Day 1B of the IPT Main Event has reached the halfway point and all the final numbers for the event are in.

By the close of registration today a massive 718 players had taken their seats (number to be confirmed), and added to yesterday, means the event total is 942 players. That's down on the 1,285 the last IPT Malta attracted in March but, considering the amount of choice open to players in Europe right now, is an extremely encouraging number. The prize pool informational will be published on the blog just as soon as the information is released to us.

Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari was a latecomer, as were: Chris Brammer, Salvarore Bonavena, Luca Moschitta, Emil Patel, Martin Staszko,Ondrej Vinklarek, Dany Parlafes, Luciana Manolea, Sabina Hiatullah, Dermot Blain, Eoghan O`Dea, Ludovic Geilich and Polish popstar Wojciech Lozowski.

Around 560 players remain after six levels and, as far as we're aware, no player has passed that 100,000-mark yet. Those getting closest include: Josep Galindo (89,000), Andrea Cannizzaro, (88,000), Puk Nabuurs (86,000), and Markam Saber (80,000).

Those who can only dream about having those chips, because they don'y have any include: PokerStars Mind Sports Ambassador Jen Shahade, Anton Wigg, Jorryt van Hoof, Gordon Huntly, Steven van Zadelhoff, Simon Deadman, Neil Strike, Patrick Leonard, Fabio Lombardi, Sergey Sergeev, Oskar Szwed, Matias Riesco, Nader Alred, Daniele Sacchi and the locally based Sofia Lovgren.

The 20k Boys Club

Down to 20k after this hand! 👎 #IPTMalta https://t.co/91CLn1NzQS

— Luca Moschitta (@LucaMoschitta) October 22, 2015

I'd like 2 say my spin from 6k->20k was down 2 a coffee pep talk w @daraokearney but it prob had more 2 do w spiking an 8-outer😛. #IPTMalta

— ♠️ David K Lappin ♠️ (@DKLAPPIN) October 22, 2015

When David Lappin spoke to the blog earlier in the day, he partly explained how his stack got low:

"I flopped two pair, less than flopped better two pair; straight less than flush and trips less than trips. So, I've had a few car crashes! Luckily, being 250 bigs deep, I only lost around a quarter of my stack each time."

Who want to be Part of the €25k tomorrow?

A super sat for tomorrow's €25k is currently under way. Started at 4pm and there 28 entries so far including Dominik Panka, Joni Jouhkimainen, Juha Helppi and Rasmus Agerskov , Theo jorgensen, Adrian Mateos, Sergio Aido, Aliaksei Boika, Christopher Frank and Antonio Buonanno. It's a €3k rebuy sat and registration closes at 6:15pm.

For full details of the tournaments on offer, and when you can register for them, click here.

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Updates provided by Marc Convey, with photos coming from René Velli and
Tomáš Stacha.