Debutants Lead as €10,300 PLO Grand Slam Malta Championship Enters Day 2
The €10,300 Championship at the PLO Grand Slam Malta recorded 146 entries across its two starting flights. Today, at 3 p.m. local time, the 43 survivors will converge in Casino Malta for Day 2 of the three-day event. However, with two more levels of late registration and a possible overlay as the €2,000,000 guaranteed prize pool has not been met yet, the numbers are expected to grow significantly.
Coming into Day 2 with the chip lead is the legendary Ole Schemion. Schemion has been among the top in both live and online poker for over a decade, and has amassed over $20M in live tournament earnings since his first recorded cash in 2011, as per The Hendon Mob. However, this is the first time the high-stakes regular is attending a Diamond Poker Series event, looking to use his stack of 1,829,000, or 229 big blinds, to make a deep run in the PLO Grand Slam Championship.
Right behind Schemion is Bharath Janardhan. The only Indian representative in the field is also a newcomer to the Diamond Poker Series, but destroyed the competition on Day 1b to bag a massive stack of 1,768,000. In contrast to Schemion, Janardhan appears only sparingly to play poker tournaments, recording but a handful of cashes since 2015. Schemion and Janardhan are joined in the top ten by the likes of Andras "probirs" Nemeth, Stanislav Zegal, and Espen Myrmo.
Start of Day 2 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ole Schemion | Germany | 1,829,000 | 229 |
| 2 | Bharath Janardhan | India | 1,768,000 | 221 |
| 3 | Harry Casagrande | Austria | 1,383,000 | 173 |
| 4 | Andras Nemeth | Hungary | 1,350,000 | 169 |
| 5 | Sonic | 1,316,000 | 165 | |
| 6 | Gypsy Baron | 1,275,000 | 159 | |
| 7 | Aku Joentausta | Finland | 1,148,000 | 144 |
| 8 | Stanislav Zegal | Germany | 1,117,000 | 140 |
| 9 | Espen Myrmo | Norway | 1,015,000 | 127 |
| 10 | Stian Usterud | Norway | 924,000 | 116 |
Other big stacks are in the hands of Gergo Nagy (919.000), Anton Suarez (810,000), and Dario Alioto (722,000). Tom-Aksel Bedell is the only previous PLO Grand Slam Championship winner who survived his starting day, having taken the crown in Tirana in 2025, but with 326,000 in chips, he has less than half an average stack at the start of Day 2.
The tournament will resume with blinds of 4,000/8,000 with an 8,000 big blind ante. The length of the levels will increase to 60 minutes on Day 2, with a break scheduled after every two levels. A 60-minute dinner break is scheduled for after Level 16, approximately 9:40 p.m. local time. Day 2 will play a maximum of nine levels, after which the remaining players will bag up for the final day. Two hours of late registration remain, during which unlimited reentries are allowed.
An exciting day is ahead, as the prize pool will be confirmed and the bubble is expected to burst. PokerNews will be live reporting the €10,300 Championship from start to finish, so stay tuned as the PLO action will get back underway shortly.