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€5,300 Main Event
Day 1a Completed
2015 PokerStars.com EPT Season 12 Malta
€5,300 Main Event
Day: 1a
Event Info
2015 PokerStars.com EPT Season 12 Malta
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
Buy-in
€5,000
Prize Pool
€3,157,350
Total Entries
651
Level
30
Blinds
50,000 / 100,000
Ante
10,000
Players Left 1 / 651
Filter
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
It was a big day of action for the European Poker Tour Malta as the €25K High Roller played down to a champion – which you can read about by clicking here – and the €5,300 Main Event kicked off inside the Portomaso Casino.
The first of two starting flights attracted 184 runners, and while that number may not have been overly impressive, the quality of the field was as some of the biggest names in the game took their shot on Day 1a. That's due in no small part to the single-day €10K High Roller scheduled to run at the same time as Day 1b.
After eight 75-minute levels of play, 108 players remained with Italy's Carmelo Crucitti and his stack of 163,000 leading the way. Others who bagged big stacks were Mikko Turtiainen (136,400), Noah Vaillancourt (125,800), and Ferdinand Le Pichon (117,500).
As for Vaillancourt, he had the distinction of busting accomplished pro Connor Drinan. It happened in Level 6 (200/400/50) when Drinan raised to 1,000 from the hijack and Vaillancourt just flat-called.
On the 
flop, Drinan continued for 1,600 and was called before the 
on the turn saw another barrel worth 4,100. Again Vaillancourt just called and an 
completed the board on the river. Drinan fired 8,400 and then called off his stack only to muck once Vaillancourt turned over pocket queens for a set.
Long before that, in the first level in fact, is when the first elimination occurred. It happened after a player opened for 300 and Michael Wang called from the button. The player in the small blind came along, and then Alessandro Barone three-bet to 1,300 from the big blind.
The original raiser folded, Wang called with the 
, and the small blind got out of the way to make it heads-up action to the 
flop. Barone led out for 3,000, Wang raised to 7,800, and Barone shipped all in with what turned out to be aces. Wang made the call and held as both the turn and river bricked.
With that, Barone became the first elimination of the tournament, while Wang nearly doubled his starting stack. Unfortunately for him, it did little good as he went on to bust in the penultimate level of the night.
Others who saw their journey cut short on Day 1a were Jonathan Roy, Stephen Chidwick, Fedor Holz, Shaun Deeb, Oleksii Khoroshenin, Marvin Rettenmaier, John Juanda, Martin Finger, Patrik Antonius, and Ole Schemion.
Schemion, who flew into Malta early in the afternoon, fell in Level 6 (200/400/50) when Johan Guilbert opened for 800 from the hijack and the German wunderkind called from the small blind. Bernhard Haider did the same from the big and three players took a flop of 
. Two checks saw Guilbert bet 1,600, and both his opponents called.
After the dealer burned and turned the 
, Schemion checked for a second time and Haider seized the initiative by betting 3,800. Guilbert called, and then Schemion sprung to life with an all-in check-raise to 11,625 total. Haider just called, which prompted Guilbert to ditch his hand.
Schemion: 
Haider: 
Schemion had flopped the straight, but he was drawing dead as Haider turned a flush. The meaningless 
was put out on the river to make it official, and Schemion wished the table luck before heading to the exit.
While droves of notables fell, plenty punched their ticket to Day 2 including [Removed:17] (97,875), Thomas Muehloecker (93,200), Niall Farrell (92,300), Steve O'Dwyer (90,600), Dominik Panka (81,400), Anthony Zinno (76,500), Adrian Mateos (72,200), and PokerStars' Jennifer Shahade (51,300), Ike Haxton (23,500), Jason Mercier (14,700), and Jake Cody (8,600). Meanwhile, Team PokerStars Pro Ivan Demidov met his demise on Day 1a.
Day 1b will kick off at Noon local time on Monday, while the aforementioned €10K Single-Day High Roller will follow a half hour later. Of course the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand for both to bring you all the latest and greatest from the floor of the Portomaso Casino.
While you wait, take a tour of St. Julian's here in Malta:
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
With around 20,000 in the pot and a board reading 
, Scott Seiver had his last 10,250 out in front of him from the big blind and Lauri Varonen was debating what to do from middle position. Eventually he made the call with the 
, and thanks to his kicker he was able to best the 
of Seiver, who had been counterfeited after flopping two pair.
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
"I lost every hand," Shyam Srinivasan sighed and walked out of the tournament area just before the last three hands on his table were finished. The remainder of the stack went to Jeff Rossiter and Srinivasan may very well be back tomorrow for the €10,200 Single Day High Roller Event.
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
And the day is done. After those three hands the 100 chips will be colored up and the bagging and tagging begins.
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
As we arrived Antonio Buonanno already had all of his 14,725 chips in the middle from the under the gun position. Charlie Carrel on the button had 4,300 in front of him and was now tanking about whether or not to add the 10,425 to call.
Carrel asked his Italian opponent if he wanted a call. "You must call! It's like 11,000" Buonanno answered. "It appears so that I must" Carrel agreed, though not sounding too certain. He clearly was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and admitted to not have too good a hand. Carrel then asked to pull in the 4,300 to see how much he exactly needed to call, and did so in the end.
Charlie Carrel: 
Antonio Buonanno: 
The flop came 
, not brining much of anything for Carrel. The 
on the turn gave the Brit a bunch of outs to counterfeit Buonanno, but the 
on the river was a blank and the Grand Final champion doubled up.
"Well that was embarrassing" Carrel said with a big smile. He focused his attention to us and instructed "None of that writing down stuff!" But it was too late because we had already written everything down and weren't ready to say good bye to our beautiful notes of a brilliantly played hand.
"Thank you" Buonanno said. "You're welcome" said the ever so friendly Carrel.
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
Antoine Vranken is all in and at risk preflop with 
and Senh Ung isolated to push Jake Cody out of the hand. Cody asked the dealer to put his cards on the side to show after and Ung flipped over the 
. The board ran out 
and Vranken more than doubled while Ung dropped back to starting stack. The dealer asked Cody again whether or not to reveal his cards and Cody nodded, it was the 
. Vranken sent over a "thank you", as otherwise he would have been out of the tournament now.
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
A short stack moves all in for 7,000 chips from the button and Justin Bonomo gives it some thought before making the call in the big blind with . The opponent sees the cards of Bonomo and says "that is pretty bad, I only saw this" and pointed to the . His second hole card was the and the board ran out 
and the short stack busted.
Andy Black grinned over while Bonomo was counting his chips and then showed the stack of T-25 denominations. "That is my profit."
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
Tsugunari Toma opened to 1,400 from under the gun and was called by one player before Vlado Banicevic squeezed to 5,700. Only Toma called and they saw the heads-up flop of 
. Toma checked and Banicevic continued for 5,700 to get a call from his opponent. On the turn, Toma checked once again and Banicevic's second barrel worth 13,200 won the pit.
