Day 1B of the European Poker Tour (EPT) Malta Main Event is now in the books and boy, was it ever a celebration of Malta’s first appearance on the Tour. After 260 players participated in the opening starting flight on Sunday, over 400 more – 629 to be exact – registered for Monday’s action, requiring two floors of the casino to be used to hold everybody. Max Silver leads the 370 survivors from Day 1B with 176,100 chips.
According to the PokerNews.com live reporting, Silver started slowly almost immediately losing a quarter of his chip stack when he tried to get Jussi Nevanlinna with just King-high, but Nevanlinna was able to make the call with top pair (Tens) to do the damage. Needless to say, Silver was undeterred and forged ahead. It was late in the day that he made his run to the top, using a bit of luck and a bit of skill to get as many chips as he could out of his opponents.
On one hand, he held pocket Fives and saw a flop of 9-8-5, giving him a set. Unfortunately at the time, Brian Benhamou had pocket Eights for a better set and it looked like Silver was in deep, deep trouble, especially because he and his opponent were raising and re-raising each other. Silver was able to catch another Five on the turn for quads, though and Benhamou was sent to the rail.
In another hand shortly thereafter, Silver hit a nut flush and was able to extract chips in every betting round to take him to the top of the chip counts.
Max Silver has had a good deal of success on the live tournament circuit. He has yet to win what we might call a “major” event, but he has won a few tournaments on the European Poker Tour and the UK Ireland Poker Tour, giving him lifetime earnings of more than $1.8 million. He has come close to the major wins on a number of occasions, with three World Series of Poker final tables.
Day 2 of the EPT Malta Main Event is getting going. Registration was still open until the start of the day, so we should have the final registration numbers, including prize pool and payout structure, tomorrow.
2015 European Poker Tour Malta Main Event – Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Max Silver – 176,100
2. Kyle Hendry – 155,000
3. Nir Levy – 150,000
4. Noah Vaillancourt – 146,100
5. Matthieu Rodriguez – 139,700
6. Rudolf Zintel – 135,000
7. Moritz Dietrich – 135,000
8. Sam Trickett – 134,900
9. Bernardo Dias – 131,800
10. Gilbert Diaz – 130,800
2015 European Poker Tour Malta Main Event – Overall Day 1 Chip Leaders
1. Evangelos Tsairis – 180,300
2. Max Silver – 176,100
3. Ignat Liviu – 161,900
4. Kyle Hendry – 155,000
5. Nir Levy – 150,000
6. Noah Vaillancourt – 146,100
7. Thomas Berends – 144,200
8. Matthieu Rodriguez – 139,700
9. Alexander Ivarsson – 138,300
10. Rudolf Zintel – 135,000
11. Moritz Dietrich – 135,000
12. Sam Trickett – 134,900
