2023 partypoker MILLIONS Day 4

• Prizes are excluding € 900 min-cash which every player already collected before the start of Day 2.

With the blinds on 800k/1600k, Blit opened up the action and Favaloro decided to make the call. With the flop coming 2 Q 4 , it was Blit who lead the action once again with a raise, which got called as well by Favaloro. The 8 on the turn made Blit fire again, and again got called by the Italian. The 7 on the river was the sign for Blit to go All-In on the river to try and finish the heads-up match, Favaloro thought for a while and then made the hero-call, which didn’t turn out well as Blit had nicely top-pair, top-kicker.

Blit showed the winning hand on the showdown with A Q , while Favaloro only could show J 2 for a missed flush draw and bottom-pair.

Favaloro opened up the action from the button, and Nastasi jams from the SB, he got immediately a call. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t improve his hand, while he was already dominated. It’s the end for Nastasi and gets €60,100!

Nastasi opened up the action with J 10 with a 3x bet from the SB, and Blit wakes up with K Q from the BB and decides to complete. Flop gives broadway to Blit with A J 10 , but also two-pair to Nastasi.

Nastasi continues small on the flop, where Blit remains under the radar with just a call. The turn gave a 5 , and Nastasi wasn’t that sure anymore and decided to check. Blit however, lead out with a bet of 2/3 of the pot. Nastasi though for a bit and jammed his chips into the middle. Blit immediately called. No help for Nastasi on the river 9 .

Did we say it was only one-way traffic? In Italy they persumable don’t mind the signs though! Favalero opened up the action with K J , and Nastasi 3-bet to 5,8M with Q 7 . Favalero made the call and we would see a flop.

Flop K J 2 .

Favalero checks, and Nastasi continued for 3,8M. Favalero jams! And Nastasi called.

The turn gave the 9 , and the 3 landed on the river. No help for Nastasi and we would see a shift of the chip leader here.

Ferro opens the action with a raise to 2M chips from early position. Jacques Blit woke up with a hand however, and put all his chips over the line. Ferro snapped it off and was at risk.

Ferro: J J

Blit: A Q

Blit needed to hit an ace or queen and did that directly on the flop: 3 Q 9 . Another queen hit the turn Q , and a 2 completed the board. Ferro goes out in 4th place and gets € 44,100.

Rank	Country	Player Name	Chip Count
#1		EROS NASTASI	66,700,000
#2		MARCELLO FAVALORO	21,500,000
#3		FERRO MASSIMILIANO	12,300,000
#4		BLIT JACQUES AMMIEL	11,100,000

Players who have already left the stage:

Result	Country	Prize	Player Name
# 5		€ 30,100.00	RITROVATO SALVATORE
# 6		€ 19,600.00	MANSOUR MARIOS
# 7		€ 13,600.00	KESKITALO JUUSO MATIAS
# 8		€ 10,800.00	BENELLI ANDREA
# 9		€ 9,200.00	BORGHETTI LUCIANO

With an aggression rate of 37%, Nastasi who is also the big stack at the table, it looks like most of the hands is just one-way traffic. To compare, Ferro is also an aggressive player, but has only 17% of rate.

Whoever has never been to Malta for a game of poker, you are really missing out on something. Portomaso Casino is hosting some of Europe’s biggest live tournament series with reasonable buy-ins. Guided by professionalism, having dealers around who absolutely adore coming back to the venue, tournament organizers who stand in line to arrange their poker series here, they are really from top notch level.

Malta is a great country on its own, but with a fantastic casino as Portomaso offers, it just makes it all a bit better for poker players.

We lost Matt Staples today as well at the Grand Prix today. It was a pleasure of having him at the comms, where he goes to register now for a 220 euro tournament called the Goodbye Sunday tournament. It is actually being played out in the same room as where the feature table is standing, so we didn’t lose him completely just yet!

We had the pleasure with PokerListings of doing some content with Matt, who is a top bloke to have around. He is exactly like you see him on his streams, down to earth, entertaining when it needs to be, and professional.

Ritrovato, who got a penalty for his Italian language use before, went out in 5th place. He has kept himself very quite throughout the final table, besides a 3-bet in the beginning of the unofficial final table, he didn’t get much going.

Salvatore finally found a decent hand and went all-in for his last remaining 1,6M (3BB), he got called by the Argentinian Jacques Blit, and from Favaloro as well. They all saw a flop of 9 K 8 , and Favalero and Blit checked down the A turn and the 5 . When the cards were opened, Salvatore could start packing his bags, to hit the rail.

Blit A 4

Salvatore K Q

Favaloro 7 7

Marios Mansour, one of the shorter stacks at the start of this final day of the Grand Prix event, moved already quite as few times all-in throughout the period of play, but never got a call from anyone. Until this hand:

Mansour reraised all-in with Q 7 on the flop which showed 6 10 7 , and Ferro with the immediate call with A 10 .

The turn have an A and left Mansour just with two outs to stay alive. With the 2 on the river, his tournament was over.

Mansour, whose partner was railing throughout the entire tournament closely, got a very decent result and perhaps it ramps up his motivation to do well during the Europeans Poker Tour, later in Cyprus. He had a great experience in Malta, even though he hoped for a better result of course. He cashed for € 19,600.00.

Salvatore Ritrovato got a penalty for speaking Italian at the table, where only english is allowed. One orbit penalty for him unfortunately, but this didn’t stop him from taking some bunny hops in terms of prize money.

With six players remaining, Juuso Keskitola would become the next player at risk in this Final Table which is quite eventful so far. Not too long ago Juuso had 51 big blinds, up until he was

Nastasi opened the action and raised it up to 900,000. Keskitola found a monster hand and made a 3-bet to 2,700,000. Nastasi didn’t thought for a bit how he would want to approach this situation, before announcing the 4-bet to 4,400,000. Keskitola was for the rough decision and shoved all-in and got an insta call from Nastasi. Two massive stacks colliding with each other!

Nastasi: K K

Keskitalo: A K

The board ran out J 8 3 , and the 9 on the turn, and the 6 completed the board. Juuso is out!

Andrea Benelli, 2-time 4th place finisher during an European Poker Tour Main Event, goes down in 8th place for € 10,800.00. The keu spot which resulted in almost hitting the rail directly, was the previous hand mention in this blog. Tens versus Queens.

In the last hand, he threw in his 1,5 big blind with A J and was up against the Q J of Ferro, and the K 10 of Ritrovato, and to make it worse, also the Q 3 of Eros Nastasi.

Flop brought K 7 2 , and it was time for blood shedding action as Ritrovato flopped top-pair, and Nastasi is drawing to a flush. After a check around, the 5 on the turn made Ritrovato shoved his stack into the middle. Everyone else went out of the way, and Benelli was in bad shape. Even more when the 2 hit the river, that Nastasi would have given the flush eventually.

Benelli is out!

Benelli opened from the CU, and Favaloro 3-bet from the SB with Q Q . After a long tank, Benelli went all-in and Favaloro called instantly.

Benelli: 10 10

Board ran out : 9 3 8 3 2

Favaloro chiped up to 23M. Benelli down to 2 big blinds.

The beauty of poker to its finest, all-time cashes have no meaning in individual tournaments. Everyone can beat anyone.

We have gathered some information which we would like to share with you all:

• Andreas Benelli from Italy has had 2x 4th place finish during an EPT Pokerstars Main Event. One of these results, in San-Remo, it was eventually Victoria Coren who got the Title and the 1st prize. The other one was during EPT Deauville.

• Jacques Blit is a partypoker Passport-holder, who got to Malta with a bunch of friends who also won a package worth $10,000. Interesting of this is that they won that package prior the Covid-19 period.

• Salvatore Ritrovato is like a kid in a candy store here at Portomaso Casino. Presumably in top-3 players of enjoyed the most poker tournaments here in Malta in the past 10 years.

• Juuso Keskitalo is a pure cash/online/home game player. Practically no live tournament results besides a min-cash.

• Eros Nastasi is a known name in the Italian poker industry. He has qualified himself through one of the ‘remote’ opening flights, being played out in Sicily with roughly 65 players. 10 of them advanced to Day 2, played out here at Portomaso Casino, Malta.

• Jacques Blit had won two massive all-ins on Day 3, one of them with Ace-King versus Ace-King, making a flush with his King.

• Mansour

Ranke	Country	Player Name	Chip Count	HendonMob All-Time Earnings
#1		EROS NASTASI	22,975,000	$ 794,856
#2		BLIT JACQUES AMMIEL	18,750,000	$ 71,897
#3		KESKITALO JUUSO MATIAS	17,775,000	$ 287
#4		FERRO MASSIMILIANO	17,675,000	N/A
#5		BENELLI ANDREA	12,750,000	$ 1,921,381
#6		MARCELLO FAVALORO	12,625,000	$ 4,354
#7		MANSOUR MARIOS	6,500,000	$ 2,125
#8		RITROVATO SALVATORE	2,575,000	$ 131,405

We have an Official Final Table! Luciano Borghetti 3-bet called the action of Ferro and we were off the races!

Borghetti: Q Q

Ferro: A K

The booard ran out Ace-High with A 8 8 , turn 4 , and the river 9 .

Players will go on a short break and then the live stream will kick off !

• Ferro is one of the bigger stacks and we saw him applying pressure from the late positions already. Salvatore had enough of that, and 3-bet from the SB when Ferro opened from the button. Ferro quickly folded.

• When Andrea Benelli opened from UTG position, it was Cypriot Marios Mansour who went all-in from the big blind. Benelli thoughr for a bit before open folding 5 5 .

• Luciano Borghetti went all-in from the CU, but everyone folded. He showed Q A .

We are live at the Portomaso Casino for the conclusion of the Grand Prix Malta 2023, powered by partypoker. The last nine players are all seated and we will play down to 8 players at first, to have the Official Final Table. On that moment, the live stream will start as well. We will keep you posted about that.

It all started today with very enjoyable conversations with the players. We know for example that Jacques Blit arrived in Malta, by winning a package worth €10,000, and this stop was the last chance to make use of it. He had won the package back in 2020!

Good Luck to all the players!

Rank	Country	Player Name	Chip Count
#1		EROS NASTASI	23,125,000	4
#2		BLIT JACQUES AMMIEL	18,150,000	7
#3		KESKITALO JUUSO MATIAS	17,900,000	6
#4		MARCELLO FAVALORO	15,675,000	8
#5		BENELLI ANDREA	8,000,000	8
#6		FERRO MASSIMILIANO	7,050,000	6
#7		RITROVATO SALVATORE	6,975,000	7
#8		Mansour Marios	6,550,000	3
#9		Borghetti Luciano	2,900,000	2