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The Hendon Mob Championship has now started its second and final day. There were 334 entries across three starting days and the 81 who made it through are now pokering away, with the first goal of the day being to make the prize money. Presiyan Tsvetanov was the overwhelming chip leader at the beginning of […]
Yesterday we delivered the news that four additional €125 NLH Turbo Madness tournaments had been added to the schedule. Not long after that decision was made an additional two tournaments were added to this Festival Series Pop-Up Special. An additional ‘Madness’ event was added for Thursday evening and on Saturday there will be a 2-7 […]
Eat, poker, sleep, repeat! Here we go again for another action packed day at The Festival in Malta. The Main Event is already in play and there are more players seated now during the first level of the day than there were in the entirety of Day 1a. There are currently 44 players in their […]
Another day has dawned in Med’s hottest poker destination, but while the action is picking up in Portomaso Casino, the weather has taken a turn for the worse. There are high winds and partial cloud covering. But we won’t let that dampen our spirits, there’s a lot going on here today on the fourth day […]
Presiyan Tsvetanov, the winner of The Festival in Rozvadov Main Event has bagged a massive stack in Day 1c, the third and final starting day of The Hendon Mob Championship. The Bulgarian player accumulated a chip stack of 425,000, which is more than 50% more than that of his nearest challengers. Luka Bulatovic on 282,000 […]
The Mixed Games Main Event has been won by Eirik Presttun from Norway. The story of his victory has been posted in the news section of The Festival website. Play is still ongoing in Day 1c of The Hendon Mob Championship. This third and final flight of the €250 event and was the biggest of […]
The first starting day of the Main Event is now over, with 15 of the 40 players who entered progressing to Day 2. The Day 1a chip leader is Jesper Lucas from Netherlands, who bagged just under 200,000 chips. Lying in second place with 169,100 ids Milan Ljubisic from Germany, who has a habit of […]
It was really never in doubt, Rolf was always going to win something this week. I’d have bet my house on it (if I owned one). Rolf very nearly won the roulette tournament in Rozvadov, leading for most of the competition, until Thomas Gugerbauer bested his score close to the end of play. The format […]
Today’s €250 PLO Masters began at 1pm and its the first tournament of the day to finish. It was an intimate event with 33 entrants, in which five players made the money. The winner was Dutch player Jacco Hester, who beat David Lappin to take the €2,800 first prize.
The Mixes Games Main Event is now on the final table, with seven players left battling it out for the title. They are now on dinner break and will resume play shortly. Eirik Presttun, who at one point was in possession of 40% of the chips in play has been pegged back and there are […]
The Festival Series is designed for the players and it has to work for them. When players speak we listen and on this occasion there has been feedback that players would like some cheaper tournaments to play. The Festival Series Team has taken this player feedback on board and as a result we’ve added an […]
Estonian Andre Sorm won his way into the Franke’s Flip Flop Grand Final on Monday, winning two of the three flips that took place. He talks to Andreas “Wiseguy” Hoglund, giving expert advice on what it takes to become a flips pro.
This is the busiest day of the Festival schedule, with 10 events plus Franke’s Flip Flops and right now six of them are in play simultaneously. With so many events, the fields in each a little smaller than usual, as players spread themselves out, choosing the events that suit them best. There’s no guarantees on […]
The first starting day of THMC had 54 entries, yesterday’s day 1b had 120, but how many will there be today for the third and final flight? Play has just begun with 34 players seated at the start, including Rozvadov Main Event Champion Presiyan Tsvetanov from Bulgaria. So far 44 players have advanced into tomorrow’s […]
If you haven’t checked out our social channels you are missing out. Here’s yesterday’s highlights video. For more video content, check out The Festival’s YouTube Channel.
The €550 Mixed Games Main Event H.O.R.S.E.S. has its second and final day today, with play will resuming at 3pm. There are 22 players left and we will have a new champion this time, as previous champions Jon Kyte and Sascha Manns are not in this one. We’ll be keeping a close eye on proceedings […]
The first Pot Limit Omaha tournament of the festival series in Malta has also now started today and is taking place in the Poker room on the upper floor. The event has a €250 buying has been run on a 20-minute clock and will be completed before the end of the day. they have just […]
One of the highlights of the varied tournament schedule is a rare Heads Up tournament with a €250 buy-in. It’s capped at 32 players left and so far there are 30 entries, leaving just 2 places left for any late-comers to join the tournament. 1st round matches are already in progress, with just three completed […]
Good afternoon everybody, I hope you all slept well. The day is now underway with the first of five starting days for the Main Event. There are just nineteen players so far in this opening flight, but its early days and is sure to pick up as the day progresses. They will play 12 x […]
Welcome to Day 3 of the Festival in Malta live blog. Only one event has concluded at the series so far and congratulations go to Barrie Dear from the UK, who won the Sviten Special, emerging victorious in the early hours on Tuesday morning to claim the €4,950 first prize. Congratulations Barrie, your winners drawing […]
Just over a quarter of the 120 entrants on Day 1b of The Hendon Mob Championship made it through to the second day of the tournament. In total there are now 44 players who will be returning on Wednesday for Day 2, 31 from today and 13 from Day 1a. There is still one more […]
The H.O.R.S.E.S have returned to the stables now. Well, the eight who made it through to the end of Day 1b have gone back to their stables, while the other ten entrants who failed to progress are on their way to the glue factory. Only one player managed to build a three-figure stack in this […]
The second day of The Festival in Malta is drawing to a close. Both The Hendon Mob Championship and Mixed Games Main Event are in their penultimate levels of the day. The H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Game Main Event has eleven players still in from a field of 18 starters. Still left in the tournament is Eva […]
Both the bounties have now been won in The Hendon Mob Championship. The first to go was Hans Kleinsman, who exited in a fairly standard race with AT versus AQ. He was taken out by Emil Simonea, who wins a €250 seat into the next THMC event at The Festival in Bratislava. Andreas ‘Wiseguy’ Hoglund […]
There might not be a TV table here today, but we are doing a little experiment, set up by poker streamer and commentator Vaclav ‘Lemon’ Dusek. We are using the usual streaming set up that the live streamers here are using, which is simply a phone on a tripod, with Lemon providing commentary on the […]
Despite the confidence of some locals, the Sviten Special did not end up as a record breaker. By the time late registration closed at the end of level 10, the field had grown to 68, but short of the 79 that played last year. The prize pool has now been locked and there is €4,950 […]
The first heat of the Cash Game challenge is scheduled to begin at 8pm. It’s a €2/€2 No Limit Hold’em session and will last for two hours. Then at 10.30pm there will be a further session at 10.30pm, also a €2/€2 game, but this one is Pot Limit Omaha. The games will take place downstairs […]
The second starting day of the H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Games Main event is now in its second level of the day, with eleven players registered. One of these players is Franke, who is multi-tabling, also playing the Sviten Special, in which he now has a pretty big stack. In fact, Franke has yet to take his […]
The Hendon Mob Championship has added value in the shape of a package worth to attend and take part in The Hendon Mob Cape Town event. However there are also additional prizes today as two of the players in the tournament have had bounties placed on their heads. Whoever eliminated either of the bounty players […]
Franke’s Flip Flops is a very special event here at The Festival. I might be repeating myself here, but worth mentioning again, as what other poker tour presents a framed pair of their founder’s used flip flops as a trophy? The competition got underway on Sunday evening and Andre Sõrm, who won two of the […]
The Festival Series is known for its atmosphere. There aren’t many rules here and its not a DQ’ing situation, but players are encouraged to be social, share some laughs at the table, perhaps with a cup of tea or two to keep the energy flowing. In his welcome speeches, Franke encourages players to leave their […]
Whoever said that poker is unhealthy pastime? Today’s players are revving up their finely tuned engines for the second starting day of event #1, the €250 The Hendon Mob Championship; and will soon be starting the warm up laps before the race gets into full swing at 4pm. Yesterday’s first-of-three starting flights had 54 entries, […]
The first tournament of the day is event #4, the €250 Sviten Special, which has just begun at Portomaso Casino in St Julians, on the main island of the Maltese archipelago, slap bang in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, where the sun shines for over 300 days per year. It’s shining here again now, […]
Welcome to Day 2 of The Festival in Malta. After yesterday’s shared stage with the Vamos Poker Tour , the schedule is now fully focused on The Festival Series. For a recap of what happened on the first day of the series, check out this article in the News section. Here’s the plan for today: Start Time […]
With the Vamos Poker Tour now concluded, the schedule is now fully focused on The Festival Series. Today is a later start than the other days, with the first tournament of the day teeing off at 3pm. It’s a Festival Series favourite, a €250 Sviten Special and is expected to be a busy one. One […]
The opening day of The Festival in Malta was a unique one, with the opening events on the schedule running side-by-side with the final day of the Vamos Poker Tour. As expected it was quite slow start, as most of the 1,000 players who are expected to attend the festival have not yet arrived on […]
The Mixed Game Main Event ended at about the same time as the Hendon Mob Championship. There were 35 entries in total, with 14 players surviving the day with their riders still in their saddles. Franke fired 2 bullets, but unfortunately just missed making it into Day 2. Norwegian Eirik Presttun posted the biggest stack […]
Just thirteen players made it through to the second day of The Hendon Mob Championship with Smaling Kuner bagging the largest stack of the day on 270,000. Another player who made it through the day was Bulgarian Ivo Petkov, 5th in chips. He cashed in 31st place in the Rozvadov Main Event and also made […]
The first day of The Festival in Malta is now slowing down as the end of play draws closer. The Hendon Mob Championship satellite drew 51 entries, creating a prize pool of €1,530, generating six seats into the event. It’s now down to the last eight players. There would only have been five seats in […]
By the time late registration closed, The Hendon Mob Championship had reached 54 entrants, 24 of whom are still playing. They are currently on level 12 and will play until the end of level 14. Day 1b starts at 5pm on Monday. Spotted in today’s field is David K Lappin, the Unibet sponsored pro and […]
As today is the first day of the festival, it’s also the day for welcome drinks. A small gathering of around 35 people turned up for a glass of fizz or a cup of tea after. The drinks were organised by Alona Sergeevna, who is our hospitality host here this week. It’s her first time […]
The Mixed Games Main Event (H.O.R.S.E.S) is now in the 9th level of the day and the field has grown to 32 players. Late registration ends after level 10. There were just 13 players in the Day 1a in Rozvadov for this event, so it looks like we could be in for a bumper sized […]
The final event of the first day is now in play. It’s a €40 satellite to The Hendon Mob Championship. Late registration is open for the first eight levels, which are twenty minutes long each, which means there’s plenty of time for late entrants to join in. Day 1a of The Hendon Mob Championship is […]
The cash game challenge and Franke’s Flip Flops are two of the core events that always take place at The Festival Series. They are back on the schedule once again here in Malta of course, but there’s been a change to format of the events this time. It’s not a huge change, essentially both competitions […]
The weather in Malta is usually hot, it’s a hot country, the most southern in Europe, so no surprises there. There are some parts of north Africa that are further north than Malta, which has the longest summer season in Europe. I’ve been living in Malta for ten years and in the first year i […]
The Mixed Games Main Event H.O.R.S.E.S is now in running, with 18 runners and riders assembled across three tables. Franke has chips but his is currently AWOL from his table. In these circumstances its not uncommon to find him playing in another tournament at the same time, but this doesn’t appear to be the case […]
The players for today’s H.O.R.S.E.S Mixed Main Event are begging to assemble near the start line, with several of the usual suspects already installed in their starting boxes. These include Barrie Dear, Lachezar Tsenov and Franke. Scott Kenyon is also mulling around, but he has his eyes set on the €250 Open Face Chinese, which […]
Franke has delivered the first of his now famous speeches and cards are now in the air for Day 1a of the very first event of The Festival in Malta, The HendonMob Championship. The tournament has three starting flights one per day over the first three days of the festival. So far there are just […]
The story of the Festival has just beginning but already we are asking ourselves questions like: Read the article on the homepage entitled Faces in the Crowd for look back at some of the top performers at The Festival in Rozvadov. Will any of them feature prominently in The Festival in Malta’s evolving storyline? There […]
It’s time folks, the Festival in Malta begins today and we’re off to a flying start with both the €550 Mixed Games Main Event and the €250 The Hendon Mob Challenge holding their first starting flights. Here’s today’s schedule: Tour Start Time Event # Buy-In Tournament The Festival 14:00 1 €250 The Hendon Mob Championship […]
The last standing (technically sitting down) players in the €250 event have now bagged their chips and headed off for an early night to prepare for the final day tomorrow, when they will reach the business end of the poker equation. They will return at 1pm to resume the charge for the final table and […]
Visual evidence from the camera of Arved Kloehn that the Heads Up final between Jacob Dideriksen-Nielsen and Ori Elul continues. Only one of them will get their face turned into art by the talented Yevhen Karpenko – soon we will know which one.
With Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk in the Main Event, the beer count thoroughly increased. He just brought rounds for the entire table. Cheers! Meanwhile, von Zweigbergk just scooped a massive pot with a lucky AJ > AK all-in preflop and doubled his stack to over 60k.
While we just sent a bunch of our players on a city trip to the wine-tasting tournament, here’s an interview we shot yesterday during the player’s dinner for all hospitality package winners with Lisbeth and Sturla Hiller. The latter is in the Main Event right now. While he was down to 6k chips in the […]
Despite not having enough 8-Game dealers, we managed to get 85 players in this event. They’re playing for €8,883 with €2,690 for the first spot. The event will be resolved tonight and here are some impressions from the tables:
The Festival Series Merchandise Bundle Giveaway – Terms and Conditions Promoter The Promoter of this prize draw is Rock Intention Malta Limited (company number C 49286 ) whose registered address is 114 The Strand, 5th Floor, Gzira, GZR1027, Malta (“the Promoter”) Prize By entering this prize draw, you are in with a chance of winning […]
Today we shine the spotlight on Gun Täljö who is the winner of Mau’s qualifier to The Festival in Bratislava which will take place at Banco Casino. Gun has had poker as a hobby since she was a child and has gone from playing points poker at home to a seasoned poker player live and […]
We’re the biggest Twitch channel in northern Europe for poker Bengt “Bengan” Sonnert is on the move when I call him – there’s an odd crackle on the line, which for some reason sounds remarkably like chip-riffling. My soul is instantly soothed – it’s been well over a year now since I was in a […]
We all wanted to believe that The Festival in Tallinn was going to go ahead in June, but of course Covid had other ideas. On to Bratislava! The new dates for your diaries are September 20-26 when we will descend on one of Europe’s best casinos, in one of its most beautiful and vibrant cities. […]
“Bored with this shit! But what can we do?” Thus legendary tournament director Gerard Serra replies when I ask him how he’s been; pleasingly, he doesn’t seem to have changed a bit in the 14 months or so since I last saw him, and I’m very much looking forward to working with him again in […]
I’ve been trying to get hold of Twitch streamer Tommi Heimonen, better known online as Gargamies, for half an hour before I manage to get through. “We rented a villa – yeah, this is a very nice place, in Malaga, in Spain. We are so high here, so there was no signal,” he explains. In […]
We are delighted to welcome Slots.io to The Festival Series family as our newest partners! Tauri Tiitsaar spoke to us about what makes Slots.io unique, and why they’re a perfect fit for The Festival in Tallinn. “What are we offering?” says Tauri in response to my question, “Only awesome stuff! I mean, we’ve had ideas […]
All hail the King! Johan Karlsson, reigning champion of Kings of Tallinn, is speaking to me via the usual technologies from his home in Sweden. So how did it feel to take down the last big live event in the before times? “Of course it was a really great feeling,” Johan tells me. “I had […]
Olympic Park Casino has developed a reputation over the past few years as one of the best venues for live poker in Europe. Although the casino currently remains closed, I spoke to their poker marketing guy and all-round champion for Estonian poker Karev Tralla about his extensive background in poker, Tallinn as a major poker […]
As today’s Skype adventure I am speaking to one of Swedish poker’s finest, Peter La Terra, who is patiently waiting out the plague at home in Stockholm. How has his year been? “Same same – working as little as possible, playing poker. But the last year – not so much poker.” “I’ve been doing really […]
The Festival in Tallinn isn’t just about the poker, blackjack and roulette (although there’ll be 27 events across the week and cash games running 24 hours a day!). We picked Tallinn as our first stop for The Festival Series for a reason – it’s one of Europe’s most beautiful, vibrant and historic cities, not to […]
Just a week or so after announcing CasinoRoom’s partnership with The Festival Series, we are delighted to welcome on board its big sister brand, Highroller. We spoke to Mery Blomqvist, Group CMO of both sites’ parent company Ellmount Group, about what players can expect. As Blomqvist sums it up: “Highroller is a sister casino brand […]
Mauritz Altikardes, newly appointed social media star for The Festival Series, starts by reeling off his credentials. He’s racked up over a decade of experience at every level of the game, and is nothing short of evangelical about poker as a life skill. 10+ years experience with live events “I’ve been doing live events for […]
