The Malta Poker Tour Returned with an Epic Festival Highlighted by Daniel Lakerveld’s Main Event Victory
After 2 ½ years of poker players anxiously awaiting their return to the luxurious island of Malta and three cancellations, The Malta Poker Festival returned with a bang for its 2022 Malta Poker Festival Spring Edition from April 26 to May 2.
The festival lived up to its reputation as one of the top festivals for recreational players in all of Europe. Not only was the €300,000 guarantee smashed in the Main Event, but players enjoyed low-stakes side events, a high roller, and tons of planned organized activities by the Malta Poker Festival founder Ivonne Montealegre. This does even take into account the amazing weather all week long and the group activities planned by Maureen Bloechlinger and others including a scuba-diving trip.
New friends were made while others caught up with old friends from their poker family that they haven’t seen in three years or more.
Montealegre invited this author, Jason Glatzer, to The Malta Poker Festival as a guest. This series will feature three parts including a recap of the Main Event in this article, the activities planned for the Ladies First! which was capped off by WPA’s Chris Read winning the title, and my own personal experiences as a player with one of the highlights being the special dealer’s choice games running two of the evenings.
Daniel Lakerveld Wins Malta Poker Festival Main Event
As already mentioned in the intro, The Malta Poker Festival €550 Main Event smashed its lofty €300,000 guarantee. But we didn’t mention how much it was smashed by as an impressive crowd of 1,014 entries joined the action to generate a massive €486,720 prize pool.
Daniel Lakerveld made the most of the huge prize pool by defeating Simon Gyorgy heads-up to win the €71,000 top prize. PokerStars Hippodrome ambassador Chris Da Silva, who caught up with PokerListings before he flew home to London for an upcoming episode of “On the Road with PokerListings” podcast, was also on the podium and if he didn’t suffer so many bad beats and coolers perhaps would have progressed even further.
The top prize represented more than double that of Lakerveld’s previous largest cash of €33,000, which came in 2019 when he took fourth place in the CEP Barcelona €500 Main Event and snuck past $200,000 in total live poker tournament earnings as tracked by The Hendon Mob.
2022 Battle of Malta SE Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Name | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Lakerveld | Netherlands | € 71,000 |
| 2 | Simon Gyorgy | Hungary | € 43,000 |
| 3 | Chris Da Silva | United Kingdom | € 25,000 |
| 4 | Jasper van Moorsel | Netherlands | € 18,000 |
| 5 | Georgios Ninis | Greece | € 14,000 |
| 6 | Pawel Zawadowicz | Poland | € 11,000 |
| 7 | Stephen Kane | United Kingdom | € 9,000 |
| 8 | Nicolay Langfeldt | Norway | € 7,500 |
| 9 | Piotr Tuczynski | Poland | € 6,500 |
Main Event Final Day Action
By the time the final day rolled around, the action was down to just 18 players, each with their eyes on the title.
Nicolay Langfeldt began the day with the chip lead and still had a second-place stack when the final table began. Instead, it was Da Silva who came into the final table with the chip lead along with all the momentum after eliminating four consecutive players.
Da Silva’s momentum continued early on at the final table after he sent Piotr Tuczynski to the rail when his ace-queen suited was good enough to hold against his opponent’s queen-jack suited.
Da Silva then doubled the short-stacked Pawel Zawadowicz twice for Daniel Lakerveld to hop into the lead for the first time of the final table. Langfeldt also bled some chips before eventually bowing out in eighth place when his king-jack suited didn’t get there against the ace-nine suited held by Georgios Ninis.
Shortly after, Da Silva was back in his terminator mode by taking out Stephen Kane. Lakerveld, however, kept adding chips with no small help by winning a flip with eights against a suited big slick to eliminate Zawadowicz.
Da Silva managed to snag back the chip lead he began the final table. Simon Gyorgy then not only eliminated both Jasper van Moorsel and Ninis on bad beats but then also won a key pot to snag more than half the chips in play.
Lakerveld could have easily been on the rail shortly after getting his nines against Gyorgy’s aces. However, nines hit both the flop and the river to give Lakerveld quads to double into the chip lead. Early on at the final table, Gyorgy was on the winning end with another amazing hand after doubling up with a royal flush against Da Silva.
Da Silva’s time was soon up after his ace-trey was no match to Lakerveld’s fours and Lakerveld began heads-up action with about a 2.5:1 chip advantage over Gyorgy.
Gyorgy was down but not out as he was able to nearly able to even up the stacks before everything ended on a cooler.
Gyorgy check-jammed his stack with king-five with trips as there were two fives on the board. Lakerveld snap-called and turned over ace-five for the same trips albeit a better kicker to win the title.
Congrats to Daniel Lakerveld for winning the 2022 Malta Poker Festival Spring Edition!
Malta Poker Festival Returns on Oct. 24-31
If you missed the Malta Poker Festival fun this time around or were at the festival and are anxious for its return, rest assured there is another event this year already on the schedule.
Montealegre announced that the Malta Poker Festival will be back with its main series on Oct. 24-31 at the luxurious Portomaso Casino. The players are friendly, the action is great, and, of course, there is plenty to do at the majestic island of Malta almost any time of the year. See you there!
