button in SafariLuca Topazio Wins First-Ever WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event
For the first time, World Series of Poker Circuit rings were up for grabs at Casino Malta, with players from across Europe heading to the festival organized by Texapoker for their chance to add some WSOP hardware to their collection.
After three days of play, the most coveted ring of the series, awarded in the €1,500 WSOP Circuit Main Event, now belongs to Luca Topazio.
Topazio topped a field of 879 entries, which generated a €1,115,451 prize pool, using his aggressive style to claim the €200,000 first-place prize along with a €5,000 package for the next WSOP Paradise.
His toughest battle at the final table came against Radoslaw Kopec, who was forced to settle for runner-up once again after also finishing second in the WSOP Circuit Middelkerke Main Event last year.
WSOPC Malta Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Luca Topazio | Italy | €200,000 |
| 2 | Radoslaw Kopec | Poland | €125,000 |
| 3 | Lucas van den Belt | Netherlands | €85,000 |
| 4 | Matteo Ricco | Italy | €60,000 |
| 5 | Aleksandar Georgiev | Bulgaria | €43,000 |
| 6 | Alberto Cigliano | Italy | €31,000 |
| 7 | Vitali Bibik | Poland | €23,000 |
| 8 | Christoffer Jensen | Denmark | €17,300 |
| 9 | Nicola Bordignon | Italy | €14,191 |
Winner's reaction
Sixteen years ago, Topazio started his poker career with a €190,000 cash thanks to his victory in an Italian Poker Tour Main Event. This result remained his biggest score until today.
"I am very happy, I played a very good poker," translated a tournament director from Topazio's Italian. But even though the two results look quite similar in terms of prize money, the experience he gained in the years between them helped him go even further this time.
"I am more mature now. I adapted my game to get this result," he added.
His game, judging from what he showed at the table, looked loose, but he was not afraid to attack at all.
"My strategy as the chip leader was to make everyone short and to kill everyone."
This approach brought him the title, as well as other strong results such as an 11th-place finish in the last EPT Barcelona Mystery Bounty.
Based on this success, Topazio now plans to play the Battle of Malta here at Casino Malta at the end of the month, followed by EPT Prague in December. And, of course, he will head to The Bahamas for WSOP Paradise with his newly won package.
Final Table Action
With no player under 20 big blinds at the beginning of the final table, all nine finalists knew they had to be patient, but it didn't take long to see Christoffer Jensen being the first one to go all-in and double with queens through Aleksandar Georgiev's ace-king. A few hands later, Nicola Bordignon wasn't as lucky with fives and became the first player to be eliminated.
Now down to eight players, the live stream started, but Jensen eventually played another coin flip to survive. He didn't make it this time against Lucas van den Belt and took €17,300 for his eighth-place finish.
At the same time, Vitali Bibik managed to double up, and so did Georgiev thanks to a lucky runner-runner flush. They both remained the two shortest stacks, however, by the next break, after which Bibik was at risk again with queen-ten. Matteo Ricco had ace-seven and held to send the Polish player to the rail (7th - €23,000), then doubled up through Kopec.
Alberto Cigliano was hoping to double as well with king-queen, but ran into Van den Belt's aces to finish in sixth place (€31,000). Georgiev (5th - €43,000) suffered the same fate ten minutes later against eventual winner Topazio.
On top of the counts, Kopec was one card away from elimination but hit an ace on the river to double up and take the chip lead back. The same went for Topazio with ace-queen over ace-jack before Van den Belt bluffed him to make him fold aces and level up the stacks of the four remaining players.
Kopec eventually regained the lead by eliminating Ricco (4th - €60,000), and extended it even after he doubled Van den Belt. This didn't last long, however, as Topazio made a good hero call and then hit a full house. He also took Van den Belt's stack (3rd - €85,000) to start heads-up play with a 5:1 chip lead.
With such a big advantage, Topazio needed just two hands to end the tournament, hitting a full house to be crowned the first-ever WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event champion.
