Graziella-Vella 3rd place at the Ladies event

Graziella Vella took the 3rd prize at the Malta Poker Dream ladies event.  The €160 freeze-out tourney attracted 37 players for a pool of around €5,500.  Many of the local Poker ladies took part in the event, including Iva Pavlova, Anna Colley, Sofia Edbom, Sharona Refalo, as well as some newcomers like Maureen Sultana.

Whilst waiting for her partner George Galea, as he progressed through the toughening levels of the main event, Graziella won €800 for her placing, after an 8 hour journey to the final table.  Starting at 6pm, with 10,000 starting chips, the levels progressed every 20 minutes, till they reached 4k/8k when Graziella entered her final hand.
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Malta Poker Dream 2011 – Day 2

As the tournament moves into its second phase, the blind levels will be extended by to 1 hour compared to 50 minutes on Day 1.  As 73 players have survived from Day 1A, together with another 204 from Day 1B,  day two will be starting with 277 players at 2pm at the Portomaso Casino, St. Julians Malta.

After the first day, average stack has risen to 73K at the deep structured tourney.  We’ll wait and see who of our local regulars will take the lead of their Italian counterparts.

Here’s quick reminder of the local’s chip stacks with Martin Kjaer in the Lead of the local pack of players.

Jackie Cachia & Martin Kjaer - Malta Poker Dream

Martin Kjaer – 152,300
Keith Boniface – 140,200
Mark Attard  – 104,800
Cosimo Dambra – 75,000
George Galea – 47,200
Mario Sciberras – 44,700
Gordon Mifsud – 38,200
Jackie Cachia – 23,600
Andrew Cutajar – 23,000

Martin Kjaer and Keith Boniface will be starting the Day with around twice the starting stack, giving them more ‘fuel’ with which to approach the tourney today.

Maltese ‘born and bred’ Mark Attard will be starting the day with 104,800 later this afternoon at approximately 50% over the a.stack, giving him a comfy entry at this determining stage of the poker tournament. Read the rest of this entry →

Only seven days are left for the start of the Malta Poker Dream 2011.  We are now at the second edition of the event that once again is taking place at the Portomaso Casino in St. Julians, Malta.  Over 300 players have already confirmed their attendance to the event and have registered through the Malta Poker Dream site, with day 1B almost at full capacity of 250 players allowed for each starting day.

Filippo Candio - One of the November 9 in WSOP 2010

Some of the more regular names who will be present at the Italian poker fest include players like Maurizio Agrello, pro player on Betpro.it, Dario Rusconi, Carmelo Vasta, Eros Nastasi, Armando Graziano, Roberto Nulli, and many more who in these last few days have started to confirm their attendance at the Italian Poker frenzy.

Rumour has it that Filippo Candio, one of the most popular names from the Italian poker scene, who made it to international fame with his stellar performance at the WSOP may also be joining us for the event.  In 2010, the iconic Candio was the first Italian player in the history of Italian poker to make it to a final table of the World Series of Poker. Read the rest of this entry →