PokerMalta.com

Spanish Deepstack

Here’s an update about the Spanish Deep Stack Tournament, at the end of Day 1.  The two day €180 + €20 freeze-out poker tournament held at the Casino di Venezia between the 18th & 19th March gave players a 50,000 starting stack and 30 minute blind levels.  33 players entered the tournament taking the prize-pool up to almost €6,000, where 1st place will probably take down about €2,000 (official payouts have not been published as yet)

French player, Nassim Bennacer is leading the pack of remaining 21 players at the tourney with 152k chips compared to the average stack of 78,500.  He is closely followed by Kevin Caruana and Jonathan Pyatt with 144k and 142k who are approximately 9,000 chips behind Bennacer.  September’s Malta Madness tourney winner – Anna Colley – is also rubbing shoulders with the big stacks, holding a very respectable 124,900 at the start of Day 2.

Tourney regulars and recent Unibet participants Keith Boniface and Franco Portelli are also present at the tourney and have made it into Day 2, although they’re entering Day 2 with below average stacks.

SPANISH DEEP STACK DAY 2

1. BENNACER NASSIM – 152,500
2. KEVIN CARUANA – 144,300
3. JONATHAN PYATT – 142,000
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Unibet Open Malta 2011

The 293 players who participated at the Unibet Open Malta 2011 tournament have – for the most part – exited the tournament with only 9 players left for the final table which will start later on today at 14:00hrs.

The Unibet Open has been a great tourney which hit the expected participation rate for such an internationally renowned tour.  The tourney hit a chunky prize pool of €417,000 brought about by the €1,650 buy-in and the 293 players from Nordic regions who made it to Malta for the first stop of the Unibet Tour this year.

155 players started off on Day 1A and Day 1B attracted another 143 players who each were given 15,000 chips as their starting stack.

"Re-Raise!" by Franco Portelli Unibet Open Malta 2011

We saw participation by the local regulars Jacques Balzan Demajo, Keith Boniface, Franco Portelli, Vanja Torbarov, Jorryt Van Hoof, Milly Uylenbroek, Jesper Hougaard, and Georg Westin.  Amongst these, Franco Portelli and Jacques qualified for the tournament through a satellite butneither of them did it past their starting days.

From the locals, Keith Boniface made it furthest into the tournament by making it to day 2, but he started with just 19,400 chips and eventually exited a few hours into the second day of the tourney.

The Unibet Open attracted several Poker Professionals from around the poker world and featured personalities like:

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