Facing a hard 5 am stop imposed by the Portomaso Casino our two heads-up combatants - Bulgaria's Antoan Katsarov and Malta's Alan James Brincat - played to a virtual stalemate.
The clock was forced to decide the champion according to the chip counts when no more hands could be played.
The chip leader at the time of the stop? Katsarov, who collected €122,750 and the highly sought after Battle of Malta Main Event trophy.
Runner-up Brincat kept €107,250 of the massive €701,795 prize pool, generated by a record 1,447 entries, right here at home on the island.
Play On!
With 35 players returning to start the final day we anticipated a long one and that's exactly what we got.
At about 8 pm with about 12 players left, Tournament Director Elio presented the remaining players with a couple of options.
Stop the tournament when the final nine was reached and come back to play tomorrow, or play on to the 5 am stop and the forced deal.
The players unanimously decided to play on, and that's how we proceeded.
Eight Countries Including Malta at Final Table
The Battle of Malta has truly become a bonafide draw for the entire continent and players from dozens of nations across Europe were in attendance this year.
Eight of them were represented at the 10-man final table with Sweden having the most at three players.
The Netherlands, Bulgaria, France, Ireland, Poland and Italy all had players in the mix while Brincat represented his home country of Malta.
The complete list of players and results at the 2014 Battle of Malta Main Event final table:
1 Antoan Katsarov, Bulgaria €122,750*
2 Alan James Brincat, Malta €107,250*
3 Pär Ebenhardt, Sweden €53,000
4 Oskar Szwed, Poland €42,500
5 Hugo Lemaire, France €32,000
6 Declan Connolly, Ireland €23,000
7 Pontus Dargren, Sweden €16,095
8 Johan Krans, Sweden €12,100
9 Wouter Beumers, Netherlands €9,100
* Indicates a two-way deal
All told the final 10 players split up €431,935 between them - a record-breaking number for the Battle of Malta.
Watch Battle of Malta Recap Video with Maria Ho
Four More Battle of Malta Champions
While the Main Event was the maruqee event on the schedule there were four more side events that drew in players from around the world.
Over 593 players battled it out over two days in the Siege of Malta Second Chance Event before Russian Alexey Kovalev turned his €220 buy-in into a tidy €24,000 and the title.
Finland’s Aarvo Kiveliö won the €165 PLO Knight Crusade for €4,300 (after a deal). Tomasz Olszewski and Francesco Ruffo each took home €16,300 after chopping up the €330 BOM NLH Deepstack Turbo.
Nicodemo Piccolo, who won the first-ever Battle of Malta main event title back in 2012, made the Deepstack Turbo final table.
Arsen Sakanjans captured the Grand Master High Roller yesterday.
Check our Battle of Malta Live Coverage page for the complete rundown of all the action.
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