High Stakes Action Explodes at GGPoker; Battle of Malta Champion Crowned

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Jul 26, 2021 4 min read

GGPoker was the place to be for high stakes online poker tournament action this weekend, with dozens of major events, including the Battle of Malta Main Event, taking place and paying out vast sums of cold, hard cash.

The Battle of Malta Main Event final table paid out €1,399,070 ($1,650,216) on its own, so it makes perfect sense to start our round-up there.

Battle of Malta Main Event Final Table Results

Some 6,591 players bought into the Battle of Malta Main Event and blew the €3 million guaranteed prize pool out of the water. The top 700 finishers shared a cool €3,443,797, with almost €1,400,000 of that princely some awarded at the nine-handed final table.

Nobody at the final table won less than €37,828, the prize awarded to ninth place finisher "NetWizards." NetWizards open-shoved almost 20 big blinds from under the gun with pocket tens, and was looked up by Gabriel "Gabsdrogba" Medeiros holding pocket jacks.

Joao "Wim Hof" Ferreira joined NetWizards on the sidelines, doing so with €50,444 in tow. Ferreira committed his last five big blinds with ace-eight, and failed to connect with the board, thus losing to Dzmitry Urbanovich's dominating ace-jack.

Georgios Sotiropoulos fell by the wayside in seventh, a finish worth €67,269, after losing a coinflip with Raggaz. Sotiropoulos min-raised with ace-king before calling off his stack when Raggaz three-bet all-in with pocket queens. Raggaz flopped a set, but Sotiropoulos improved to a Broadway straight on the turn. A ten on the river paired the board and gifted Raggaz a full house.

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The last five-figure prize of the tournament found its way to the GGPoker account of "allini," namely €89,705. allini four-bet jammed with ace-king over an opening raise from Medeiros and a three-bet from Urbanovich. The former folded, but Urbanovich called with kings, before turning a set and improving to a full house on the river.

The final five became four when British pro Brandon "TryLSD" Sheils saw his tournament end abruptly. Sheils' 5.5 big blind shove from the cutoff with queen-jack was called by Urbanovich in the big blind holding king-ten. A king on the flop left Sheils drawing thin; he was dead on the turn. Although naturally disappointed not to take this tournament down after going so deep, Sheils has €119,623 reasons to wear a smile on his face today.

Brazilian pro Medeiros' run at the title was halted in fourth place for €159,520, when his ace-six proved no match for the pocket sevens of Raggaz.

Urbanovich crashed out in third for €212,724, which sent the event into the heads-up stage. Raggaz initially limped into the small blind with pocket sevens before calling Urbanovich's 16 big blind shove, which he made with king-deuce. A seven on the flop meant Urbanovich was drawing dead before he could even think about catching a king.

Turkey's "petiperi" and "Raggaz" of New Zealand butted heads in a one-on-one battle for the title. There was no deal struck between the two players despite a €94,613 difference in prize money. This meant petiperi got his hands on €283,672 when he fell at the final hurdle, leaving Raggaz to scoop the gargantuan €378,285 top prize.

Raggaz is on quite a run this year. They secured a $145,994 payout in May when they won the BIG 25 event at the WSOP Circuit Online, a result that came with a coveted WSOPC ring. Look out for Raggaz during the upcoming 2021 WSOP Online at GGPoker.

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Artur Martirosian Helps Himself to a €107K Score

It was a Russian one-two in the $1,050 Battle of Malta Sunday High Rollers Main Event with Artur Martirosian and Vyacheslav "SpaceInside" Zaslavsky chopping when heads-up.

A field of 586 entrants ensured the $500,000 guarantee was surpassed by $86,000, and it was the top 60 finishers who walked away with a slice of this ample pie.

Such luminaries as Damian Salas, Niklas Astedt, Christian Rudolph, and Simon Mattsson cashed in this event but fell short of the nine-handed final table.

Lachezar "Psychedelica" Petkov was the first of the finalists to bow out, doing so with $11,376 making its way to his bankroll. Julian "don chimbo" Pineda, Marius Gierse, Wei Zhao, and Sheng "asdf3578" Liu joined the Pole on the rail.

Two Austrians busted, first Matthias Lipp then Roman Hrabec, which left Martirosian heads-up against his fellow Russian, Zaslavsky. The Russian duo struck a deal that saw Martirosian collect $107,583 when he came out on top of the one-on-one battle, while Zaslavsky netted $91,493 for his $1,050 investment.

Battle of Malta Sunday High Rollers Main Event Final Table Results

*reflects a heads-up deal

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*includes bounty payments

Matthew Pitt hails from Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, and has worked in the poker industry since 2008, and worked for PokerNews since 2010. In September 2010, he became the editor of PokerNews. Matthew stepped away from live reporting duties in 2015, and now concentrates on his role of Senior Editor for the PokerNews.

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