At the start of day 2, with an average stack of 73K at the Malta Poker Dream main event many of the local poker fan’s eyes were fixed on Martin Kjaer and Keith Boniface who held 152k and 140k respectively. George Galea was still far off at that point of the tournament holding 47,200 which was just about half the average stack. As blind levels started to increase throughout day two though, the remaining local players starting dropping out, either from being card dead, or the occasional bad beats that naturally hit players during long tourneys.
As Day 2 went along, Galea showed his true strengths at the felt though. He was the only Maltese player who made it through the end of day 2. He started the day with 47k, went up to 95, then 140k, 220k (with 114 players left) and then dropped slightly to 176k as the second tournament day came to an end with 72 players left in the field.
He started day 3 with a bang, quickly taking his 176k stack to 310k, which was the average stack at the time. This gave him a well-needed gasp of breath, offering him more options on how to play his opponents at the felt. He kept increasing his stack, made it in the money, and eventually finished the day with a very pleasant 617K as the player count dropped to just 35 players.
George Galea at the Malta Poker Dream
Galea started day 4 as the 11th strongest player on the field of remaining 35 players from the starting count of 408. The average stack was up to 582k by then. Galea had 617k chips so he was hovering above average although not comfortably enough to play loosely and take wild chances at doubling up. He maintained his stack for a large part of the game and took down a very tasty pot giving him a leg up to around 1.1million chips. This was the highest that Galea had reached, and as players started to drop out, due to squeeze as a result from the ever-increasing blinds, Galea adapted his play accordingly.
Read the rest of this entry →
