Giuseppe Rosa Wins the 2022 Battle of Malta Spring Edition Main Event (€200,340)
After nearly a three-year break, The Battle of Malta returned with a bang featuring dozens of events at Casino Malta by Olympic Casino and the adjoining InterContinental Hotel.
The Main Event was a smashing success with 2,592 entries generating a massive €1,244,160 prize pool to more than double the €500,000 guarantee slapped on the event.
After four days of play, Italy’s Giuseppe Rosa defeated Stan van Dijk heads-up to win the exquisite trophy along with a mind-numbing €200,340 top prize for just a €555 buy-in.
Rosa entered the final table with the chip lead and was near the top of the chip counts throughout the final table before sealing the deal after a back-and-forth battle with van Dijk. The huge win was easily the biggest score for Rosa who entered the event with $133,135 in total live tournament earnings according to The Hendon Mob.
2022 Battle of Malta Main Event Final Table Results
| # | Player | Prize Money |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Giuseppe Rosa | €200,340 |
| 2 | Stan van Dijk | €140,000 |
| 3 | Yossef Cohen | €100,000 |
| 4 | Noam Gamara | €72,000 |
| 5 | Federico Petruzelli | €54,120 |
| 6 | Jeremy Soreau | €41,680 |
| 7 | Karol Szyszko | €29,240 |
| 8 | Valter Marchi | €18,040 |
| 9 | Peep Kivistik | €10,580 |
Final Table Recap
PokerListings’ Jason Glatzer commentated on the Main Event final table via a 30-minute delay with hole cards exposed across a variety of social media channels.
Giuseppe Rosa was the table captain to kick things off with a decent gap between his closest competitors in Jeremy Soreau, Peep Kivistik, Noam Garama, and Federico Petruzzelli.
There were several shorter stacks that were each able to ladder up after a cooler of a hand with Kivistik hitting the rail in ninth place when his queens didn’t win a flip against Stan van Dijk’s big slick. The Dutch poker rail was massive during Day 3 and they were also back for the final table erupting in celebration after the hand.
The two shorter stacked players were then the next to exit the tournament in Valter Marchi, and Karol Szyszko before Soreau also found himself as a short stack before exiting the tournament as well.
Shortly after, Yossef Cohen sent Petruzzelli packing in fifth place when his ace-jack suited proved to be good against ten-seven suited.
Rosa, Garama, van Dijk, and Cohen were all relatively even in chips to start the four-handed action with each player at one point or another snagging the chip lead. Eventually, Garama found himself with the shortest stack and was eliminated in fourth place when his ten-seven suited didn’t get there against Rosa’s ace-trey suited.
A few minutes later, Cohen got it in with ace-five and couldn’t get there against van Dijk’s nines.
Heads-up Action
The heads-up action was entertaining but nearly as much as the last Battle of Malta when Serghei Lisii came back with crumbs to defeat “The Viking” Steven van Zadelhoff. While van Zadelhoff collected a massive prize thanks to a heads-up deal, this time around the duo was unable to agree with van Dijk sharing with his rail that he was unlikely to deal at any point at the final table.
Rosa started off hot but van Dijk battled back with the lead change going back and forth two times before Rosa once again took control.
Eventually, van Dijk was ousted on a cooler of a hand with both players holding trips with two jacks on the board in a limped pot. Van Dijk had kicker issues with jack-six and had to settle for the sick runner-up prize of €140,000 with Rosa holding jack-ten.
Congratulations to Giuseppe Rosa for an epic victory in the Battle of Malta Main Event. If you missed the action this time around, you won’t have to wait nearly as long as the previous gap this time around with the next Battle of Malta festival planned for October 4-12, 2022. Visit the Batte of Malta website for more information.
* Lead image courtesy of Juhani Tyriseva / Battle of Malta
