The Battle of Malta
Grab your weapons, the warning bells have tolled and the online Battle of Malta has begun. Sunday July 10th marked the beginning of GGPoker’s Battle of Malta online poker tournament series. Offering €25,000,000 in guaranteed prizes through July 31st, and 75 packages to the live Battle of Malta, this is one fight you don’t want to miss.
The Battle of Malta online poker series offers 18 main events, dozens of Daily tournaments, daily guaranteed packages to the live Battle of Malta Main Event and a Leaderboard challenge. This past Sunday alone, over €2 Million was won over the 14 events that offered just €1,575,000 in guarantees and that does not include the 11 Live Battle of Malta seats that were won.
#1: King’s Landing Opener
The first of the main events in the Battle of Malta was the €110 buy-in King’s Landing Opener. This tournament offered a €250,000 guarantee, enough to attract 3,775 players, creating a total prize pool of €382,030. Re-buys were available for this tournament for the first 3 hours, and, after an 11+ hour marathon, it was ‘Isujimi’ defeating ‘Blom96’ for the victory and €47,147.65.
#2: Charge to Glory Bounty Turbo
Having taken the field with the King’s Landing, it was now time to Charge to Glory with this €52.50 buy-in Bounty tournament. The €100,000 guarantee was smashed when 3,419 entrants joined to fight for first place, creating a prize pool of €170,950. The tournament ended relatively quickly, when the final 3 stuck a deal. With the deal struck, ‘SoloMid’ ended in 3rd for €7,987.35, ‘holyshit9’ ended in 2nd for €9,052.58 and ‘Bernardo Granato’ took top prize and the biggest bounty earning €13,396.44.
Sunday Side Events
Sunday began with the €88 buy-in, €50K guarantee ‘Let the Battle Begin’ side event. It took less than 8 hours for the 1,487 entrants to fight it out and a winner be declared. At the end, once the dust settled, it was ‘Backz0r’ beating out ‘Pura-Vida’ for the championship and €16,798.30.
The second side event of the tournament series was the Mini Grand Prix €25 buy-in with €75,000 guaranteed. Taking nearly 10 hours for the 4,718 players to complete, the final table eventually saw ‘Mimi Time’ defeating ‘Andras Vegh’ for the top prize and €11,091.59.
Next on the schedule was the €100,000 guaranteed Grand Prix Europe €250 buy-in. This tournament which saw 781 players pay the entrance fee, took almost as long as the Mini Grand Prix. As the final hand was dealt, ‘Tom_Poker_NL’ knocked out ‘KuvasiK’, earning the top prize of €25,442.63.
The Bounty Hunters Castle Siege €42 [Ultra Deep] tournament had 4,072 players sign up for this €100K guaranteed bounty tournament. Taking just over 9 hours to complete, it was ‘mrbill77’ that ended up winning the tournament earning €12,985.96 including an incredible €6,954.02 in bounties.
The Sunday Hundred Grand was the next Battle of Malta side event to take place. The €11 buy-in attracted 11,084 players to the tournament. Not surprisingly, the tournament took nearly 10 hours to complete as players vied for a share of the €112,170.08 prize pool. At the end, ‘zemachess’ was the last player remaining and earned €9,702.19 for the effort.
Starting just 10 minutes after the Sunday Hundred Grand, the Omaholic Malta Classic €125 Deepstack began. With 304 total entrants, it took nearly 7.5 hours for ‘Chimichanga1’ to claim victory and €6,513.75.
The Sunday High Rollers Main Event, the biggest guarantee of the first day of the Battle of Malta, offered a €400,000 guarantee for a €1,050 buy-in. A total of 408 players entered this tournament which took over 10 hours to complete. When the final blow was dealt and the dust settled, it was ‘Benjamin Rolle’ that claimed the championship and €78,612.97 for the effort.
The second High Rollers Main Event was an Omaholics event that had 85 players compete. Taking just over 6.5 hours to complete, ‘Dirk Gerritse’ took the crown and €23,208 for winning this tournament when he finally defeated his last opponent ‘WizardofAz’
The second last of the Sunday Bounty events was the Bounty Hunters Big Bounty which attracted 4,293 players. At the end of the tournament, it was ‘77Petraglia’ that defeated ‘Heinekengelada’ to win the €6,759.59, including €5,575.42 in bounties.
The final 3 events of the day, Sunday Double Chance €55 [2-Stack], The Last Stand €105 [Bounty 4-max] and Sunday Saver €250 [Hyper] attracted 1,580, 579 and 450 players respectively. The Sunday Double Chance ended with ‘Camisa15’ taking the victory and €10,435.86 while The Last Stand saw ‘therewillbeX’ as the last one standing earning €8,062.84. The final event of the day, The Sunday Saver, which took just under 3 hours, ended with ‘yuyubaba’ victorious and taking home €19,710.64
Heading to Malta
In addition to all of the tournament excitement above, there were also 5 tournaments with guaranteed packages to the Live Battle of Malta Main Event. This live tournament series offers some of the best mid-stakes live tournament action in Europe. Taking place in October on the beautiful Mediterranean island of Malta, the Main Event is offering a €1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool and GGPoker is hosting daily satellite tournaments to the event. The 5 ‘Road to Malta’ tournaments guaranteed a total of 11 seats from a buy-in of just €125, not to mention the various sub-satellites where a player could win a seat for as little as €6. Each of the tournaments saw between 18 and 30 participants join the festivities and took no longer than 1 hour 45 minutes to complete. A hearty congratulations to each of the winners: ‘Alex_sa’, ‘PeanutCheese’, ‘Belarmino Souza’, ‘mudf4ce’, ‘zeit_geist’, ‘Tastycakes’, ‘FHavoc’, ‘caecilius’, ‘je_banyfart’, ‘ranczer32’ and ‘Alex vd Linden’. We look forward to seeing you in Malta and hope you find continued success.
Coming Up Next…
The next big events in the Battle of Malta are event #3 Omaholic Knight Crusaders €550 on July 12th and #4 Bounty for the Knight €210 on July 14th. These two tournaments offer guarantees of €100,000 and €200,000 respectively and already have satellites running. And don’t forget to jump in on the first €1,000,000 guarantee of the series, event #7 Global MILLION$ European Cup. Day 1’s for this tournament have been running multiple times every day since the beginning of the series to ensure that everyone can join in the Battle of Malta.
Good luck at the tables!