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The Battle of Malta 2014 Main Event has come to an end, in an extraordinary way which fits the overall tournament series hosted by Pokerlistings. The structure of the tournament received plenty of compliments along the way and it was also easy to see that they had created something unique for the players, as the winner was found by a chipcount and not by a bust.
If you don’t understand what we’re talking about, we don’t blame you, as we can’t remember having ever seen a tournament with such a structure that this happened. Basically Antoan Katsarov and Alan James Brincat played heads-up for so long, that the Portomaso Casino had to eventually stop the tournament, as they have to close the casino at 05.00 in the morning and the tournament was not scheduled to continue today after a player agreement.
This meant that we didn’t really find a winner of the tournament, as both players still had chips, but instead the winner was awarded based on the chip count at 05.00 CET this morning. So the clock decided who became the new Battle of Malta champion, which ended up being Katsarov as he had the chiplead at the time.
To make things fair, the two players split the two prizepools based on chip counts, so that Katsarov didn’t get the €140,000 for having the most chips, but instead received €122,750 for his “time out” tournament win. Brincat got €107,250 for his efforts in the tournament, which was around €18,000 more than he would have gotten for finishing second, which nobody of course knows if he would.
Antoan Katsarov – The winner of Battle of Malta
The final day started with 35 hopeful and skilled players, who were set to be the ones who would win the tournament. When the tournament was down to 12 players at around 20.00 CET, the tournament director gave the remaining players two different scenarios to continue playing the tournament, one including that they played down to the final table and returned the day after and the second being that they would play until 05.00 in the morning and that would be the end of it. As you probably guessed, the players chose the latter.
The final table was quite a good representation of the many nationalities who participated in the Battle of Malta, as the ten players came from eight different countries. Three of the players came from Sweden, while the other countries who were represented was Ireland, Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, Malta, Netherlands and France.
The players of the final table
In the end it was Katsarov who took home the title in front of the other players, with the Bulgarian being dominant on the final table. If you are interested in reading about how the final table went hand-by-hand, then you can read all about in Pokerlistings Live Reporting, where their reporters followed the action and made it easy for you to read about it.
Final table payouts:
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
*Denotes a 2-way deal
You can also watch some video from the Battle of Malta, as Pokerlistings and their Media Team, lead on by celebrity Maria Ho, filmed from all days of the event. They also interviewed many players, including the winner Antoan Katsarov, giving you a unique insight to how he felt the tournament was put together and how happy he was with his win.
Tomorrow you can read about how Pokerlistings managed to create the biggest standalone live poker tournament in just three years, which is beyond crazy to have done so.
