Battle of Malta

History of the Battle of Malta

The Battle of Malta is an annual tournament, which is hosted by Pokerlistings. The tournament was started back in 2012 and has been running annually since then, with the popularity having grown tremendously since the beginning.

Pokerlistings initially wanted to create a tournament for their players as well as the local Maltese community, being based out of Malta. After the first year, they saw that they had a unique opportunity to create something exclusive and they decided to make the tournament a global brand and take it to the next level.

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The attendance continued to rise and pro’s and celebrities from all over the world travelled to Malta to play the tournament. The tournament is now followed by several sites who does live reporting and media coverage, along with Pokerlistings themselves doing a good job of creating video’s and live reporting blogs.

The tournament started out with €100,000 guaranteed in the prize pool for a €550 buy-in, but by 2014 the tournament guaranteed €500,000 and completely shattered the guarantee with a massive €700,000 in prizes. Alongside the Battle of Malta main event, the tournament series now also host several side events as well as a high roller tournament, bringing something for all types of players.


Battle of Malta Location

The Battle of Malta is being hosted in the Portomaso Casino in Malta, which is quite naturally given the name of the tournament, as well as Pokerlistings having their company there. They chose to go with the Portomaso Casino due to them being able to host the most players and having the most experience in larger poker tournaments, having hosted several other major tournaments in the past such as a WPT and EPT in March of 2015.

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Malta has three casinos who could possibly host the tournament, but as Pokerlistings wanted the most exclusive surroundings, they chose to go with the Portomaso Casino. Portomaso Casino is located in the beautiful Portomaso Marina, in one of the most exclusive residential area’s in Malta, as well as next to the five star Hilton Hotel.

When you combine that with a casino that has had a make-over done just a few years back and has a grand poker hall where there’s room for more than 1,000 players, it is easy to see why they were chosen by Pokerlistings to host the Battle of Malta tournaments the previous years and in the future.


Battle of Malta Attendance

The Battle of Malta started back in 2012, where it managed to attract 349 players in total, which was quite a decent amount for a tournament created by a poker affiliate. While the turn-out was decent, it was nowhere near what Pokerlistings had in mind and they decided that the year after, they would go overboard with promotions, satellites and much more to create an even bigger tournament.

The Battle of Malta 2013 tournament had a wide range of professional poker players playing in the tournament, including Daniel “Jungleman” Cates, as well as celebrities coming to attend the tournament. The guaranteed prize pool got a nod up and was now €250,000, as Pokerlistings saw a decent amount of pre-registrations, satellite qualifiers and much more.

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In the end the tournament had a massive 888 players playing, which was amongst the biggest tournaments ever held in Malta at that time. The players had a blast playing, with a good structure, good tournament staff and more importantly, great parties.

All of the media attention the tournament got, along with all the happy players and operators, Battle of Malta aimed for a new goal in 2014, where they wanted to set the record for the biggest tournament ever held in Malta, biggest prize pool and many more goals.

Just like in the previous years, Pokerlistings invited some of the best players in the world along with celebrities to come play, they hosted several live and online satellites, made packages on discount and much more, to attract players from all over the world to come play the tournament.

In the end it was worth the effort, as the tournament shattered all previous records, having the biggest attendance in a tournament in Malta ever, with 1,447 players paying the €550 buy-in playing, creating the biggest prize pool ever in Malta with a massive €701,795 in the prize pool. Furthermore the tournament had the biggest first prize ever in Malta with €140,000 for first and also became the biggest “stand-alone” tournament in Europe. Not bad for a tournament held in a small nation in the middle of the Mediterranean sea.


Winners of the Battle of Malta

The Battle of Malta has so far only been held three times, one time a year usually around October and November. The tournament is a main event in a poker festival hosted by Pokerlistings, but we will only show the winners of the main event.

Below you can see who the previous winners were, year and prize that they won:

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Year Winner Prize
2012 Nicodemo Piccolo €35,000
2013 Louis Cartarius €68,000
2014 Antoan Katsarov €140,000

*Winners will be updated annually when a new tournament has been played.