Poker may be the American game in origin but it's truly the world's game these days. Think of it as the mental game version of football (soccer), kind of. Even though, here in Malta, we're at a European Poker Tour stop, players have come from all over the world to take part.

Take table 25 for instance. Six players have taken their seats so far, and the five that we recognise, all hail from different countries, from the farthest-flung places on earth.

Seat 1. Fatima Moreira de Melo. The Team PokerStars SportStar comes from the Netherlands.

Seat 2. Doug Lee. A Las Vegas-based professional poker player who's playing his first EPT event.

Seat 3. Simon Trumper. Card room manager and poker player from the United Kingdom.

Seat 4. Yann Dion. A professional poker player from Quebec, Canada.

Seat 6. Benjamin Richardson. Another professional poker player who originates from Tasmania, Australia.

Five different countries across three different continents are represented from that group of players and all have been brought together in a country that none of them hail from. One of the magic things about the game of poker is that's it's a leveller. It doesn't matter what country you're from, what you wear, what you believe in - every one sits down with 30,000 chips and get two cards at a time to do their best with.

Table Conversations

If you've followed the EPT coverage - either via blogs or EPTLive - you'll already know that Moreira de Melo likes to talk. For her, the game is as much about interacting with players as it is about the competition. Arriving at the table, she was already in full-flow with Trumper, who was offering her sightseeing advice for Melbourne, a city that she wants to visit in January for APPT Aussie Millions.

"Make sure you do the Great Ocean Rd," he suggested. "It's beautiful and the best time to do it, is at sunset."

One might not go to poker players for advice about a lot of things; but travel advice is certainly a subject they can advise on. The job requires them to travel the globe, and often, they have a lot of time on their hands to discover all a city has to offer.

"I like Australians and I want to go," said Moreira de Melo, "I just got to figure out the flying: Holland to the Bahamas to Melbourne. How do I do that? What route should I take?"

"Maybe via LA," contributed Richardson. "Straight over the ocean," he responded to Moreira de Melo when she dug further in the route options from the PCA.

"But how so I book all the flights?" she asked. "I want to book them all at the same time."

"Buy a round the world ticket," suggested Trumper. "That's what I do and I get to stop in five cities."

"It's easy these days," said Dion, entering the conversation. "Online, it's easy to book multiple flights."

"Oh really?" Responded an attentive Moreira de Melo. "That's really cool, I'll do that!"

Lee was sat there listening to the conversation unfold and seemed aware he couldn't really contribute. "This is my first ever EPT," he said in hushed tones. "I live in Las Vegas and never really travel."

"You like Malta?" asked Trumper who was close enough to hear him.

"I like it here," responded Lee. Hopefully the conversations surrounding him will inspire him to travel more.

From there, the table conversation got back to the wonders of Australia and Moreira de Melo talked about her time representing Holland at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where she felted trapped in the Olympic Village. It sounds as if she really needs to play the Aussie Millions and see a bit more of the fabulous country. Keep an eye out for her in our coverage of that festival, to see if she finally returns to Australia after a 15-year absence.

Everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the side event coverage can be found here.

Begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS

Another day, another high roller. This time it's a €10,000 buy-in, with one optional re-entry and to make sure there's plenty of room at the table play will never be more than eight handed.

Unlike the other high roller events at this festival this one will be done and dusted in a single day or at least try to be, the equivalent event at EPT12 Barcelona had to be extended to two days due to its popularity. Whilst it's not exactly a a turbo event, to try and facilitate the event finishing within the one day allotted players start with just 100 big blinds and the levels last just 30 minutes.

The roots of the big buy-in event on Day 1B of the Main Event can be traced back to this very stop of the tour. Back in March the organisers scheduled a €5K re-buy, won of course by Dzmitry Urbanovich, and it proved a hit. So at the Grand Final there was a 'one day 50K' and then in Barcelona a €25,000 event that Neymar Jr rocked up to and was, eventually, won by Martin Finger.

The German is amongst the 41 players to have turned up for the opening level of the Malta edition and although it's got some way to go to reach the 118 entrants (and 34 re-entries) that we had in Barcelona, with late registration open until the start of level nine it could well run it close.

In an event of this magnitude it's often easier to tell you about the players who aren't well known, but there are some tasty tables already forming as you can see below:

Table 1: Daniel Dvoress, Martin Finger, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Senh Ung, Dominik Panka, Johnny Lodden
Table 2: Christoph Vogelsang, Roberto Romanello, Paul Newey, Steve O'Dwyer, Ole Schemion, Ike Haxton
Table 3: Stephen Chidwick, Juha Helppi, David Yan, Sam Greenwood, Scott Seiver, Jeff Rossiter, Dan Smith, Jason Mercier
Table 4: Christopher Frank, Ben Heath, Shaun Deeb, Charlie Carrel, David Peters, Vicente Delgado, Justin Bonomo

If there's a lesson to be learned from this it's that if you're on the fence about which starting day to play in the Main Event then choose Day 1B, you'll avoid that lot!

Everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the side event coverage can be found here.

Begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS

We may have hit upon something significant in Malta late last night: a way to ensure poker tournaments that seem certain to run until at least breakfast get finished at a (relatively) decent hour.

After all the agonising over what to do with the final of the €2,000 IPT High Roller, and whether to reconvene on Tuesday or Wednesday should the clock tick past four o'clock, six of the remaining seven players at the time of the discussion were eliminated within about three hours. They crowned a champion at round about 3am.

That man was Darrell Goh, an Irish player who was railed to victory by a hardy band of friends also from the British Isles, who also managed (in time-honoured fashion) to keep the waiting staff busy as they watch Goh prevail. They were all still there at the end to give Goh to bumps as they crowded into his winner's photo.

In only July, Goh was tweeting, "Cashed my first live tournament". Three months later and he was able to say, "#IPT High Roller shipped #sundayfunday".

It was actually an all British Isles affair at the end, with everybody friends with everyone else. Agshin Rasulov, a high-roller specialist from Azerbaijan, was the short stack when they went on what would be the last break of the day. He was quickly gobbled up leaving Goh to square off against Shola Akindele, from Leeds in the UK, who was last seen around a final table at the World Series of Poker this summer and was continuing a run of decent form.

Akindele had her supporters too, most prominently her husband Simon Deadman, and it was Deadman first with the news when the game was over. "Lost AK v QQ to finish 2nd #soproud," Deadman tweeted, explaining how come a deep-stacked heads up battle was concluded so soon.

Yes, queens against ace-king is always going to get things done.

So it was that both Goh and Akindele secured the highest tournament scores of their careers: €151,670 for Goh and €96,160 for Deadman. They crowded into the same winner's photo at the end to celebrate a combined €250,000 payday.

And best of all: some of the bars were still open too when it all ended, allowing them all to head off and continue the party.

The full results will be posted on the side events results page in due course.

Two players walk into the Sunday Warm-Up final table with the same avatar but only one could possibly win. The final table of the $425,000 guarantee Sunday Major was highlighted by a three-time Major champ "all in 2526" and a pair of Germans (r0ckyd0nky and Bunkervogel8) who were looking to claim their first. Bunkervogel8 and all in 2526 did not complete the journey to the winner's circle as r0ckyd0nky would face MuckCallOK heads-up for the title.

MuckCallOk would outlast r0ckyd0nky and the 2,294 player field to win this week's Sunday Warm-Up and $72,522.00

It would take under eight hours to reach the final two tables as Murilo "muka_gaming" Ruiz (a former Sunday Kickoff champ) was asked to leave in 18th place one hand before the eighth hourly break. Directly after the break on the opposite table, back-to-back eliminations of CajabaTight (16th place) and JamoDaKing69 (17th place), both earning $1,698.30, gave a boost to finding our weekly champion.

akmuri (United Kingdom), steinvik90 (Norway), and øøøøøøø (Czech Republic) would all perish from the tournament tables in 15 minutes after the break bringing the population down to 12.

25 minutes later after intense hand-for-hand play, one player would not make the trip to the spotlights. With the blinds up to 30K/60K ante 6K vovanmillion and marko130754 would make it to the river after action on each street and the board showing [9s] [2c] [4d] [4c] [Th]. Vovanmillion made a valiant dive for the big pot by shoving 1.19 million holding just ace-high [Jc][As]. But, marko130754 covered was not letting go of queens [Qs][Qh], eliminating vovanmillion and starting up the final table below:

Seat 1: flashdisastr (1413608 in chips)
Seat 2: r0ckyd0nky (3288179 in chips)
Seat 3: all in 2526 (2508766 in chips)
Seat 4: minddani (1091615 in chips)
Seat 5: v587nt (2730478 in chips)
Seat 6: MuckCallOK (1948908 in chips)
Seat 7: marko130754 (4992137 in chips)
Seat 8: eddymaksoud (2672912 in chips)
Seat 9: Bunkervogel8 (2303397 in chips)

Immediately marko130754 went looking for chips with a min-raise as r0ckyd0nky and minddani made the call. However, after the [Qd][Tc][8c] flop, marko130754 could not stand the heat after a bet by r0ckyd0nky and shortstack shove by minddani. R0ckyd0nky had enough artillery (a set of eights [8h][8s]) to make the call dominating minddani's unfortunate top pair [Qh][Ks]. The sevens on the [7s] turn and river [7h] changed nothing as minddani earned $3,901.50 in ninth place.

If you took a look at the final table avatar's and chip leaders after the first hour of final table play, Bunkervogel8 and r0ckyd0nky showed to be German twins both trying to take the $72,522.00 first place prize. In June, r0ckyd0nky chopped the Sunday Million after a three-way deal earning $117K in third place. Bunkervogel8 nearly snagged a SCOOP watch this year in Event #9-H also taking third for $159K. Both are lined up for taking down this Major title.

Bunkervogel8's drive for a Major title would need to wait because after the break a one-two punch left the German out of the running. V587nt had a decision to make, call all-in over Bunkervogel8's four-bet shove with jacks [Jd][Jc] or fold leaving 1.8 million behind with blinds at 50K/100K ante 10K. The answer was a call and v587nt looked up to Bunkervogel8's aces [Ac][Ad]. But, a jack on the flop [Tc] [Js] [9h] [5c] [7c] changed everything as Bunkervogel8 was knocked down to 781K. Those chips would slide to r0ckyd0nky on the next hand finishing the tournament in eighth place ($6,655.50).

Three minutes later with the blinds holding, all in 2526 tried to improve on a shorten stack of 1.06 million shoving [Kc][Td] as MuckCallOK shoved for a little bit more with nines [9c][9d]. The pair would hold on the [3d] [2h] [Jh] [2d] [3s] board as two-time Super Tuesday AND Sunday Million champ all in 2526 was all out in seventh place ($11,245.50).

Continuing the fast pace of the ninth hour, just ten minutes later with the blinds moving up to 65K/130K ante 13K eddymaksoud tried to improve on a dire tournament situation shoving 699K over a min-raise by marko130754 with [Ad][Th]. Marko130754's [Jc][Ks] found a call and a straight on the [Tc] [Qs] [7c] [6s] [9s] board as eddymaksoud received $15,835.50 in sixth place. Eddy Maksoud also likes to play live as seen in the picture below from the recent EPT11 Deauville stop but will need to wait until next week for another shot at this Sunday Major.

The ninth hour action did not stop there as this massive 9.5 million chip hand would give the table its first towering chip leader. With the blinds moving up to 80K/160K ante 16K MuckCallOk check-called marko130754 all the way through the [Qh] [9c] [Qc] [8d] [8h] board. After a 2.9 million chip shove by marko130754, MuckCallOk showed the queen [6h][Qs] as marko130754 bold bluff [7s][9h] failed to impress, leaving in fifth place ($20,425.50).

R0ckyd0nky's run for the title got a little boost thanks to flashdisastr. Still in the 80K/160K ante 16K blind level, flashdisastr holding big slick [Kc][As] would shove 3.2 million over a leading raise by r0ckyd0nky. Pocket tens [Td][Th] were up to the challenge as r0ckyd0nky made the call and safely weaved through the [6h] [7c] [9d] [2d] [4h] board to eliminate flashdisastr in fourth place ($26,851.50).

Despite a couple of quick peeps for chop talks, nothing materialized as the final table seemed content at this moment to play it out as all three would make it to the tenth hourly break:

MuckCallOK (Austria) 9,817,385 chips
r0ckyd0nky (Germany) 8,109,317 chips
v587nt (China) 5,023,298 chips

The shortstacked v587nt tried to dig out of the chip cellar but MuckCallOK and r0ckyd0nky were too determined to face each other heads-up. Finally with the blinds up to 125K/250K ante 25K and v587nt whittled down to 1.83 million, the shortstack shoved pocket tens [Td][Th] from the small blind as MuckCallOK made the big stack call holding [6c][Kc]. A king in the middle of the [3h] [Ad] [Kh] [4d] [7c] board sent v587nt off in third place ($39,015.00).

Despite starting heads-up play nearly even we would crown a new Sunday Warm-up champ in just 11 minutes. Mostly thanks to MuckCallOk taking down the first five hands and extending the lead to 17.5 million to 5.4 million.

After the blinds moved up to 150K/300K ante 30K r0ckyd0nky now nursing 4.9 million chips would raise to 615K as MuckCallOk called to see the [2s][Qh][4s] flop. Both checked as the [Jd] hit the turn. MuckCallOk broke the silence with an 800K bet and r0ckyd0nky called. [3d] river and MuckCallOk shoved as r0ckyd0nky had a decision with a pair of fours [Ah][4d]. The German made the call to see MuckCallOk's top pair [9s][Qs] take down this week's Sunday Warm-Up and earn $72,522.00!

PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up results (10-25-2015)

Entrants: 2,295
Places paid: 342
Prize pool: $459,000.00

1. MuckCallOK (Austria) $72,522.00
2. r0ckyd0nky (Germany) $54,469.53
3. v587nt (China) $39,015.00
4. flashdisastr (Luxembourg) $26,851.50
5. marko130754 (Switzerland) $20,425.50
6. eddymaksoud (Lebanon) $15,835.50
7. all in 2526 (Israel) $11,245.50
8. Bunkervogel8 (Germany) $6,655.50
9. minddani (Switzerland) $3,901.50

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Day 1As often just tick along. This felt like a text book version of it. The eight levels of the Main Event's opening day passed while surrounded by other events today, the preamble to a story that will get interesting later this week, but which today was all about bedding in.

Some 184 players took a seat today. They were the early-arrivers, those wishing to avoid the larger field of Day 1B, and those with plans to play the single day high roller event tomorrow. By the close tonight 114 remained, led at the bell by the little known Carmleo Crucitti.

Carmelo Crucitti

Others were within reach of him, with Mikko Turtiainen, Noah Villancourt and Ferdinand Le Pichon the closest, each ending the day with good stacks for their return on Tuesday for Day 2. Nothing is won today but it was job done as far as their working day was concerned.

Some of the players who made it through today.

Meanwhile the list of eliminations grew by the hour, some big hitters among them. Benjamin Pollak, Martin Finger, and Ben Willonofsky made their way to the rail, as did Connor Drinan, John Juanda, Marvin Rettenmeier (who we featured earlier today), Paul Newey, Stephen Chidwick, Ole Schemion, Shaun Deeb and Vladimir Troyanovskiy.

Christopher Frank was unable to build on his High Roller cash from yesterday, while countryman Fedor Holz is out. One suspects an appointment with the single day high roller, starting tomorrow, awaits many of not all of them.

It was not all about the Main Event today, which took place surrounded by multiple tournaments each coming to a close.

Mike McDonald won the High Roller event, picking up his first High Roller title and a winner's check of more than €498,000. You can read the full story here.

There was also a win for Natan Chauskin in the IPT Main Event, one worth XXX to the Belarussian who was understandably delighted with the result, as he explained to the blog. Read that story in full here.

You'll find all the festival results from Malta on our side events page, while hand for hand coverage from the Main Event can be found here.
Play from the EPT Malta festival continues tomorrow with Day 1B of the Main Event, as well as the single day high roller. Join us then.

Apologies for the technical problems on the Blog today. Normal service should resume shortly.

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It's just gone 11pm and it's time for a packed side event round-up. We have a champion in the Malta Cup; we're at a final in the IPT €2,000 High Roller; there are three tables left in the seniors and the Dealer's Choice is on a dinner break. There you have it. Goodnight!

OK, OK, I'll flesh it out a bit.

So, last time we dropped in on the Malta Cup, there were five players left and a couple of short-stack ninjas somehow managing to navigate the choppy waters of a shallow-stacked EPT tournament end-game.

To bring you up to date: Andras Stumpf's comeback didn't last all that long. Although he doubled to eight big blinds when we were last watching, he still went out in fifth for €12,050. However Grzegorz Wyraz enjoyed a spectacular comeback from his own five-handed difficulties. He only had about eight big blinds of his own at one point, but put them to excellent use and watched Neil Ryder and David Breitfuss bust in fourth and third, leaving him heads up with Roman Skudar.

Skudar was by far the least active player when things were getting messy five-handed, but he had the most chips so could afford to be circumspect. He eventually proved to be the immovable object to Wyraz's irresistible force and claimed the title and the €48,155 first prize. Wyraz took €29,320 for second.

The full results will be over on the Side Events Results Page very soon.

Back to the IPT High Roller and the remaining nine players are now crowded around one table. There is no huge stack among the final nine, but it seems that Michael Tureniec, the former EPT champion, is probably ahead. He has a stack of about 1.9 million, with blinds at 12,000-24,000. So yes, there's a lot of play still in that one.

The second most recognisable player at the table is Kiryl Radzivonau, the man otherwise known as Angry Moron. Radzivonau made the final table of the EPT Main Event in Barcelona last season and is back chasing a six-figure score again.

The plan is to play to a conclusion tonight, but I'm not sure it will be possible. These €2,000 High Rollers have had a habit of creeping into a third day.

The €200 Senior's Event has 19 players remaining, spread across three tables. The intention there is to play to a winner also, but that too could be postponed. Fifteen players will be paid, so they have a bubble to play through too before they can think about shrinking to a final and then a winner.

As I dropped by Jackie "Poker Mama" Cachia was all in with her tournament life on the line. She had pocket tens and had been called by ace-king. She wrapped her knuckles on the table when a king came on the flop, but a ten fell on the river to keep her alive.

"I love you," she told the dealer.

The eight-handed dealer's choice tournament is also under way. There are nine left, meaning they're still on two tables -- actually more, if I'm honest. They're on a dinner break, so are probably scattered across the tables of Portomaso.

Everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the hand-by-hand coverage of the €25,000 High Roller is on the €25,000 High Roller page and everything from the IPT Main Event is on the IPT Main Event page.

No really, begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS