A total of 859 entries crammed into the Portomaso Casino for Day 1c of the 2015 Battle of Malta on Friday and helped create the biggest tournament in the history of poker on Malta.
Once you include the 305 entries from Day 1a and 640 from Day 1b you have a total of 1,804 entries for this year’s Battle of Malta, which is the biggest tournament ever held on the Island.
The exact prize pool will be announced tomorrow but it will easily crush the €500,000 guarantee and surpass even the €701,795 prize pool that was generated last year.
Sergio Di Ruberto looks to have grabbed the overnight chip lead for Day 1c with 275,300 chips with approximately 582 making it through to Day 2.
Here are the top 10 chip counts at the end of play after Day 1c:
1. Sergio Di Ruberto - 275,300 2. Paolo Guscano - 274,300 3. Giuseppe Spitale - 264,700 4. Salvatore Agliozzo - 233,500 5. Yehada Bardugo - 222,700 6. Salvatore Patti - 214,700 7. Werner von Moltke - 214,400 8. Elmakayd Orin - 210,000 9. David Bravin - 207,000 10. Erez Benor - 206,800Fatima de Melo, Tone Damli Touch Down in Malta
Noted poker pros Maria Ho, Sofia Lovgren, Humberto Brenes, Luca Moschitta, William Hung and Thor Hansen all fired a second bullet on Day 1c but walked away empty handed.
Meanwhile there were a few completely new faces with Fatima Moreira de Melo and former tennis pro Raemon Sluiter making their BOM debuts.
Moreira de Melo and Sluiter finished with 27,000 and 100,200 chips respectively
Norwegian singer Tone Damli also made her first appearance at the Battle of Malta and appeared to be a lock to make Day 2. Unfortunately she busted on the last hand of play and will have to wait until next year to take another shot.
The surviving players from all three starting days (a total of about 580 players) will return to the Portomaso Casino tomorrow at 1 p.m. local time and play under the same roof for the same time.
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