The €500,000 guaranteed Malta Poker Festival (MPF) €550 Grand Final is off to a rocking start at Portomaso Casino. Today's Day 1b attracted an action-packed field of 256 entries to bring the total up to 461 entries with three more opening flights to go when taking into account the 205 entries attracted on Day 1b.
A total of 67 players advanced to Day 2 via Day 1b after 13 blind levels and with the 47 survivors on Day 1a, this means that already 114 players have found a bag already into Sunday's Day 2.
Greece's Anastasios Apostolou not only bagged the Day 1b chip lead after finishing the day with 539,000, but he also surpassed the Daniel Taylor who ended Day 1a with the chip lead with 519,000 in chips. While no other player surpassed half a million chips on Day 1b, four other players did catapult their 50,000 chip opening stack into at least 400,000 including Bulgaria's Zlatin Penev (465,000), Greece's Ioannis Aslanidis (457,000), Poland's Tomasz Kolewczynski (407,000), and Italy's Gianmarco Pagliaro.
Other notable players to advance to Day 2 included Yossef Cohen (319,000), Koen Muestege (307,000), Kevin Houghton (250,000), Martin Piik (250,000), Mark Vella (171,000), Anne-Marie Yuen (169,000), The Hendon Mob's Roland Boothby (157,000), and 2022 MPF Autumn Edition €225 HORSE champion Romain Nardin (156,000).
Boothby will have a couple of days off before the Grand Event continues for Day 2, which works out very well as he plans to play the €225 The Hendon Mob Championship taking place on Oct. 28-29 as part of the Malta Poker Festival.
| Place | Player | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anastasios Apostolou | 539,000 | 108 |
| 2 | Zlatin Penev | 465,000 | 93 |
| 3 | Ioannis Aslanidis | 457,000 | 91 |
| 4 | Tomasz Kolewczynski | 407,000 | 81 |
| 5 | Gianmarco Pagliaro | 405,000 | 81 |
| 6 | Arturas Bliudzius | 377,000 | 75 |
| 7 | Raf De Wever | 371,000 | 74 |
| 8 | Bjarke Matthiesen | 339,000 | 68 |
| 9 | Yossef Cohen | 319,000 | 64 |
| 10 | Damien Gayer | 311,000 | 62 |
The Grand Event is all for the players and is limited to two re-entries per flight. In addition, late registration closes after Level 8 meaning that anyone getting into the action will start with a workable stack and not need to shove straight off the bat in order to gain some breathing room.
Today also boasted a €60 satellite for players looking to get into the Grand Event for pennies on the dollar along with the €225 Bounty Hunter Days Malta which attracted a huge field of 322 entries.
PokerListings will be back live reporting at the MPF at the start of Day 1b of the MPF Grand Event at 2 p.m. CEST. Tomorrow’s schedule also boasts the €230 Bounty Hunter Days Malta at 5 p.m. and a €60 Grand Event satellite at 8 p.m. Stay tuned at PokerListings for all of your Malta Poker Festival Grand Event updates until a winner is crowned.