Mor, Sebastiani, and Marinelli Finish in Top 3 of Day 1a of the €550 Grand Event at The Malta Poker Festival
The first starting flight of the €550 Grand Event at The Malta Poker Festival has come to an end after 14 levels of 45 minutes each were played at the Portmaso Casino. The €500,000 guaranteed prize pool attracted 205 players to the first of four Day 1s and a mere 38 of them made it through to Day 2 which will take place on Saturday, November 2.
Claiming the Day 1a chip lead is Eviatar Mor with 441,500 in chips. Mor has four tournament cashes according to The Hendon Mob but there was a six-year gap in his resume with his last two cashes taking place in the last seven months. The last cash before that took place in 2013. Mor is followed closely by someone that might sound a bit more familiar: Luca Sebastiani. Sebastiani bagged 400,000 in chips at the end of the night. The Italian poker pro was near the top of the chip counts throughout most of the day and stayed there.
Another Italian poker player is closing out the podium, Dario Marinelli finished third in the chip counts with 361,500. Rounding out the top five are Linda Nguyen (337,000) and Thomas Lind with 303,000. The latter is actually a Maltese resident from Swedish origin but a big part of the Malta Poker community also known as the Malta Poker Fish group on Facebook.
Also through to Day 2 are Borge Dypvik who finished in seventh place in the 2018 edition of the Malta Poker Festival, Mats Karlsson, Frank Koopmann, Domenico Gala, and Sarah Herzali. Not everyone was that fortunate though, Clint Sammut, Bas de Laat, Serdar Demircan, Luca Beretta, Jacqueline Cachia, Barny Boatman, Andreas Klatt, Daragh Davey, Romain Nardin, and David Lappin are some of the many who fell throughout the day.
But they can all try again as Day 1b is set to start at 2 p.m. local time on Thursday, October 31 with the exact same structure as Day 1a. Registration will remain open for the first eight 45-minute levels and one reentry is permitted per flight. The PokerNews live reporting team will be there too to bring to all the latest as more players battle their way into Day 2.
flop to the 
on the turn. Garaialde bet 6,500 which Marinelli called.
completed the board on the river and Garaialde checked for the final time. Marinelli glanced at Garaialde before betting 31,500. Garaialde flicked in a chip for the call. Marinelli tabled 
for the rivered set of eights and that was enough to get Garaialde to pay up as he mucked his cards.
. Sujeta continued with a bet of 7,000 which Demircan check-called.
, Demircan led out for 17,000 and Sujeta called.
. Demircan now fired a bet of 33,000 over the line.
for the flopped pair of sevens, turned two pair, and rivered full house. 
, Trueick check-folded to my bet which Micallef called.
, I bet 5,000, he shoved, I called with 
for the turned two pair. Micallef held 
for the flopped lower two pair. 
, both Deschuytter and Field checked. Bucci shoved for 18,500 and Deschuytter took a few seconds before shoving too with the bigger stack. Field contemplated his options for a while and then opted to fold to let them battle it out. 
