a flip into the €125 Texas Surprise. The Festival Series Head of Photography Mairo Toom and this author will buy pieces of Melvin’s flips so we have an extra reason to rail.

The player that wins the most flips throughout the week will win the Franke’s Flip Flops leaderboard. They will not only win a package valued at €1,600 to The Festival Series Bratislava at Banco Casino from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3 but also win a framed pair of Franke’s actual flip flops.

Adam Briggs is back looking to make it three Cash Game Challenge session wins in a row. This time, he tests his skills and luck against a talented crew in a €5/€5 no-limit hold’em affair.

Pokerstudie’s Koen Meutstege and Marthijn Lakerveld are also in the mix and will share some of the footage with their students and analyze some spots. The training group is developing a cash game course and this session fits nicely into their plans.

Other experienced players in the mix include Raoul van Wersch, Maksymillian Gora, Mantas Petrauskas, and Arnaud Capella. You can check out the Cash Game Challenge by clicking on the Stream tab in our coverage.

We will likely stream The Festival Queens final table after this session.

The turbo-charged Day 1e kicked off about 15 minutes ago with a couple of dozen players. This will be the final of the five opening flights and plays out a bit differently with 20-minute blind levels instead of 40 minutes.

This isn’t the last chance saloon for the Main Event as tomorrow’s Day 2 will allow late entry and re-entries for the first two blind levels.

Best of luck to the final opening flight players in the Main Event.

The €250 OFC is in the money after Aaron Kupin busted both Frank Visser and Lars Eklund out of the event on the money bubble in the same hand. The event attracted 38 entries to create a prize pool of €8,206.

Kupin shared with us that he traveled from the United States to play in The Festival Series. He was coming to Europe anyway to visit his girlfriend’s home country of Romania and was looking at The Hendon Mob to see what events were happening in Europe during that time. He shared that he chose to come to Malta as the mixed-game schedule was enticing and exciting. It didn’t hurt that we hosted the first of two OFC events today, which he shared was his favorite game.

Now, Kupin has his girlfriend on the rail after reaching the money for at least a min-cash of €820 with more to come if he can win the event to bank the €2,880 top prize.

Maksimillian Gora, Teemu Hietela, Kornel Kiebik, and Thibault Yoccoz are also all in the money contending for the title. Good luck to all of the final five players.

Here are some photos of the OFC event by Mairo Toom:

Earlier today, Dainius Antanaitis dropped by to discuss a hand that he broke down his thought process. Several people have shared they liked this concept so now I am giving a general shoutout to everyone playing any of our events to share your hand with us.

This isn’t a bad beat corner request. This is more if you had something to think about and what you were thinking about before you made your decisions during that hand. Drop by the media desk if you would like to share your thoughts on a hand in any event you play this week.

Here is a link to the post where we saw how Antanaitis broke down a hand where he felt he misplayed during Day 1d of the Main Event.

The €125 Texas Surprise kicked off a couple of minutes ago with an initial field of 44 entries.

PokerCity’s Lars Smeets, Dusk Till Dawn’s Glenn Townsend, Laur Sibold, and Alessandra Cuntro are among the early entrants.

Best of luck and have fun!

The late-registration window for the €125 The Festival Queens Ladies Event is minutes away from closing and thus far has attracted 47 entries. We may see another lady or three hops into this event at the last second but this will likely be close to the final number.

The Festival Series Hospitality host Anastasia Bukstynovic, The Festival Queens host Laura Cornelius, and Christel Haller, who you might know from handling social media responsibility at many of our events are still alive as are Paula Ensink, Katre Kokk, Monica Larsson, Kairit Leibold, Ilona Sibold, Ave Lepik, and Lisbeth Sunde.

Here are some photos of the event by Mairo Toom:

Our friend Dainius Antanaitis busted the Main Event on Day 1d a bit ago during the 100/300 (300) blind level. He shared with us the hand along with some insight into his thought process. Antanaitis is one of the sharpest poker players regardless of the poker variant. Even the best make mistakes but in this case, I am not sure if many could have found a fold or not. Check it out as it is a decent hand to analyze.

“The blinds were 100/300/300 when I limped behind an under-the-gun open limp,” began Antanaitis. “The player in the hijack raises to 1,600 and I was the only player to call. This could be a mistake to play this hand in the first place but I call to see the queen-six-seven rainbow flop. Sometimes I lead out with a small donk bet on this flop but he could put me in a tough high-variance spot as I would have to shove over the top then. Check-raising was also an option depending on the sizing but I opted to check-call his bet of 1,500 into a pot of 4,200.”

So far so good although I would personally be folding this hand preflop. Then again, I admit that Antanaitis is a stronger player than me so let’s go back to his thoughts.

“The turn was the perfect five of diamond placing two diamonds on the board and I donk bet pretty big for 5,500 into a pot of 7,200 with just 18,200 behind,” Antanaitis shared. “This sets me up a pot-sized bet on the river with my straight if he calls. He tanked for a minute or two and I definitely saw him debating whether or not to shove. So, I put him on a range of ace-queen, kings, aces, and sets. I am hoping for a brick river so I can shove and get the call probably around 90% of the time.”

Antanaitis no longer had the nuts on the board by the time the river came as our Lithuanian friend explains.

“Unfortunately, a seven paired the board on the river. So, now I am debating between going for a block-bet-fold or check-bluff catch. I chose the latter and after I check he internally debates for about 30 seconds before he puts all of his chips in one piles and jams them all-in. My first instinct and idea that comes to my mind is if I can make this fold, I can definitely win this event. He is rarely doing this with aces, kings, or queens and would probably go for smaller value for like 6,000 to 8,000. I feel he definitely never has a 7x for a value shove here. So, basically 80% value full house/quads, although it is unlikely he has quads as he would have likely limped his sevens. So maybe 20% for a random bluff but I didn’t have much history with this player before. As I was only getting 33% odds on this pot-sized shove and it was for my tournament life, I should have found an easy fold despite the fact I could re-enter. Instead, I took an easy no-brainer move and just donated the rest of my chips. Many people would call this a cooler when actually it is just a big mistake to pay off the river bet once you analyze the hand properly and see the big picture.

Thank you for sharing the hand and best of luck the rest of the week!

Two fun tournaments are about to begin at 4 p.m. The Hendon Mob €250 Championship is a two-day affair and always one of the more popular events at The Festival Series. This should be no different as many players have already shared this was going to be the highlight of their day.

Meanwhile, many of the women in attendance are gearing up for the €150 The Festival Queens Ladies Event also at 4 p.m. Poker presenter Laura Cornelius will be hosting this event and we expect an entertaining and competitive affair between the ladies.

Yesterday, Danny Young, who is one of the amazing poker dealers at The Festival Series Malta, arranged the cards to spell HORSE for the HORSE event. During the first break of the OFC event, Young kept the trend going.

Speaking of the OFC event, it has thus far attracted 24 entries with 19 players remaining. Kei Yaegashi, Terje Jahn, Luca Delfino, and Jarno Kuiper are already on the rail and have yet to re-enter. Meanwhile, Maksymillion Gora also lost his stack but opted to re-enter.

We were graced with the presence of esteemed poker photographer Damiano Nigro. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end eventually and it’s time to say goodbye to our friend.

Damiano spent the past few days documenting his view via his create eyes on The Festival Series Malta. We have been sharing his photos throughout the week and want to send him a special thank you from The Festival Series to both him and also we appreciate our relationship with PokerFirma.

You can also check out his photos, blogs, and more by heading to his website the-rounder-net. Check out his final few photos below:

The €250 OFC Tournament is about to begin. We sat down with Frank Visser’s girlfriend Kelly who is in Malta. She never played a poker tournament before but has some practice playing at home with Frank.

“I am nervous about playing my first poker tournament,” Kelly said. “But I am excited to be to playing!”

We were curious about how she got into OFC.

“I learned how to play with my boyfriend Frank (Visser) at home,” Kelly shared. “I enjoyed playing right away and got the hang of it. I learned what the good options were or not. I also got an app afterward and play with Frank and my friends.

Kelly has been playing for about half a year but when there was an OFC tournament at The Festival Malta she couldn’t resist.

“We were planning to come here anyway and I saw there was an OFC tournament and decided to give it a shot,” Kelly said. “I will be happy with the experience regardless of whether I win or not. In fact, I don’t expect to win, I just hope for a fun experience.”

Kelly’s OFC knowledge doesn’t only come from Frank.

“My biggest inspiration is Wouter Beltz (Sorry Frank),” Kelly said. “I learned quite a lot from this. Halfway joking as I wouldn’t have gotten involved in playing OFC if not for Frank. He also taught me a lot too. We will see how it goes.”

We wish Kelly and the rest of the 15 players already registered with more to come the best of luck!

Sascha Manns already hit the rail early and wasted no time in re-entering. He just shared with us that he took out The Festival Series Nottingham Main Event winner Ignacio Menendez on his second bullet.

Manns has been to all of The Festival Series events and has appeared at a couple of final tables along the way in the Main Event. Best of luck to our friend and may his good fortunes continue.

Day 1d has just kicked off in the €550 Main Event with 39 runners after some announcements by Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund and Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk.

Sascha Manns, Mark Adams, Joseph Jackson, Sirin Ongorur, and Toivo Ojasoo are among the players seated from the beginning.

Day 5 of The Festival Series Malta is set to be another big one. Not only will the final two flights of the €550 Main Event kick off today but today is also the start of the two-day €250 The Hendon Mob Championship. The €125 The Festival Queens, hosted by poker presenter Laura Cornelius, is bound to be tons of fun for the ladies in attendance.

Here is a look at today’s schedule. Of course, there are hospitality activities today for those with the hospitality package, Franke’s Flip Flops running from 9 p.m. until 11 p.m., and cash games running nonstop on the casino floor.