Bart Lybaert Triumphs in Hydra Entertainment High Roller at the Party Poker MILLIONS Festival Malta

Thursday was the hump day of the festival and it was a hump with a bump, with a full schedule of events and buy-ins ranging from €70 to €5,300. The €3,000 MILLIONS main event was one of the events that started today, in parallel with day 2 of the €5,300 Hydra Entertainment High Roller. Starting days for the Grand Prix also resumed and mixed game fans were sated with a €330 single day Omaha freezeout.

One of two events to reach its conclusion, the €5,300 Hydra Entertainment High Roller saw Belgian Bart Lybaert outlast a field of 44 players to take down the €72,864 first prize and a rather magnificent looking trophy. Second place went to Michel Molenaar of the Netherlands, who was looking to make it a second €5k event win in Malta this year.

Party Poker MILLIONS Malta 2023 – #13 €5,000 + €300 Hydra Entertainment High Roller
Position	Player	Nationality	Prize
1	Bart Lybaert	Belgian	€72,864
2	Michel Molenaar	Dutch	€49,632
3	Kamil Sokol	Czech	€31,680
4	Teun Mulder	Dutch	€24,288
5	Farrid Jattin	Colombian	€17,952
6	Leo Margets	Spanish	€14,784
Total Entries	44		€211,200
Re-entries	3
Uniques	41

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MILLIONS Day 1A

Sebastian Mortensen leads the field after the day 1a of the Party Poker MILLIONS Malta Main Event. The Danish player will take a 165k chip stack into Saturday’s Day 2 along with 26 other players who made it through the day from the 51 who started. Party Poker Team Pro Matt Staples also secured a safe passage into day 2, finishing well on 85k. Also still in contention is Dzmitry Urbanovich, who had entered the Hydra High Roller earlier in the day.

Party Poker MILLIONS Malta Day 1A Survivors
Position	Player	Nationality	Chips
1	Sebastian Mortensen	Danish	165,100
2	Jakub Wojtas	German	162,100
3	Villr Jyrki santeri Pohjalainen	Finnish	161,400
4	Thomas Clack	English	155,600
5	Mario Trattou	English	126,100
6	Clement Meunier	French	106,100
7	Enrique Mayor Martinez	Spanish	104,300
8	Junjie Li	Chinese	103,000
9	Richard Bouette	French	97,500
10	Nachman Berlin	American	89,000
11	Matthew Staples	Canadian	85,300
12	Scott Fingland	Canadian	74,900
13	Florian Ribouchon	French	72,600
14	Dzmitry Urbanovich	Polish	61,400
15	Clement Bonnant	French	58,600
16	Alex Peffly	English	54,700
17	Sylvere Paillot	French	47,000
18	Jun Beum Chun	South Korean	46,200
19	Ferran de Antonio Canela	Spanish	45,500
20	Mattia Brusoni	Italian	40,000
21	Conor O’Sullivan	Irish	40,000
22	Thomas Powell	English	40,000
23	Diego Santos Ferreira	Spanish	40,000
24	Martin Emmanuel Planiscig	Argentinian	35,300
25	Marcin Kruk	Polish	30,600
26	Ricardo De la Roas Moran	Spanish	24,300
27	Spyridon Valakos	Greek	18,900

Grand Prix €1m GTD Day 1C

After a 3-day hiatus, play in the €1m guaranteed Party Poker Grand Prix resumed, with the 3rd of its eight starting days. 23 out of the 151 players (15%) who started the day secured their ongoing participation in the €550 buy-in tournament and will return on day 2, which takes place on Sunday. The chip leader from day 1C is Austrian Daniel Montagnolli, who is the second player from the live starting days to breach the 1m chip barrier. There have now been 581 entries across the three live day 1s to have taken place so far, with another five yet to come.

Party Poker Grand Prix Malta Day 1C Survivors
Position	Player	Nationality	Chips
1	Daniel Montagnolli	Austrian	1,063,000
2	Eran Cohen	Israeli	763,000
3	Luigi Mario Grisa	Swiss	715,000
4	Lee Dillon	German	644,000
5	Bhavin Kathri	English	606,000
6	Francesco Squillaci	Italian	522,000
7	Ivane Khazaradze	Georgian	401,000
8	Dario Barone	Italian	269,000
9	Emmanouil Zacharakis	Greek	269,000
10	Aleksandar Sunjevaraic	Slovakian	258,000
11	Mauro Tarantini	Italian	235,000
12	Giovanni Petrone	Italian	221,000
13	Michael Nagy	English	215,000
14	Fabio Assennato	Italian	192,000
15	Alfonso Simone	Italian	190,000
16	Nicky Levene	English	174,000
17	Emanuele Giufre	Italian	138,000
18	Rico Schultz	German	136,000
19	Salvatore Merendino	Italian	117,000
20	Edison Salobehaj	Greek	116,000
21	Alessandro Marano	Italian	102,000
22	Neil Barron	English	101,000
23	Adam Owen	English	64,000

Single Day Omaha

Today saw the first of the two Omaha tournaments on the schedule take place. This was the lower buy-in of the two, with a €330 price tag to enter, while Sunday’s version costs €1,100 to get a seat at the table. Many of the players who had participated in Tuesday’s H.O.R.S.E event were amongst the 52 players who took part today, vying for the €5,245 first prize. Play started off quite seriously, but the appearance of Martin “Franke” Von Swiegbergk provoked a jovial atmosphere. Despite taking numerous lengthy breaks from the table during the tournament Franke, renowned for loose play favouring re-entry tournaments, somehow managed to make the final table, but narrowly missed the money, finishing 9th. The top honours went to two Danish players, who fought it out for the trophy. Pater Kramer Sandberg outlasted countryman Martin Buur Christensen after a 30 minute heads up battle, to take the title.

Party Poker MILLIONS Malta 2023 – #18 €300 + €30 Omaha Freezeout
Position	Player	Nationality	Prize
1	Peter Kramer Sandberg	Danish	€5,245
2	Martin Buur Christensen	Danish	€3,370
3	Joaquin Matias Ruiz Travi	Argentinian	€2,250
4	Mark Adams	English	€1,500
5	Rocco Criscio	Italian	€1,120
6	Hugo Loustau	French	€820
7	Joe Grech	Maltese	€670
Total Entries	52		€14,975

Today is the 7th day off the festival and its a busy one! There are two Grand Prix starting days, another MILLIONS starting day and the side event is a turbo version of the MILLIONS, but with a more accessible buy-in at €275+€25. Here’s the schedule for today, Friday 29th September, 2023:

Start Time	Event #	Event	Buy-In
12:00	#3	Grand Prix $1m GTD Day 1D	€500+€50
15:00	#21	Grand Prix Satellite to event #3	€60+€10
18:00	#3	Grand Prix $1m GTD Day 1E	€500+€50
21:00	#19	MILLIONS Day 1B	€2750+€250
21:00	#22	Turbo Millions Single Day	€275+€25
22:00	#23	Grand Prix Hyper Turbo Satellite to event #3	€60+€10