Five British Players to Watch at the 2016 EPT Malta Festival
The Malta Main Event of the European Poker Tour is only a week away and scores of players from the United Kingdom will head to the Portomaso Casino on the stunning Mediterranean island of Malta in the hopes of joining the long list of EPT champions.
UK & Ireland PokerNews have taken a look at five British pros to look out for during the Main Event, which you can follow via ourlive reporting pages.
Stephen Chidwick
UK GPI Ranking: 1st
Worldwide GPI Ranking: 16th
Live tournament winnings: $6,148,040
Stephen Chidwick is regarded as the UK’s best all-around poker player, one who is equally adept at playing seven-card stud as he is Texas hold’em, which is evident by his No. 1 rank in the localized Global Poker Index (GPI).
Chidwick is a permanent fixture on the EPT, but he has yet to take down one of its Main Events. The man known as “Stevie444” came close to winning an EPT Main Event in 2013 when he finished in third place in London.
Keep an eye out for Chidwick not only in the Main Event but also any of the high roller and super high roller events on the EPT Malta schedule because you can bet your bottom dollar that Chidwick will be buying into them all.
Niall Farrell
UK GPI Ranking: 3rd
Worldwide GPI Ranking: 46th
Live tournament winnings: $2,920,142
Underneath Niall Farrell’s fun-loving persona is a talented poker player who is a major threat in any tournament he enters. Farrell also happens to be the only player in our quintet to have won an EPT Main Event, having triumphed in Malta in 2015.
The €534,330 Farrell won for his EPT Malta victory still is the largest cash of his career, although the $486,383 Farrell won for his eighth-place finish in the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop at the 2016 World Series of Poker (WSOP) comes close.
Max Silver
UK GPI Ranking: 5th
Worldwide GPI Ranking: 54th
Live tournament winnings: $2,976,546
One of the most forward-thinking poker players on the planet right now is Max Silver, an aggressive player who nobody is happy to see on their table when it comes to checking the seating draw.
Silver cashed 10 times at the 2016 WSOP, including a 10th-place finish in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em ($27,804), a 12th-place finish in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed ($44,911), and a 33rd place finish in the $10,000 Main Event ($216,211).
There’s no denying Silver is a phenomenal talent, but is this the EPT Main Event in which he'll grab the coveted trophy?
Charlie Carrel
UK GPI Ranking: 7th
Worldwide GPI Ranking: 117th
Live tournament winnings: $2,432,822
After missing the WSOP due to personal reasons, Charlie Carrel is likely to be looking to make up for lost time by showcasing his skills on arguably the world’s biggest stage. Although Carrel’s EPT Main Event endeavors haven’t exactly gone to plan thus far, his record in the high roller events is nothing short of fantastic, and include a €1,114,000 score which he was awarded for winning the 2015 EPT Grand Final €25,500 High Roller.
Ludovic Geilich
UK GPI Ranking: 15th
Worldwide GPI Ranking: 211th
Live tournament winnings: $1,319,519
Scotland’s Ludovic Geilich is a man in great form both in the live and online arenas and is definitely worth a place on our list. Earlier this year, Geilich won the $1,500 Wynn Poker Classic for $150,662 and then finished seventh in the $250,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller at the WSOP for an additional $110,035.
Last weekend, Geilich was the runner-up in the UKIPT Birmingham Main Event for £23,600 and sandwiched between these impressive results was a World Championship Of Online Poker victory that banked the popular Scot more than $462,000.
Follow The EPT Malta Festival Via UK & Ireland PokerNews
The PokerNews live reporting team will be on the ground throughout the EPT Malta festival and you can follow all of the action, as it happens, via our live reporting pages.
