2023 partypoker MILLIONS Live Blog

• 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

Luciano Borghetti, already for a long while in the poker industry, was the first one to act and he had his cards in front of him, but just over the line. It seemed that he usually plays like that. He did however play with chips as well and put a pile of around 8 to 10 chips of 100,000 each across the line and place them on the table, and picking them up quickly again.

The dealer called the floor, and the floor ruled it would be a call of the big bling, for 250,000. Small Blind limped in, and the big blind checked.

Flop came [Qx][5x][5x], flop was some action, turn arrived a [3x]. After both players checked, they saw the [Kx] river. On which it went all-in. Borghetti showed [Kx][10x], but Ritrovato showed [9x][5x] for a flopped 3-of-a-kind.

Montagnolli was on the big blind and saw the button opening the action. The small blind limped in, and Montagnolli decided it was time to shove it all-in for his 9M stack. The button went out of the way, but Nastasi made the call.

Nastasi: A Q

Montagnolli: 3 3

We were off to the races and it would become a photo finish! The flop came K 6 4 . Nothing wrong for Montagnolli just yet, but it became worse when the board paired with the 6 . The river would bust Montagnolli out of the tournament 4 .

He would have hoped it to be different today, where he also busted out of the WCOOP 1K Main Event Day 2.

• Favalaro was all-in and at risk against Azzipardi, and it would turn out to be a classic flip. Jacks for Favalaro and Azzipardi with Ace-Queen. The board remaining low ball, and Favalaro chipped up to 7M.

• The action went extremely fast but we saw Ferro doubling up with A 8 . His two-pair on the flop held up until the board was fully dealt. He would move up to 6M chips.
• We would also have a bust out! Azzipardi went out in 12th place against Eros Nastasi. His Ace-King could not win from the pocket 8’s of Nastasi who would catapult himself into the lead. He plays around 17M chips.

Blinds: 100,000/200,000/200,000

Players: 13/2,327

The two table captains are Pierre Azzopardi from Malta, and Jacques Blit from Argentina. Both are playing roughly 15M chips at the moment.

Angelo Patana re-raised from the big blind against an open from the button. Button went out of the way, but the small blind moved suddenly all-in, on which Patana made the call. It was the a classing Ace-King against Ace-King for a lot of chips, and Patana was the one at risk.

Patana asked the dealer for a rainbow flop. But two clubs appeared on the flop, followed by two more clubs on the turn and the river, giving a flush to Blit from Argentina. A massive pot going into the direction of the world champion of football.

Just like in Football, Italians can have a bit of a temper, and Patana kicked away a chair from the table before leaving to the cash out desk.

We are playing blinds 75,000/150,000/150,000 and Fausto went all-in from UTG for 2,125,000. The player on the button decided to just make the call, leaving behind 5M. Then it all kicked off, when Andrea Benelli from the big blind announced to reshove all-in for 4,650,000.

After some thinking, Caravaglio who was at the button, decided to make the call and we would get a massive showdown:

Fausto Tantillo: 10 10

Caravaglio Q K

Benelli Q Q

The overall punt would be around 12M chips!

Every missed on the board with 7 2 A 8 8 and Benelli made a fist pump to celebrate his big win.

Angelo Patane was at rish with his Ace-King against the King-Ten of Maltese last survivor Pierre Azzopardi. The best hand would remain the best hand after the board completed and Patane chipped up to 4M chips.

Adam Owen was at risk with A K and we saw his opponent was about to go clubbing. With the whole board completed and Jacques Blit had the goods with A 6 . It was dealt Q 3 10 J 5 .

We lose hereby one of the most fearsome remaining players, having cashed for over $3,5M lifetime in live tournament poker.

Luciano Borghetti went all-in preflop for what looked like about 2,000,000 in chips. His neighbour, Khazaradze, made quickly the call and after the rest went out of the way, it was time to for a showdown:

Borghetti: A K

Khazaradze: K K

On the flop, Borghetti already would take the lead A 3 5 , and with the 2 on the turn, there were still chances for Khazaradze to stay alive, but the 6 appeared on the river and it was end of story for the player from Georgia.

The bust out already happened, but we understood that Tantillo had pocket Jacks and won on a Queen-High board. Tantillo chips up to 5,000,000.

We are playing down to 8 players OR we are playing four more levels of each 60 minutes.

We joined the action when the board ran out 3 Q 2 10 until the turn. Owen lead the dance with a bet to 800,000 into a pot of around 2M. Favaloro put Owen to the test and made the jam. On which Owen went strongly into the tank, before mucking his cards.

With this hand, we have a new sheriff in town.

Yohan: Q 2

Bellanger: A K

Opponent: K J

Bellanger had them both covered by far, so we could have a potential double bust out here.

The board decided differently, and let just one of them bust out of the tournament.

Board: 10 8 5 Turn Q River 2

We will keep track on the bust outs in this post.

*Prizes exclude min cash of 900 Euro.

Place	Prize (Euro)	Country	Player Name
# 1	144,100.00
# 2	85,100.00
# 3	60,100.00
# 4	44,100.00
# 5	30,100.00
# 6	19,600.00
# 7	13,600.00
# 8	10,800.00
# 9	9,200.00
# 10	7,520.00
# 11	7,520.00
# 12	6,350.00		AZZOPARDI PIERRE
# 13	6,350.00		PORTO DARIO
# 14	5,550.00		PATANE ANGELO
# 15	5,550.00		CARAVAGLIO LUCA
# 16	4,800.00		TANTILLO FAUSTO
# 17	4,800.00		HOPPER PAUL DARCY
# 18	4,300.00		THEVENET THIBAUT MAEL
# 19	4,300.00		DODY YOAN
# 20	4,300.00		OWEN ADAM
# 21	3,800.00		HANSEN OLE
# 22	3,800.00		KHAZARADZE IVANE
# 23	3,800.00		GIOVANNI LA ROSA
# 24	3,300.00		CLARK BHAJA NELSON
# 25	3,300.00		ANDERSON GRANT
# 26	3,300.00		BELLANGER THOMAS
# 27	3,300.00		CALLEJA BRIAN
# 28	2,900.00		SUTERA GIOVANNI
# 29	2,900.00		LACIS DZINTARS
# 30	2,900.00		TREDICI GIUSEPPE
# 31	2,900.00		RODRIQUENZ MARCO LUIS
# 32	2,500.00		CROBU ANDREA
# 33	2,500.00		LIMONTA VALTER
# 34	2,500.00		BENAKIS PAVLOS
# 35	2,500.00		ASSENNATO FABIO
# 36	2,500.00		IONNIS NIKOLAOS
# 37	2,500.00		LEOTTA ANTONINO
# 38	2,500.00		SANTORO ALBERTO
# 39	2,500.00		Colli Stefano

The table just broke after I noted the chip counts. So players are divided across the other tables now.

Country	Player Name	Chip Count
	CARAVAGLIO LUCA	3,000,000
	LACIS DZINTARS	1,500,000
	CLARK BHAJA NELSON	4,400,000
	PORTO DARIO	875,000
	EROS NASTASI	800,000
	MANSOUR MARIOS	6,500,000

Level 32: 40,000/80,000/80,000

Players: 36/2237

Average: 3,100,000

Country	Player Name	Chip Count
	BORGHETTI LUCIANO	4,800.000
	BENAKIS PAVLOS	2,000,000
	KESKITALO JUUSO MATIAS	6,000,000
	HOPPER PAUL DARCY	2,700,000
	ANDERSON GRANT	2,000,000
	FERRO MASSIMILIANO	8,000,000
	TANTILLO FAUSTO	4,100,000

• The amounts are excluding 900 euro, which they already received.

Marco Patana started off as chip leader today with 5,550,000 in chips. We are roughly two hours later, and he is one of the shorter stacks of the field.

• Lost [Qx][9x] against A 8 when being all-in on turn. He turned three-of-a-kind and got a two-outer against him on the river as his opponent made a bigger full-house.
• Just recently, he lost [Ax][Kx] against [Ax][Qx], when a Queen landed on the river.

He did lose another big all-in, but we do not have any information about the hands.

Ferro just took down a reasonable pot which brings him into the lead of the tournament, as he is playing now close to 8,000,000 in chips. He busted out Gaspare Sposato who had turned himself two-pair (King-Seven). Ferro however, had made flush on the river with his 10 9 .

While I was trying to note down some chip counts, action unfolded at a couple tables. It is local Brian Calleja who busted out Romanian Pavle Pecelj from the tournament when his A K made a flush on the turn, while be all-in preflop.

We got to see pocket Aces cracked twice! in a few minutes time.

• Another Maltese, Pierre Azzopardi, got lucky with a runner-runner with his [Kx][10x] against Aces, making a straight.
• Luciano Borghetti had also [Kx][10x] and made a runner-runner as well! to make a straight.

Kucerusk, a latvian poker player who made it through to Day 3 of this Grand Prix event in Malta just got busted out of the tournament. Leaving his fellow countryman Dzintars Lacis as the only Latvian survivor in this spectacle.

He was all-in with A 8 against the 10 Q of Samuel Olava Quesada. The flop have 10 10 6 , and Kucerusk could not find that one miracle to stay alive.

With the pot odds calculator you can define these all-in situations in percentages.

Eros Nastasi, one of the many Italians out here, just got a massive pile of chips pushed towards him as he busted out a player with powerful play.

• Nastasi was at the Small Blind, and made a 3-bet to 400,000. His opponent made the call and both saw the flop of 6 J 3 . First one to act, Nastasi, continued for 350,000 which got quickly called. The turn Q made Nastasi put in the tank, before barrelling through with 525,000. His opponent thought for a bit, and announced himself to be all-in. It was not much which Nastasi had to add to it to make the call, and so he did.

Nastasi: Q 9

Opponent: A J

The river was neither of his opponent’s cards, and Nastasi chipped up to approximately 5,000,000 in chips.

We arrived at table #1 where Montagnolli was involved in a battle with Marco Patane. With 200,000 in the pot, it was Montagnolli who lead the flop of 5 Q A with a bet of 100,000. Patana, who was on the big blind position, opted to reraise that bet up to 350,000, which quickly got called by Montagnolli. Both players saw the Q land on the turn. Montagnolli check-raised all-in for his remaining 775,000 chips and got instantly called by Patane, Montagnolli was in bad shape:

Montagnolli: A 8

Patana: Q 9

You can see it coming when reading the title of this post…. The A arrived on the river!

Gutted feeling for Patana, and Montagnolli ramps up to over 2,000,000 chips.

Rares-Aurelian Bodea is the first player who got knocked out on Day 3 of the Grand Prix. He got it in with [Ax][Jx], but was up against Aces. His opponent held up, and Bodea is out.

The Mystery Bounty event where 9 players will be in the money, and will battle for the bounty rewards, will be the feature event of today. It will be streamed live on the usual Social Media channels. We keep you informed once it’s live! (Same counts for the Mystery Bounty rewards)

Prize Pool:

Place	Country	Player Name	Chip Count	Table #	Seat #
#1		XANTHOPOULOS PAVLOS	211,000	2	1
#2		MOLENAAR MICHEL	149,500	1	9
#3		POHJALAINEN VILLE	147,500	2	8
#4		EVANGELISTA GIACOMO	142,000	3	2
#5		AKADIRI KOLADE CHARLES	123,000	1	8
#6		GEORGIOU EFTYCHIOS	122,000	2	5
#7		RAHAL ANTOINE	121,000	3	9
#8		FAUSZT JOZSEF	95,000	1	6
#9		MLINARIK GYORGY	91,000	3	3
#10		DONALDSON JASON	89,500	2	9
#11		BARRON NEIL PETER G	83,000	2	4
#12		BUSTOS MATHIAS	79,000	2	7
#13		CARUSO SALVATORE	72,500	3	4
#14		FABRE MATHEO	58,000	1	5
#15		PRENCIPE HERMES	53,500	3	6
#16		HYSENBELLI RENATO	46,000	1	4
#17		NAPOLI ROBERTO	42,000	3	7
#18		PORCINO ALFREDO	33,000	1	2
#19		OLIVIERI ENRICO	29,000	1	1
#20		FINGLAND SCOTT	25,000	3	1
#21		PRIVITERA ANTONIO	22,000	2	3

The Malta Grand Prix Day 3 will receive the starting signal at 4:00 PM CET. 67 players are still in the competition for the coveted first prize of no less than € 144,000, and the fabulous trophy that comes with it. We are fully charged and ready to give you finally real poker action insights, including hand summaries, chip counts, player profiles, interviews, and more.

If you have specific players you would like to follow a bit more closely, don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

We will have 67 players remaining for Day 3 tomorrow, starting at 16:00 CET. (36 players of them are Italian)

Prior to the start, we will provide to you the seat draw for the 9 remaining tables.

Paul Hopper from England went all-in for his last 10 big blinds and got called by Scottish Michael Matar. Hopper had the goods and showed [Ax][Qx], while Matar only could put [Ax][Jx] against it. The board remained low with [3x][2x][6x], and the turn have some split-pot options with the [5x]. The river, however, have a [6x], and this battle got won by Hopper.

He plays approximately 1M now, whereas Matar has got 1,5M.

Local Brian Colleja gave me a sign that something was about to happen, where he might had jinxed the action with. Luca Palloni was all-in for 490,000, equal to 12 big blinds. When everyone was out of the way, Colleja directly made the call and shower A A . Palloni was at risk with K K , but when the first window card directly was a King, it became very difficult for the Maltese Colleja to take down the pot suddenly.

Colleja loses a big chunk of his stack, which is unfortunate for the kind Maltese.

We arrived at the table of Tantillo and he was involved a 3-way battle. Where one player was all-in, he was head-to-head with another big stacked player with the name Massimiliano Ferro. After already 2M was in the middle, the flop was dealt 9 9 3 . Tantillo continued for 575,000, on which Ferro found a fold. When Ferro was out of the way, the showdown took place. The player at risk had A K , and Tantillo had Q Q which held with a dry board completing it.

Tantillo chips up to over 5M in chips.

The Grand Prix event is coming close to an end for today. In around one hour of play, players will bag up their chips. Adam Owen is still in the game, so is Fausto Tantillo, Daniel Montagnolli, and Pierre Azzopardi. Ole Hansen, the only Norwegian player within this event, is also still going strong in this event.

Level 27: 10,000/25,000/25,000

Players: 126/336

Average: 890,000

If you would want to watch the replay of the final table, it is available here:

We will play 9 blind levels today at Day 2 of the Grand Prix, meaning we would end the play around 03:15 AM, as we started a bit later as expected today due to the long duration of the turbo flight.

We are down to 144 players, with the average being on 34 big blinds.

Level 26: 10,000/20,000/20,000

Players: 146/336

The last Turbo Flight of Day 1 ended with a blind level of 15,000/30,000/30,000, while other levels ended with blind levels which were much lower than that, it must feel a bit strange to some of the players who were qualified through that turbo flight.

We are now 6-hours of play into Day 2, and it will take one more hour to get to the same blind level as where the turbo flight had ended.

An extreme version of roll-back of the blinds, but the outcome was the same. 15% of the field went through, one way or another.

We got ourselves a winner in the € 3,000 Millions event! It is Marious Trattou from the UK, who shipped yet another High Roller! With four players left he had won a massive pot with K J vs A J when the board ran out 9 10 10 K 9 . And after that, he was unstoppable and eventually winning the heads-up with a massive clash with his Aces against the Ace-Queen of Domenico Gala.

It was a great coincidence story again as I met Marious yesterday before the start of Day 2 of the event. We spoke a bit about previous experiences on the tour, and he mentioned he had won a High Roller event in Paris not too long ago. He was looking to better that result, and look at that!

We spoke shortly with #4 of the tournament as well, Matt Staples. He was very satisfied with the result he got. Tomorrow we will speak with him more specifically. To be continued!

Place	Country	Player Name	Prize Money
#1		TRATTOU MARIOS	€ 93,000.00
#2		GALA DOMENICO	€ 64,000.00
#3		PELUSO FABIO	€ 41,000.00
#4		STAPLES MATTHEW JORDAN	€ 31,900.00
#5		LINDQWIST ERIK LARS ALLAN	€ 24,510.00
#6		BOELLIS GIULIANO	€ 19,400.00
#7		CIGLIANO ALBERTO	€ 15,900.00
#8		HARI ADAM	€ 13,700.00
#9		WOJTAS JABUK ZBIHNIEW	€ 11,700.00

Players are on a well-deserved break. We gathered the chip counts of table #21.

We will try to take action here and there, and also keep track on the bust outs:

#8 Of the All-Time Money list of Italy is out!

Alessio Isaia walked to the pay-out desk, and it still was a bit of a surprise as he had 935,000 chips to begin with today. Applying pressure on the right moments is something we had seen of him earlier on, but it shows once again that it does not matter how much you have cashed in your life, even in 550s you can bust at any time.

These are all the players still in contest.

*These are the chip counts at the start of Day 2

Here are the final 18 pay outs. We chose to just show these for the moment. All remaining players are already in the money, and they already received the €900 what comes with it.

Level 21: 3,000/6,000

Players: 336/2,237

Average: 332,887

Total Prize Pool: € 1,011,840

Shuffle Up and Deal!

Hand-For-Hand play was needed to conclude the last opening flight of the the Grand Prix event. We had reached the guarantee prize pool in this event, and due to the fact it was a Turbo Edition, the blinds would be from another level compared to the previous flights. A total of 290 entries came to play the turbo flight from 11:00 CET onwards here at Portomaso Casino.

Hand-for-Hand action:

• Player all-in with 80,000 on blinds 15,000/30,000. The big blind is a big stack and he calls it off with any two. Player at risk had [Ax][Kx] and the big blind had [8x][3x]. An ace on the flop would seal the deal for the short stack and he doubled up.
• A player was allin with [5x][6x] as he was forced all-in approximately, if he would have looked around, he would have thought twice about the hand perhaps. He was called by the initial raiser with [Kx][Jx]. The board gave a King and the job was done. We had one of the two players bust to conclude this flight.
• One player had to bust and then carnage started. Player was at risk with [Ax][4x], he was put at risk by someone who had him covered, and he showed [4x][6x]. The flop turn would give a straight to the player in the big blind, but the river gave a split pot with a [6x].
• At another table it was very intense. The small blind had just 2,000 behind, but folded when the CU went all-in. This because the big blind was forced all-in. However, the big blind won with [Qx][3x] against the pocked 9’s from his opponent. So another double up.
• The fifth all-in during the hand-for-hand play had another player at risk. This time it would be the final hand. He lost with [9x][2x] against [Ax][Jx].

We are going to take a small break now and will join the action at Day 2 in roughly 30 minutes from now.

We have reached the final table of the Millions High Roller event here in Malta. The line-up shows is that Matt Staples is still in the game, but has strong competitors around him, all looking to take down the whole event and to bring back home this amazing partypoker Millions trophy.

The live stream will start at approximately 18:30 CET and will be available at the YouTube channel of FuryTV.

Place	Country	Player Name	Chip Count	Seat Number
#1		PELUSO FABIO	1,870,000	9
#2		GALA DOMENICO	1,335,000	5
#3		TRATTOU MARIOS	1,225,000	2
#4		STAPLES MATTHEW JORDAN	535,000	8
#5		BOELLIS GIULIANO	455,000	1
#6		CIGLIANO ALBERTO	275,000	7
#7		LINDQWIST ERIK LARS ALLAN	215,000	3
#8		HARI ADAM	155,000	6
#9		WOJTAS JABUK ZBIHNIEW	110,000	4

Not only the trophy and the pride what comes with it, the most important is the prize money obviously. They will be playing for the following prizes:

Level 16: 8,000/16,000/16,000

Players: 67/290

Average: 216,000

In this flight, it’s the first time we reached a blind level higher than level 15. And we are not there yet, more than 20 players still need to bust before we reach the end of this flight. The roll-back will be massive in the blinds levels to Day 2, but it does remain a crapshoot at this point in flight 1H.

We are down to the final 9 players of the € 3,000 MILLIONS High Roller event! Matt Staples is still in the contest! All below players got busted out of the tournament:

Place	Country	Player Name	Prize Money
#10		BOUETTE RICHARD STEPHANE	€ 10,400.00
#11		CAMINITA DEMETRIO	€ 10,400.00
#12		ANGELOU KONSTAS IOANNIS	€ 9,200.00
#13		DE LA ROSA MORAN RICARDO	€ 9,200.00
#14		MATAR MICHAEL NAGY	€ 8,100.00
#15		CLACK THOMAS PAUL	€ 8,100.00
#16		MEUNIER CLEMENT	€ 7,210.00

Level 12: 2,500/5,000/5,000

Players: 113/290

Average: 128,319

The Grand Prix event now officially surpassed its registration period. With Day 1H being played out at this very moment, there will be added 44 more players for Day 2, which is being played out tonight at 19:00 CET.

As it’s a turbo opening flight, the famous words ”Seat Open” are being shouted by the dealers from any direction in the poker room, with the blind levels being very decent already. Previous flights ended in level 15, but we might go higher than that in here.

For Day 2, there will be a roll-back to blinds 3,000/6,000/6,000.

We will get the numbers later when they will be announced at the start of Day 2, but our calculation shows the following:

Unofficial prize pool : € 1,012,320

DUe to a stunning 288 entries in the last turbo flight of the Grand Prix, and with late registration open for one more level of 20 minutes, the prize pool now exceeded the € 1,000,000. It surely is a surprise to us, seeing so many players in the last turbo flight. But it shows, once again, that Malta is truly a good destination for us poker fanatics. There is nowhere to hide that thought, of Portomaso Casino being one of the greatest poker temples out there.

Today will be the final day of the Millions event, who are down to 16 players. With 92 players starting the second day of the event, only 20 of them would reach it to the money places. Here is the list of the remaining players, including the seat draw:

Place	Country	Player Name	Chip Count	Table	Seat
#1		PELUSO FABIO	1,490,000	1	6
#2		MEUNIER CLEMENT	710,000	2	2
#3		CAMINITA DEMETRIO	475,000	1	3
#4		STAPLES MATTHEW JORDAN	455,000	2	7
#5		WOJTAS JABUK ZBIHNIEW	420,000	2	6
#6		TRATTOU MARIOS	320,000	2	3
#7		BOELLIS GIULIANO	280,000	1	4
#8		CLACK THOMAS PAUL	275,000	1	5
#9		HARI ADAM	265,000	2	4
#10		DE LA ROSA MORAN RICARDO	260,000	2	1
#11		LINDQWIST ERIK LARS ALLAN	260,000	2	5
#12		BOUETTE RICHARD STEPHANE	240,000	2	8
#13		ANGELOU KONSTAS IOANNIS	210,000	1	2
#14		CIGLIANO ALBERTO	185,000	1	8
#15		MATAR MICHAEL NAGY	180,000	1	1
#16		GALA DOMENICO	140,000	1	7
#17		DE GOEDE TACO	€ 7,210
#18		BOI PAOLO	€ 7,210
#19		STRAKOVICH RAMAN	€ 7,210
#20		BLIT JACQUES	€ 7,210

We are on the verge of kicking off with the last opening flight of the Grand Prix event in Malta here at the partypoker MILLIONS. It is the last chance for players to try and build a stack. At 11:00 CET cards will go in the air, of which we are very curious how many players will show up. Usually, the final flight has got a lower attendance rate then other opening flights of a Main Event, but Malta is full of surprises! The opening flights from yesterday were well visited, with 308 entries on Day 1F, and 354 on Day 1G.

Later today, Day 2 will kick off!