button in Safari
Luca Topazio Claims First-Ever WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event Title (€200,000)
For the first time ever, World Series of Poker Circuit rings were up for grabs at Casino Malta. In this festival organized by Texapoker, players from all around Europe didn't miss the opportunity to try to add a piece of jewelry to their collection. But after three days of play, the most coveted ring, the €1,500 WSOP Circuit Main Event ring, now belongs to Luca Topazio.
From a field of 879 entries, which generated a total prize pool of €1,115,451, he used his aggressive style of play to win the €200,000 first-place prize, as well as a €5,000 package for the next WSOP Paradise. During the final table, he battled especially hard against Radoslaw Kopec, who finished runner-up once again after already taking second place in the WSOP Circuit Middelkerke Main Event last year.
2026 WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event final table results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Luca Topazio | Italy | €200,000 |
| 2 | Radoslaw Kopec | Poland | €125,000 |
| 3 | Lucas van den Belt | Netherlands | €85,000 |
| 4 | Matteo Ricco | Italy | €60,000 |
| 5 | Aleksandar Georgiev | Bulgaria | €43,000 |
| 6 | Alberto Cigliano | Italy | €31,000 |
| 7 | Vitali Bibik | Poland | €23,000 |
| 8 | Christoffer Jensen | Denmark | €17,300 |
| 9 | Nicola Bordignon | Italy | €14,191 |
Winner's reaction
Sixteen years ago, Luca Topazio started his poker career with a €190,000 cash thanks to his victory in an Italian Poker Tour Main Event. This result remained his biggest score... until today. "I am very happy, I played a very good poker," translated a tournament director from Topazio's Italian. But even though the two results look quite similar in terms of prize money, the experience he gained in the years between them helped him go even further this time. "I am more mature now. I adapted my game to get this result," he added.
His game, judging from what he showed at the table, looked loose, but he was not afraid to attack at all. "My strategy as the chip leader was to make everyone short and to kill everyone," explained the professional poker player. This approach brought him the title today, as well as other strong results such as an 11th-place finish in the last EPT Barcelona Mystery Bounty.
Based on this success, Topazio now plans to play the Battle of Malta here at Casino Malta at the end of the month, followed by EPT Prague in December. And, of course, he will head to the Bahamas for WSOP Paradise, where he will try to take today's success to another level.
Final Table Action
With no player under 20 big blinds at the beginning of the final table, all nine finalists knew they had to be patient, but it didn't take long to see Christoffer Jensen being the first one to go all-in and double with queens through Aleksandar Georgiev's ace-king. A few hands later, Nicola Bordignon wasn't as lucky with fives and became the first player to be eliminated.
Now down to eight players, the live stream started, but Jensen eventually played another coin flip to survive. He didn't make it this time against Lucas van den Belt and took €17,300 for his eighth-place finish.
At the same time, Vitali Bibik managed to double up, and so did Georgiev thanks to a lucky runner-runner flush. They both remained the two shortest stacks, however, by the next break, after which Bibik was at risk again with queen-ten. Matteo Ricco had ace-seven and held to send the Polish player to the rail (7th - €23,000), then doubled up through Kopec.
Alberto Cigliano was hoping to double as well with king-queen, but ran into Van den Belt's aces to finish in sixth place (€31,000). Georgiev (5th - €43,000) suffered the same fate ten minutes later against eventual winner Topazio.
On top of the counts, Kopec was one card away from elimination but hit an ace on the river to double up and take the chip lead back. The same went for Topazio with ace-queen over ace-jack before Van den Belt bluffed him to make him fold aces and level up the stacks of the four remaining players.
Kopec eventually regained the lead by eliminating Ricco (4th - €60,000), and extended it even after he doubled Van den Belt. This didn't last long, however, as Topazio made a good hero call and then hit a full house. He also took Van den Belt's stack (3rd - €85,000) to start heads-up play with a 5:1 chip lead.
With such a big advantage, Topazio needed just two hands to end the tournament, hitting a full house to be crowned the 2026 WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event champion!
This concludes PokerNews' coverage of the WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event. The tour's journey with Texapoker continues this month with another stop at Casino Grand Via in Madrid from October 23 to November 2. They will then head to Middelkerke, Belgium, followed by Sanremo, Italy, in November.
PokerNews will, of course, be on site across Europe to follow all of these upcoming events!