We have been graced with the presence of Italian Andrea Dato, the Team PokerStars Pro Arnaud Mattern and recent World Series of Poker bracelet winner and serial live tournament player Dominik Nitsche.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
30,000 | |
|
30,000 | |
|
30,000 |
From under the gun Jorryt van Hoof opened the betting by raising to 300. The action folded to Sean Jazayeri on the button and after placing a jewel card protector onto the back of his cards said, "I call" and did just that.
Federico Cipollini folded his small blind but [Removed:39], in the big blind, three-bet to 1,400. Both players quickly called.
The dealer burned a card and put out the 
flop. Berendsen continued with a bet of 1,800 a bet that van Hoof almost instantly raised to 3,800. Jazayeri instantly folded and after 20-30 seconds of deliberation Berendsen followed suit.
We may not have even finished Level 1 yet here in Malta but we have already lost a player. Whilst typing up the Pescaglini hand (which you can see below) the tournament director brought us the ID card of Gaston Onana, the Belgian pro is the first elimination of today!
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
Busted |
Cecelia Pescaglini has lost a third of her stack here early on after a clash with Alfonso Amendola.
We joined the action on a 
flop and saw Amendola fire a bet of 2,700 from under the gun, a bet that Pescaglini pondered for a few moments before making the call. The turn was the 
and Amendola bet again, except this time he reduced its size and set the price to play at 1,600. Pescaglini took the bait and quickly called.
The river was the 
and after a 30-second pause Amendola bet 3,500 sending Pescaglini into deep thought. She sat riffling black 25 chips for over a minute, all the time muttering under her breath before deciding she was beaten and mucked her hand.
Amendola now has 39,200 chips to go with his large, unlit cigar he is holding over on Table 6.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
20,550 |
"Big" Roger Hairabedian and online phenom [Removed:163] have both exchanged €3,300 for 30,000 chips and the chance to become a World Poker Tour champion. We'll follow their progress closely over the next few hours.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
30,000 | |
|
|
30,000 |
A quick scout around the room reveals the Gold Bet sponsored pro Federico Cipollini and his fellow Italian Ceciia Pescaglini have bought in.
Cipollini has played a number of WPT events and has two cashes to his name, a 21st finish in this very event last year and a 57th place finish in Prague.
Pescaglini is a real loose-cannon of a player and extremely entertaining to watch. She finished second to Matt Giannetti in this tournament last year and won €116,700 in the process; her largest cash of her career so far.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
30,000 | |
|
|
30,000 | |
|
30,000 |
We have five players in the field today who have won their seats on PartyPoker. They are as follows:
The eagle-eyed among you will remember the name Kiryl Radzivonau and rightly so. Radzivonau finished in sixth in the recent WPT Merit Cyprus Classic main event, the one that Marvin Rettenmaier took down.
Level: 1
Blinds: 50/100
Ante: 0
Tournament director Christian Scalzi has just introduced himself to the players, revealed that the button will be in Seat 4 and instructed his dealers to shuffle up and deal, and with that World Poker Tour Malta is under way.
Set your clocks for 13:10 because that is when the tournament will commence. The plan is to play eight 60-minute levels but that could change depending on the number of entrants.
