The Festival Series – Malta 2023: Trip Report Part 3
This is the third and final part of my trip report for this series. See Part 1 to find out about my first two days at The Festival Series, Malta. Part 2 takes you through the third day and my journey to a second final table on Day 4. There you will also find out about the family illnesses and football drama that was making this week an emotional roller coaster even without the swings of poker tournaments and crazy cash games!
The story resumes with the start of the final table of the €225+€25 HORSE event!
The final table began with Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergke holding the chip lead. He was seated to my immediate right and in quick fashion he lost four pots, including one pot where he doubled me up in a hand of Limit Hold Em. My AK held against his QJ suited with the betting capped preflop, a reraise being called on the flop of AJx and he bet/ called my all-in on the turn A that gave him a flush draw. When the river bricked, I was left holding the chip lead.
Over at Hillsborough in the big football match I was following, my team fell behind when Peterborough United scored in the first half of extra time. I was barely noticing this at the time.
A hand of Omaha Hi-lo came up where I was in the small blind and everyone folded to Franke on the button. He raised, and I looked down at AQJ4 double-suited. Franke had played a very loose aggressive style; my hand was obviously well ahead of his range. I didn’t want to call and invite the big blind to play along so I put in the third bet. Franke capped the betting, and this left him with exactly one small blind or half a small bet. Flop was 6 5 5 with two spades, giving me the nut flush draw and a low draw that is often ahead of his range, so I put him in for his last few chips. Franke called, announced that he had a small full house, and turned over Q 10 6 5. Turn and river bricked so I made no low and Franke doubled up.
Now Sheffield Wednesday equalises again! The second half of extra time ends, and the penalty shootout starts. Peterborough’s second penalty crashed off the crossbar and into the Hillsborough Kop, and when Wednesday scored all their five penalties the comeback was complete. It would be Sheffield Wednesday heading to Wembley Stadium to play against Barnsley for promotion into the Championship. My team, my lifelong obsession, had achieved the greatest comeback in playoff history, one of the best comebacks in sporting history, and I had barely noticed! Ten days later, the season ended in dramatic fashion with Sheffield Wednesday scoring a winning goal in the 123rd minute of the game, with the last kick of the match and preventing a penalty shootout! It means promotion to the Championship, the second tier of English football, for The Owls.
Back at the table, we were down to six players and Franke was at it again. A hand of Seven Card Stud came up where he completed with a Q showing and I raised with split kings. Fourth Street went check-bet-call, and then he paired his queen on Fifth Street. This time I called his bet, the sixth street looked blank (his board was something like Q-7-Q-9) and he bet, and I raised all in. he called and on Seventh Street, he announced a straight. Good game to me!
It was disappointing to finish sixth, but my emotions were all over the place: I had played exceptionally well in a tough field to make my second final table in two days, but again fell short of a trophy. Sheffield Wednesday were in the playoff final against all the odds. Two close family members were in hospital and being away from the family home I was unsure how bad it looked for either of them.
Franke went on to take the trophy for the HORSE tournament. Well played sir!
Day 4: Open Face Chinese (OFC) Tournament and a Long Night of a Mixed Cash Game
Something different today! A game where you have to play your hand, no matter how weak. Where you cannot make your opponent fold.
For those who have played this as a cash game, there was a small difference in how this tournament would be run. If a player qualifies for Fantasy Land with a pair of Queens on top, they would receive 13 cards in Fantasy Land: a pair of Kings, 14 cards: Aces would result in 15 cards: and three of a kind, 16 cards. Also, it would not be possible to repeat Fantasy Land. So it was a kind of hybrid of Progressive Open Face Chinese with a twist that reduced the variance somewhat.
At my starting table, my chips stack swung up and down a little with no real significant hands to talk about. Later I was moved to another table and started to build my stack a little. This was especially helped by Jonas Jurksaitis’ appearance at the table: he came in as a late entrant and managed to lose his stack without playing even one hand where he made a profit: in this tournament, he found the deck far colder than in the 8 Game event two days previously! A great player and one to look out for.
I was moved to another table where I was seated with a good friend of mine, Finnish player Teemu Hietala. Teemu, living in Malta, is a mixed games regular, who won a PokerStars WCOOP HORSE tournament in 2022. The third player at the table was a Norwegian and we all had similar stack sizes: though we were all above starting stacks, the rising cost per point meant that our stacks could be put under pressure in the event of a big swing. This is exactly what happened when the Norwegian player decided to set his cards like this with just two draws left: bear in mind that both Teemu and I had a 9 showing in our boards, so his only option to avoid fouling would be to pick up two deuces.
I tried to qualify for Fantasy Land with aces on top but fouled and Teemu just picked up a bad run of cards. Our Norwegian opponent managed to end up with the magical:
This hand left me short-stacked against an opponent in Fantasy Land and he finished the job immediately, taking out Teemu shortly after that. This was a fun tournament, and I will definitely play again in future stops!
I wandered off to the cash game area where a couple of mixed games players were looking to start a table. I spotted two more players who I knew would be interested and sure enough we were seated quickly and with a full complement of seven players.
We played some very interesting and fun variants, including Omajack, Anaconda, and a few variations of Sviten Special. I even subjected my tablemates to an orbit of Badugi Hilo! Anaconda produced some huge pots: this is a Hilo game and the high hands ended up in some amazing coolers, aces full rarely being enough to take down that half of the pot! The night was a long one, and I left the casino as the day was breaking and with a healthy profit of just over €500.
I made my way back to my home on Gozo and left the rest of the gamblers to play out the rest of the festival over the weekend. One of them, sometimes mixed games cash game player Oystein Brenden, managed to take down the main event. Great performance Oystein!
Conclusion
Emotions were all over the place this week. The Festival Series put on an exceptional week of poker action with plenty of options for mixed gamers. Portomaso Casino and the dealers and staff, both locals and those from Ludus Academy, worked hard and made sure the experience was seamless and we could all focus on playing our best games. I made a nice profit for the week of over €1,600 and added to my growing list of mixed games poker friends.
