Category Day 1C

Level 12: 3,000/6,000 (6,000)
Entries: 67/279

There were two spots potentially involving jacks for George Warnock. In the first hand, Warnock opened from the cutoff before Paul High three-bet to 46,000 from the small blind. Warnock ripped it in with a four-bet jam to 158,000 and High tanked for more than five minutes.

“I got in trouble with this hand before,” shared High.

“What was it?” asked Warnock.

“Jacks,” replied High before going back into the tank again.

Eventually, the clock was called and High folded.

Shortly after, Yves Thalmann jammed for 88,000 from under the gun before Warnock three-bet shoved for nearly triple this. The rest of the table folded.

“You aren’t going to believe this,” Warnock said to High.

Yves Thalmann: A♥Q♦
George Warnock: J♠J♥

While we will never know whether High really had jacks, we do know that Warnock certainly did. Warnock flopped a set on the 6♦9♦J♦ flop but Thalmann pulled out ahead with a flush on the 3♦ turn. The board didn’t pair on the 4♠ river for Warnock to double Thalmann.

“Unlucky,” Amanda Smith, who we mentioned is playing only her second poker tournament outside of a pub environment said to Warnock.

“Nice hand,” added Smith to Thalmann as the dealer was shuffling the cards for the next hand.

Meanwhile, Matas Budginas, Tayfun Rodoplu, Pontus Dargren, John Mooney, and Bjarke Matthiesen all recently hit the rail to leave just 67 players remaining.

Level 11: 3,000/5,000 (5,000)
Entries: 72/279

We just reported how Hung Tingyu left Kevin Rothlisberger with just a single chip. Rothlisberger stuck around for a short time and had more than a chip but both his stack and Tingyu’s recently built-up stack headed over to Pontus Magnusson.

Tingyu min-raised from early position before Rothlisberger called off his stack for less. Magnusson called from the blinds and led out on the A♥Q♠5♠ flop. Tingyu jammed over the top for many blinds more and Magnusson found a call with two pair with queen-five. Tingyu had the top pair and the top kicker with big slick and both him and Rothlisberger with air were eliminated by Magnusson with bricks coming the rest of the way.

Meanwhile, many other players also hit the rail since the dinner break including Gary Speers, Marco Siciliano, Nigel Harrison, Alexander Maskell, Matthew Micallef, Paul Zehetleitner, Popolo Proietto, Frederik Mortensen, Patrick Hoxha, and Craig Smith.

Pontus Magnusson – 375,000
Hung Tingyu – 0
Kevin Rothlisberger – 0

Level 11: 3,000/5,000 (5,000)
Entries: 78/279

Giuseppe Crisafulli opened for a min-raise from the hijack. Hung Tingyu called from the cutoff before Kevin Rothlisberger three-bet jammed for 76,000. Crisafulli folded before Tingyu snap-called.

Kevin Rothlistberger: Q♠Q♦
Hung Tingyu: A♣A♦

Rothlisberger had Tingyu covered by a single 1,000-denominated chip and this is all he had left to start a potential Cinderella story after the 2♦9♣9♥A♥K♥ ran out on the board.

Hung Tingyu – 185,000
Kevin Rothlistberger – 1,000

Level 11: 3,000/5,000 (5,000)
Entries: 88/279

The action has resumed since the dinner break on Day 1c of the Grand Event. Late registration has closed with 279 entries getting into the mix to catapult the prize pool up to a cool €360,000 for a 20 percent bump over the guarantee with still three opening flights to go.

The day will conclude when the action is down to 42 entries, representing 15 percent of the field. It is possible that this will be fewer if multiple players bust on the final hand as was the case last night during Day 1b.

Those finding a bag will advance to Sunday’s Day 2 with already a €900 min-cash locked up. Best of luck to all of the Day 1c players in reaching the money and beyond in the 2024 Malta Poker Festival Spring Edition €550 Grand Event.

Kelly Kellner won a massive pot during the final hand just before the dinner break to send Nikolaos Dafoulas, Paul Theeman, and Sebastian Mortensen all packing with us learning it involved kings vs. queens. vs. jacks with Ilze Holze also hitting the rail a few hands earlier.

After his run, Kellner had more chips than his two nearest competitors in the Day 1c field combined in Sven Meschede (371,000) and Wai Man Kwan (312,000).

Check out the full chip counts as of the dinner break of Day 1c.

Place	Player	Chips	Big Blinds
1	Kelly Kellner	750,000	150
2	Sven Meschede	371,000	74
3	Wai Man Kwan	312,000	62
4	Sebastian Pfeiffer	303,000	61
5	Antonio Merone	296,000	59
6	Stuart Oliver	296,000	59
7	Petteri Miettinen	288,000	58
8	Mark Vella	288,000	58
9	Oliver Mihajlovski	286,000	57
10	Thomas Jakobsen	275,000	55
11	Andrea Agnoletto	274,000	55
12	Salvatore Dimartino	266,000	53
13	Daniel Kuhlmann	263,000	53
14	Massimo Bruno	259,000	52
15	Ludovic Uzan	258,000	52
16	Jorgen Jessen	241,000	48
17	Marcin Jerzy Jaworski	233,000	47
18	Thomas Hofmann	231,000	46
19	Piotr Kuszczak	230,000	46
20	Alex O’Brien	224,000	45
21	Pontus Magnusson	212,000	42
22	Bjarke Matthiesen	211,000	42
23	Nico Lambrechts	207,000	41
24	Wilhelmine Connolly	201,000	40
25	Verneri Hakkinen	200,000	40
26	Theo Drach	199,000	40
27	Florian Guertler	198,000	40
28	Martynas Racinskas	197,000	39
29	Karl-Heinz Metz	188,000	38
30	Timothee Rey	187,000	37
31	Maciej Makoladra	186,000	37
32	Julien Da Silva	178,000	36
33	Domenico Gala	178,000	36
34	Jozsef Dobos	175,000	35
35	Clint Jeffery	168,000	34
36	Eddy Shaw	165,000	33
37	Jordi Ribatallada Ruiz	161,000	32
38	Jamie Scannell	161,000	32
39	Daniel Stacey	160,000	32
40	George Warnock	152,000	30
41	Mattias Andersson	150,000	30
42	Jakub Chmelensky	144,000	29
43	Colin Bidwell	141,000	28
44	Roy Trickett	140,000	28
45	David Lehnen	139,000	28
46	Stewart Kirby	137,000	27
47	Ashley Harrison	135,000	27
48	Frederik Mortensen	133,000	27
49	Giuseppe Crisafulli	132,000	26
50	Alex Montgomery	130,000	26
51	AlexanderMaskell	127,000	25
52	Liutauras Armanavicius	122,000	24
53	Miroslaw Borowicz	115,000	23
54	Yves Thalmann	114,000	23
55	Paul Hunt	105,000	21
56	Frank Hofener	104,000	21
57	Helene Etter	103,000	21
58	Tomasz Brzezinski	96,000	19
59	Colin Cooper	96,000	19
60	Amanda Smith	93,000	19
61	Nigel-Van Harrison	92,000	18
62	Dominik Frank	90,000	18
63	Matas Budginas	89,000	18
64	Kevin Rothlisberger	89,000	18
65	Paul High	88,000	18
66	Jason Eskridge	87,000	17
67	Boro Skalonja	87,000	17
68	Matthew Micallef	86,000	17
69	Helios Hung	86,000	17
70	John Mooney	83,000	17
71	Brenda Eskridge	76,000	15
72	Pontus Dargren	67,000	13
73	Craig Smith	66,000	13
74	Thomas Lowter	63,000	13
75	Jonathan Schuman	63,000	13
76	Timothy Jones	61,000	12
77	Ashley Scott	61,000	12
78	Nial Mullally	57,000	11
79	Marco Siciliano	56,000	11
80	Tayfun Rodoplu	55,000	11
81	Paul Zehetleitner	54,000	11
82	Vincenzo Popolo	50,000	10
83	Florin-Radu Postole	45,000	9
84	Gary Speers	37,000	7
85	Patrick Hoxha	30,000	6
86	Antonin Hays	28,000	6

Players are now on a 60-minute dinner break. Late registration will close after the break. We will update the full chip counts of the remaining field near the end of the break.

There is now nearly €360,000 in the prize pool with the help of 278 entries thus far on Day 1c.

Level 10: 2,000/4,000 (4,000)
Entries: 89/277

We went to check in again on our friend Daragh Davey as we didn’t have time to see how things were going for him during our last visit at the table. This time, we silently remained in the background while Kelly Kellner was telling some off-color jokes.

Daragh Davey fired out for 20,000 into a pot of around 75,000 with the 3♣J♥4♠Q♣2♠ on the board. Sebastian Mortensen tanked before he jammed over the top. Davey snap-called and turned over the A♠J♠. Mortensen tabled the 4♦4♠ to win the hand with a set and send Davey to the rail just before the dinner break.

Sebastian Mortensen – 300,000
Daragh Davey – 0

Level 9: 1,500/3,000 (3,000)
Entries: 100/273

Philip Pearson was faux crying yesterday when his friend Kevin Houghton delivered him a bad beat on a two-outer when his kings proved to be no good against tens. You can read about that hand and story here.

Things were looking different for Pearson today. He caught us on the rail checking in on the likes of Daragh Davey and Ilze Zolte while Sebastian Mortensen was busy collecting a pot.

Pearson shared and others at the table confirmed that he was down to 2,000 in chips and somehow got it in bad three straight times and eventually got his stack up to 105,000. However, things went downhill fast from there.

We learned that Pearson got it in with jacks against Mortensen’s sixes and ‘surprise, surprise’ a six came on the board to shatter Pearson’s Day 1c dreams.

We got another faux-cry from Pearson while he continued to rail a few of his friends in the Grand Event.

Sebastian Mortensen – 175,500
Philip Pearson – 0

Level 9: 1,500/3,000 (3,000)
Entries: 116/276

Julian Micallef three-bet jammed for less than 10 big blinds from late position and was called by Sven Meschede who opened from early position.

Julian Micallef: K♠J♥
Sven Meschede: A♦K♠

Big slick held on the 7♥3♥Q♥8♦A♣ runout for Meschede to help himself to Micallef’s stack.

Sven Meschede – 180,000
Julian Micallef – 0