Monday 28 June was the first day of The Festival Tallinn and what an incredible day it was, with the Olympic Park Casino awash with poker players from all over Europe.
The Festival Tallinn kicked off with 77 players buying into the Sviten Special event, a super-fun poker variant that is a mixture of Five Card Draw and Pot Limit Omaha; it really is as crazy as it sounds! That event played down to its final table, with that final table commencing at 7:00 p.m. local time and awarding its champion €16,600.
Netherlands' Koen Ross won the first tournament on the busy schedule of The Festival Tallinn. The Dutchman came out on top of an 83-string field in the €60 knockout event, and he padded his bankroll with a shade over €2,000, a great return on such a small investment.
Also looking to turn something small into a much more meaningful payout were the 142 players who bought into the first live satellite for the upcoming The Festival Tallinn Main Event. Of those 142 entrants, six walked away with €550 Main Event tickets for their initial €35 investment. Those satellite winners will now be fighting it out for a share of a guaranteed €500,000 in the Main Event.
It was not only tournaments that shuffled up and dealt on Day 1 of the festival because the Cash Game Festival Challenge saw dozens of players take to the cash game table and battle it out on The Festival Tallinn's Twitch channel; you can also tune into the live streams right here a PokerNews. Martins Skeiba (pictured) was one of the big cash game winners on Day 1. The Festival Tallinn plans to stream plenty of action throughout the series, as you can see in the table below.
The Festival Tallinn Streaming Schedule
Date
Time (EEST)
Event
Tue 28 Jun
5:00 p.m.
PLO Masters
Wed 29 Jun
7:00 p.m.
Acroud Charity Tournaments
11:30 p.m.
Cash Game Festival Challenge €2/€2 PLO
Thu 30 Jun
5:00 p.m.
Half 'n Half (NLHE and PLO)
Fri 1 Jul
8:00 p.m.
Cash Game Festival Challenge €2/€5 NLHE
10:30 p.m.
Cash Game Festival Challenge €2/€2 PLO
Sat 2 Jul
12:00 p.m.
Main Event Day 3
1:00 p.m.
Pokerlistings Deepstack Day 2
Sun 3 Jul
12:00 p.m.
Main Event Final Table
1:00 p.m.
Pokerlistings Deepstack Final Table
Check Out The Action-Packed The Festival Tallinn Schedule
The eagerly anticipated Main Event kicks off on June 28 and PokerNews will have a full recap of the action each day up to and including when a champion is crowned!
Matthew Pitt hails from Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, and has worked in the poker industry since 2008, and worked for PokerNews since 2010. In September 2010, he became the editor of PokerNews. Matthew stepped away from live reporting duties in 2015, and now concentrates on his role of Senior Editor for the PokerNews.