Level: 28
Blinds: 125,000/250,000
Ante: 250,000
2025 Malta Poker Festival Spring
€550 Grand Event
Day: 3
Event Info
2025 Malta Poker Festival Spring
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
Players Info - Day 3
Buy-in
€550
Prize Pool
€555,940
Entries
1,202
Level
32
Blinds
400,000 / 800,000
Ante
800,000
Entries
10
Players Left
1
Players Left 1 / 1202
Filter
The Malta Poker Festival have very generously added a €2,200 package to the winner, which includes five nights stay at the Hilton and a Grand Event seat worth €550.
The start of play has been slightly delayed, as the players undertake some media obligations.
Life Outside Poker is a podcast for PokerNews hosted by Connor Richards that seeks to pull back the curtain on poker players and allow viewers and listeners to get to know them on a personal level.
In the 26th episode, Connor speaks with chess streamer and GGPoker ambassador Alexandra Botez about learning chess and poker from her dad, getting into streaming at Stanford, dealing with online trolls, creating content with her sister Andrea Botez and the similarities between chess and poker.
Botez also talked about winning $456,900 in a legendary 2022 Hustler Casino Live stream that included Phil Hellmuth, Mr. Beast and Ninja, as well as signing on as a GGPoker ambassador and securing two career-high cashes at World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise (she finished 60th in the $10,000 GGMillion$ Championship for $22,190 before finishing 187th in the $25,000 Super Main Event for $67,300).
The Life Outside Poker podcast is available on major streaming platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud and iHeartRadio. You can also watch the interview with Alexandra Botez by heading to the PokerNews YouTube channel.
Be sure to follow Alexandra Botez and Connor Richards on X.
Domenico Lando brought balance to the felt at the 2024 Malta Poker Festival Grand Event, navigating his way through a talented final table to emerge victorious and claim the title, trophy and €140,000 prize.
Lando picked his spots wisely in the final stages en route to topping the record-breaking 2,045 entry field, where the €941,568 prize pool was paid out to the top 306 players. Lando's triumph in the biggest MPF Grand Event was somewhat of an underdog story. The Italian player had only $13,400 in live earnings before registering for the event, with a best cash of just $6,077.
Lando toppled Nikolaos Konstas in heads-up play, after the latter appeared to have one hand on the winner's spoils, but as is ever with poker, someone's fortune can change completely with a turn of a card.
2024 MPF Grand Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Domenico Lando | Italy | €140,000 |
| 2 | Nikolaos Konstas | Greece | €93,000 |
| 3 | Theodoros Ampelikiotis | Greece | €66,000 |
| 4 | Charles Eichner | France | €49,068 |
| 5 | Jaroslaw Falkowski | Poland | €39,000 |
| 6 | Andre Grech | Malta | €30,000 |
| 7 | Antonio Alba | Italy | €23,000 |
| 8 | Salih Kaya | Denmark | €17,500 |
| 9 | Angelo Vietti | Italy | €13,400 |
After five days of thrilling poker action, ten players will return to Portomaso Casino at 1 p.m. today, Monday, 5 May, to do battle for the title of Malta Poker Festival Grand Event champion.
The players have outlasted an astonishing total of 1,202 entrants for the €550 buy-in event, which created a €555,940 prize pool, smashing the €300,000 guarantee.
All remaining players have secured a minimum payday of €6,550, but will surely have their sights firmly locked on the €100,000 first-place prize.
Day 2 finished on the final table bubble. Antonio Scala of Italy comes into the final day as chip leader, with a 46 big blind stack of 11,500,000. He is followed by fellow countrymen Matteo Ferrara (8,840,000) and Aurelio Vallone (6,750,000). In a tightly-packed field, anyone could make a charge at the title today.
This is certainly the biggest spot of Scala's tournament career - with recorded cashes of under $5,000, he has already locked up a career-best result, and will be hoping to secure a first major title.
Ferrara's biggest score amongst recorded cashes of $67,628 is a minimum cash in the 2023 WSOP Main Event, and for a period yesterday he looked like he might run away with it after being on the right end of a cooler against Gustav Andersson. He came back towards the field at the end of the day, and will be hoping to regain that previous momentum.
Vallone is a slightly unknown quantity, but on the evidence of this week looks to be a talented and composed young player. He will certainly be a dangerman.
Domenico Lando (6,645,000) will be seeking to write a story for the ages, as he aims to capture successive Malta Poker Festival Grand Event titles, having lifted the trophy in October 2024 for a $140,000 payday.
Macedonian Dragan Ignjatovski (1,700,000) comes into the final day as the short-stack, nursing six big blinds, and will be aiming to spin it up, with Egon Holdhus of Norway (2,830,000) also slightly cut adrift from the rest of the field.
Alexander Maskell (5,645,000) is a WSOP-C winner, having triumphed in a £340 event for £16,000.
Start of Day 3 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Antonio Scala | Italy | 11,500,000 | 46 |
| 2 | Matteo Ferrara | Italy | 8,840,000 | 35 |
| 3 | Aurelio Vallone | Italy | 6,750,000 | 27 |
| 4 | Domenico Lando | Italy | 6,645,000 | 26 |
| 5 | Carsten Mawick | Germany | 6,455,000 | 25 |
| 6 | Alexander Maskell | United Kingdom | 5,645,000 | 22 |
| 7 | Vincenzo Popolo | Italy | 5,520,000 | 22 |
| 8 | Angelo Vietti | Italy | 4,780,000 | 19 |
| 9 | Egon Holdhus | Norway | 2,830,000 | 11 |
| 10 | Dragan Ignjatovski | North Macedonia | 1,700,000 | 6 |
The prizes the players are playing for are set out below.
Remaining Payouts
| Place | Prize | Place | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | €100,000 | 6 | €18,450 |
| 2 | €63,000 | 7 | €12,950 |
| 3 | €43,500 | 8 | €10,850 |
| 4 | €32,150 | 9 | €8,550 |
| 5 | €25,050 | 10 | €6,550 |
The players will return at 1 p.m. to 50-minute levels at Level 28, with blinds of 125,000/250,000, with a 250,000 big blind ante.
Stay tuned to PokerNews for all your coverage of the action, as we see who will lift the coveted Grand Event trophy and secure a six-figure payday.
€550 Grand Event
Day 3 Started
