Antoan Katsarov Conquers Record-Breaking Battle of Malta Event

Despite all the recent issues and bleak predictions, poker records continue to be broken time and time again. This time, it was the Battle of Malta that became the biggest standalone (not part of a bigger tour) poker tournament in Europe, at least when looking into events with a similar buy-in range.

The small Mediterranean island gathered 1,477 players, each one of them paying €550 for their right to participate and battle for a share of the €701,795 prize pool. Antoan Katsarov ended up being the guy who took home the lion’s share of that amount, as his eventual victory made him €122,750 richer.

When the Battle of Malta first started in 2012, many were skeptical about the idea, as no one could tell how hard it would be to attract players. It started humbly, with 350 players making their way to the tables in the first year. However, 2013 saw a huge increase in numbers as 888 entries crushed the Main Event guarantee of €200,000.

Believing that the trend would continue, the organizers decided to take a leap of faith and raise the guarantee to €500,000 for this year’s edition – and once again it was a huge success as the guarantee was surpassed by more than €200,000. The growth of 314% in the three years of the tournament is truly an amazing number.

Tournament Clocked Out

When 35 players returned to play the final day of the Battle of Malta, everybody was expecting a long day, but nobody really thought that the tournament winner would be decided by the chip counts. This is not something we see every day in poker tournaments, but apparently it had to be this way.

In fact, when the tournament was down to 12 players, tournament director Elio presented players with two options – either play down to the nine-handed final table and come back to play at 5 PM tomorrow, or continue all the way with the provision that if no winner were found until 5 AM, play would be stopped and the forced deal would take place. Players unanimously took the latter option.

Eight different nations were represented at the unofficial 10-handed final table, demonstrating that BOM has truly become an event that attracts players from across Europe. They battled it out until only two were left standing – Antoan Katsarov and Alan James Brincat.

The two waged a fierce battle for the title, with the 5 AM deadline quickly approaching. And when the clock finally struck five times, both players were still seated with chips in front of them. Katsarov was holding the lead and he was named the champion, receiving the trophy and €122,750 in cash.

Runner-up Alan James Brincat took home a decent chunk of change as well - €107,250, and both of them will certainly keep this day under the ‘good memories’ page in their photo albums of memories.

Final table results:

1. Antoan Katsarov, Bulgaria €122,750*

2. Alan James Brincat, Malta €107,250*

3. Pär Ebenhardt, Sweden €53,000

4. Oskar Szwed, Poland €42,500

5. Hugo Lemaire, France €32,000

6. Declan Connolly, Ireland €23,000

7. Pontus Dargren, Sweden €16,095

8. Johan Krans, Sweden €12,100

9. Wouter Beumers, Netherlands €9,100

* Indicates a two-way deal

Pictures: pokerlistings