Battle of Malta 2023 Spring Edition Main Event is Underway!

The spring edition of the ttle of Malta officially started on June 1. With the Main Event, you must pay €600 to participate, and the guaranteed prize pool is €500,000.
 
The Main Event has five starting flights, 3 of which are regular and two turbos, and we can expect that the guaranteed prize pool will be exceeded.
 
It should also be noted that players could qualify for the Main Event on June 31, before the start of the festival, through satellites, which continue every day. The exciting thing about satellites is that when a player reaches a stack of 100,000 chips, he is automatically qualified for the Main Event without continuing to play until the end of the day.
 
Day 1a ended with Antoine Talvard as the chip leader, who turned an initial stack of 25,000 into 691,000 chips and could calmly wait for the Day 2 Main Event.

In second place in terms of chips, we could see the legend of Italian poker, Dario Minieri, who ended the day with 605,500 chips.

We saw a hand where Dario Minieri was battling Karev Trall at his table, and after a hand where he had AA against Trall, who had QTs, he increased his stack by an additional 300,000.
 
Talvard and Minieri are the players who stood out and made a difference compared to the rest of the pool and are currently sitting with 138bb, i.e., 121bb compared to third-ranked Pachalis Papadopoulos, who currently has 459,500 chips which is 92bb.
 
Also, Vitale Raffaele and Giulio Di Salvo are the only players in addition to the trio above who managed to surpass the figure of 300,000 chips with their stack.
 
Other notable players surpassing the 200,000 mark are Francesco Ipogino, who sits with 296,000 or 59bb, and Rob Hendrikx, who has 259,500 or 52bb.

Day 1a officially ended with 41 surviving players out of 273 entries, and play continued the next day at 13:00 on Day 1b.
 
Day 1b was not a surprise, and we could have expected it to surpass Day 1a, but what was surprising was that Day 1a was surpassed in the very early phase of the Day 1b tournament, already at the 5th level with 278 entries.
 
At the end of Day 1b, we saw 353 entries, bringing us to 626 entries.
 
The biggest stack still needs to be surpassed in Day 1b, which is still held by Antoine Talvard with 691,000, while the chip leader from Day 1b David Oezmen finished with 377,000 chips.

Towards the end of Day 1b, we could see much action, where players who were short stacks were forced to take risks and try to increase their stack or get busted.
 
Level 16: 3,000/6,000 (6,000)
Liron Kroani went All-In with MP for about 60,000 chips, which was about 10bb then.
 
He got a call from Boban Stevanovic, who was on BB with AJs.
 
That board did not bring happiness to Liron, who had to leave the tournament after his QQs did not hold up on AhAd8dKcKh.
 
Level 15: 2,000/4,000 (4,000)
Rain Moelderkivi went All-In with 33,000, i.e., about 8bb with MP, and got a call from Uri Gilboa from SB and Alexandru Borcan, who only had half a bb, also called from BB.
 
Showdown:
 
Rain Moelderkivi: AhQc
Uri Gilboa: AsAc
Alexandru Borcan: Js3h
 
Board: 8h7h5c3d6s
 
Uri Gilboa quickly picked up all the chips, and his AAs held up and sent his opponents to sleep.
 
Chip count Day 1b looks like this:      

At the beginning of Day 1c, already on the first level, we saw 306 entries, which will be the biggest day 1 so far. Late registration lasts until the beginning of the 11th level, so players will have enough time to surpass the 353 entries from Day 1b.
 
The Turbo version of the Main Event Day 1d is also played in the evening, and on Sunday, the last edition of Day 2e is played before we enter Day 2.
 
Already on the 11th level of Day 1c, we saw 799 entries, meaning we saw 1425 entries in three regular initial flights.
 
After the closing of late registration on Day 1c, there are still 284 players who will fight for their appearance on Day 2 until the last 15% of the field. In translation, only 119 players from Day 1c enter Day 2, and they will already be In The Money!

Report courtesy of Jason Glatzer and Arved Klöhn.