Category Day 2

Level 21: 10,000/20,000 (20,000)
Entries: 108/1,460

Philipp Drayer jammed on the 8♣A♣A♠9♣6♠ board. James Clarke found a call only to find himself without chips with kicker problems.

Drayer tabled the A♦J♣ and took claim to Clarke’s stack after pipping his kicker with the same trips with his opponent tabling the A♥10♦.

Philipp Drayer – 1.5 million
James Clarke – 0

The start-of-the-day chip leader Richard Koppel from Estonia still led the way over the 113 players still battling at the dinner break. Check out the full chip counts from the field at the break below:

Place	Player	Chips	Big Blinds
1	Richard Koppel	3,225,000	161
2	Fabian Biel	2,295,000	115
3	Matte Karjalainen	1,870,000	94
4	Ronny Albrigtsen	1,410,000	71
5	John Forsman	1,355,000	68
6	Damjan Pulejkov	1,355,000	68
7	Philipp Drayer	1,330,000	67
8	Lennart Bernett	1,260,000	63
9	Ashley Harrison	1,205,000	60
10	Antonio Merone	1,185,000	59
11	Indre Stanaityte	1,165,000	58
12	Kevin Rothlisberger	1,125,000	56
13	Jiany Lu	1,080,000	54
14	Sebastian Mortensen	1,080,000	54
15	Kelly Kellner	1,065,000	53
16	Thomas Lange	1,065,000	53
17	Robert Hanoch	1,020,000	51
18	Francesco Canzonieri	965,000	48
19	Marcello Favaloro	930,000	47
20	Rimko Meijer	925,000	46
21	Jamie Scannell	880,000	44
22	Thomas Ebrecht	875,000	44
23	Matthew Church	870,000	44
24	Oliver Said	870,000	44
25	Patrick Von Rohr	865,000	43
26	Nidal Dawoud	860,000	43
27	Martin Ehrler	858,000	43
28	Elvijs Kuceruks	850,000	43
29	Petteri Miettinen	845,000	42
30	Jorgen Jessen	805,000	40
31	Roar Flotre	800,000	40
32	Vilde Ekren	795,000	40
33	Longmao Fan	780,000	39
34	Roy Trickett	775,000	39
35	Matthew Vicarage	695,000	35
36	Angelo Vietti	695,000	35
37	Grant Campbell	685,000	34
38	Gianpiero Barrile	677,000	34
39	Jake Allen	665,000	33
40	Eros Nastasi	655,000	33
41	Vikram Digpal	645,000	32
42	Aidan Quinlan	630,000	32
43	Colin Bidwell	625,000	31
44	Ian Tabone	615,000	31
45	Emanuele Napolitano	614,000	31
46	Rosario Saddemi	610,000	31
47	Jordan Dumas	600,000	30
48	Oliver Mihajlovski	590,000	30
49	Andrea Kapp	585,000	29
50	Matthew Cartwright	570,000	29
51	Nial Mullally	565,000	28
52	Mateusz Piwowarczyk	555,000	28
53	Alex Montgomery	545,000	27
54	Jonathan Schuman	545,000	27
55	Anca Eggenberger	535,000	27
56	Terence Newton	520,000	26
57	Ashley Scott	510,000	26
58	Colin Cooper	507,000	25
59	Piotr Kuszczak	495,000	25
60	Marcus Larsson	480,000	24
61	Krystian Nalepka	480,000	24
62	Jake Caldwell	460,000	23
63	Aleksi Heikkinen	445,000	22
64	Kathleen Padovani	445,000	22
65	Marcos Padron	445,000	22
66	Jari Hurri	440,000	22
67	Marco Meisser	440,000	22
68	Massimo Bruno	435,000	22
69	Mark Attard	430,000	22
70	Jozsef Dobos	430,000	22
71	Wilhelmine Connolly	400,000	20
72	Garry Spinks	400,000	20
73	Stefan Trevelyan	400,000	20
74	Kai Vater	390,000	20
75	James Clarke	385,000	19
76	Bernardo Boria	375,000	19
77	Thomas Cazaletz	375,000	19
78	Boro Skalonja	375,000	19
79	Mark Vella	375,000	19
80	Florian Guertler	355,000	18
81	Kevin Quinlan	355,000	18
82	Boban Stevanovic	350,000	18
83	Simon Taylor	350,000	18
84	Maxime Delhommeau	345,000	17
85	Thomas Jakobsen	345,000	17
86	James Ablott	325,000	16
87	Sven Meschede	320,000	16
88	YannickRohrbach	315,000	16
89	Joel Haapio	310,000	16
90	Thomas Hofmann	300,000	15
91	Daniel Stacey	295,000	15
92	Baris Topuz	285,000	14
93	Koen Volckaert	285,000	14
94	Dario Filippelli	280,000	14
95	Philip Hoerwarter	280,000	14
96	Evy Albrigtsen	275,000	14
97	Nicole Todtmann	265,000	13
98	Patrick Kochanski	265,000	13
99	Stavros Andreadis	260,000	13
100	Guy Cox	255,000	13
101	Sven Lorenz	255,000	13
102	Niel Adams	250,000	13
103	Dario Marinelli	250,000	13
104	Daniel Kuhlmann	225,000	11
105	Stuart Oliver	215,000	11
106	Bartilomiej Grabowski	205,000	10
107	Jorge Rebolleda	185,000	9
108	Wai Man Kwan	175,000	9
109	Andrea Dominici	162,000	8
110	Ivan Furniet Martinez	155,000	8
111	Fabio Berti	150,000	8
112	Ludovic Uzan	149,000	7
113	Alex O’Brien	120,000	6

Dara O’Kearney was busy signing books with his friend Alex O’Brien for a couple of hours before the start of Day 2 of the Grand Event. Alex O’Brien had under 10 big blinds to start the day but is still in the field with 113 players remaining. However, the same can’t be said about O’Kearney, who we caught up with quickly as we were leaving for the dinner break.

“It was frustrating,” O’Kearney shared about his elimination. “I was up to 1 million at one point.

The GPI Award-Winning Chip Race podcast co-host alongside David Lappin and Unibet Ambassador shared the hand and we can fully understand his frustration.

O’Kearney shared he opened from middle position with eights and was called by both players in the blinds.

“It was a queen-eight-four flop,” O’Kearney said. “At this point I knew I was good as queens would have three-bet.”

O’Kearney continued for 30,000 after the players in the blinds checked and the player in the small blind called.

“A ten came on the turn bringing two clubs to the board and the small blind checked before I bet 80,000,” O’Kearney said. “The small blind then shoved and felt I was ahead as maybe he had jack-nine suited or potentially tens but he also had all the two pairs, potentially a set of fours, or something else I was ahead of.

O’Kearney eventually called to create a 2 million chip pot and his opponent had him beat with jack-nine offsuit. The board didn’t pair on the river to save O’Kearney and he was eliminated in 124th place.

The night isn’t over for the Irish poker legend as he will take a short break before entering the two-day €1,100 High Roller. Best of luck to O’Kearney in his quest for a Malta Poker Festival trophy.

Players are on a 60-minute dinner break. We will update all the chip counts from the field near the tail end of the break.

Place	Player	Prize
128	Enes Hasic	€1,130
129	Jordi Ribatallada Ruiz	€1,130
130	Roberto Zuffo	€1,130
131	Johann Telser	€1,130
132	Steven Penney	€1,130
133	Danny Smith	€1,130
134	Marco Patane	€1,130
135	Michele Adamo	€1,130
136	Junyu Liu	€1,130
137	Jonty Willis	€1,130
138	Tomasz Brzezinski	€1,130
139	Julija Drevina	€1,130
140	Matas Budingas	€1,130
141	Paul High	€1,130
142	Daniel Maunders	€1,130
143	Richard Kellett	€1,130

The two-day €1,100 High Roller just kicked off with a tidy field of 23 entries. This will grow as not only is late registration open throughout the 10 blind levels today but it will also be open during the first two blind levels of tomorrow’s Day 2.

Daragh Davey, Cory Desmond, Ondrej Drozd, Torsten Klingels, 2023 MPF Autumn Edition Grand Event champion Arthur Navellou, and Philip Pearson are among the players in action from the start of the day.

Level 20: 8,000/16,000 (16,000)
Entries: 130/1,460

The Norwegian poker couple Ronny and Evy Albrigtsen are both still in action. Ronny is still a chip millionaire while Evy was low on chips.

“Everyone fold,” Evy said with about a starting stack behind from the big blind as the cards were being dealt.

Everyone listened except Ivan Furniet Martinez who jammed the button. Dario Filippelli was nowhere to be found in his seat and for Albrigtsen looked down at her cards before she called.

Evy Albrigtsen: Q♦10♦
Ivan Furniet Martinez: 7♥6♣

Albrigtsen’s queen-ten held on the K♥3♠8♠4♠4♣ runout to double her stack.

“Hanging by a thread,” Albrigtsen said with a smile.

Ivan Furniet Martinez – 400,000
Evy Albrightsen – 150,000

Place	Player	Prize
144	Johannes Grootelaar	€1,060
145	Julien Da Silva	€1,060
146	Kenneth Bailey	€1,060
147	Torsten Klingels	€1,060
148	Colin Paddington	€1,060
149	Fabian Maser	€1,060
150	Jan Scheldorf	€1,060
151	Sebastian Pheiffer	€1,060
152	Matthew Gray	€1,060
153	Liutauras Armanavicius	€1,060
154	Ondrej Drozd	€1,060
155	Benedetto Caruso	€1,060
156	Szymon Bujok	€1,060
157	Marko Majic	€1,060
158	Simon Lauchenauer	€1,060
159	Danish Gandhi	€1,060
160	Antoine Talvard	€1,060
161	Jasmin Scheiffe	€1,060

The €200 Ladies First! hosted by Kerryjane Craigie was a huge success with 84 runners creating a €14,515 prize pool. The top five players made a deal including Vanessa Webley, who had back-to-back fifth places finishes in the Ladies First!

Vilde Ekren won the title and the largest prize of €2,866 after defeating Irina Barauske heads-up. Meanwhile, Teresa Newton and Chiara Knowle also made out well thanks to the deal with Anne Bezdek, Anca Eggenberger, Kelly Saxby, and Tanya Masters all advancing to the final table and Lydia Cugudda and Julija Drevina both min-cashing.

Place	Players	Prize
1	Vilde Ekren	€2,866
2	Irina Barauske	€2,415
3	Teresa Newton	€2,099
4	Chiara Knowle	€2,074
5	Vanessa Webley	€1,966
6	Anne Bezdek	€740
7	Anca Eggenberger	€620
8	Kelly Saxby	€510
9	Tanya Masters	€424
10	Lydia Cugudda	€400
11	Julija Drevina	€400