Cast your mind back to March of this year and the EPTs first visit to Malta. It'd been some time since a brand new stop had been added to the tour and the EPT wasn't the only event in town that week. As well as the EPT festival there was the stand alone Global Poker Masters.

It comprised of eight teams of six players representing Italy, Russia, United States of America, Germany, Canada, Ukraine, France and the United Kingdom and there's no polite way of saying this, but nobody gave Italy a chance. But, if history teaches us anything about Italian teams it's that they're at their best when they're written off. They weren't fancied before the 1982 or 2006 Soccer World Cup's but lifted the trophy on both occasions and they made a mockery of their 22/1 odds in Malta to defeat Russia heads-up to win the inaugural Global Poker Masters.

Whilst this was poker as a team effort if there was one player key to the Italian's victory it was Giuliano Bendinelli. He accumulated more points then any other player on the first day of the event and also took heads-up scalp in the quarter-final. He was rightfully voted the MVP of the tournament, a personal triumph that was somewhat forgotten due to this being one of the few occasions where poker wasn't about the individual.

Since then Bendinelli has racked up another eight cashes, including one cash already here in Malta, in the €300 Malta Cup. During the dinner break we spotted him doing a interview to camera for one of the many media here in Malta. Unfortunately his Main Event is now over though as he four-bet shoved for around 25 big blinds with [Qs][Js] only to run into Thomas Muehloecker's aces.

Everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the side event coverage can be found here. Earlier today Mike McDonald and took down the €25,000 High Roller whilst Natan Chauskin prevailed in the IPT Main Event.

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A total of 947 players turned up a few days ago to play the IPT Main Event, and here on a Sunday evening, just one man was left standing. Natan Chauskin defeated Govert Metaal in a relatively short heads up battle to claim the trophy and €149,560.

Chauskin entered the day as clear chip leader and, taking that stat (alone) into account, was expected to win. Metaal came in to the final table as the short stack so was never expected to get as far as he did, so can be very proud of his achievement.

Asked if he was happy and expected to win, he responded with, "Yes, very, and I came to win, and I was sure I would. When back in Belorussia, we were in a bar with our team and my coach, Jenya Gavrilovich, winner of EPT12 Barcelona €2k, asked me, when shooting a video, "What about this IPT Malta?" and I said: "I'm going to win it! Go there and win it for sure!" This is what happened, so I can say I was just looking forward to it."

He went on to say, "It's not the amount of money that changes my life, and plus, I don't play just for the money, I play to become a sportstar, because poker is a sport, where the competition is the most important thing. I will play the EPT Main Event tomorrow and win it too!"

The final hand saw Metaal three-bet all in with pocket fives and Chauskin call after he had raised with king-queen. The Belorussian took the lead when he turned top pair and victory was confirmed when he improved to a flush on the river.

Meetal won the €10,000 High Roller event at EPT Campione back is Season 8 and was so close to claiming a second major trophy on tour. The €124,080 he won today tops the €110,000 he won back in 2008 and, after the tournament had ended, he had this to say on both achievements, "The field was harder here so this result is more valuable to me."

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Day 3 started with two quick eliminations and a bustout (on average) every 12 minutes throughout the day, whereas today it took around two hours for the first player to bust. Denis Timofeev, short stacked at the time, made his move with pocket fours but failed to stay ahead of Chauskins ace-jack. The Belorussian only took five more minutes to claim another scalp and this time he didn't event need coin-flip odds to get the job done. After raising with ace-seven, he called James Grogan's shove with big slick and rivered a seven.

They say bad things come in threes and Tobias Garp will agree with that sentiment. He three-bet all in with pocket sevens after Metaal -who was midway through his rush up the leader board - had raised with pocket aces. An easy call and an ace high board later saw Garp leave stage-central. A period of consolidation followed before the second Dutch representative at the final table, Joep Raemaekers, was given his marching orders. He moved all in with jack-eight suited from the button but Chris Brammer, and his pocket queens, lay in wait in the small blind.

The furthest end of the tournament room is presently occupied by three final tables--in the €25,000 High Roller, the Malta Cup and the €500 Turbo--as well as the last two tables in the €2,000 IPT High Roller. It's the kind of place you'd expect to see Dzmitry Urbanovich given his track record, but he busted the High Roller before the money and didn't enter the other three.

However, moments ago, Urbanovich was indeed spotted wandering into that area and taking a seat on the photographer's set reserved for winner's photos. In most cases this would have seemed presumptuous, but as far as Urbanovich is concerned, it was probably just a time-saving device. Might as well get the photo done in readiness for inevitable victory, huh?

Well actually, Urbanovich wasn't acting out of turn. Outside the gaze of almost everybody in Malta, Urbanovich had taken a seat this afternoon in the €5,000 Mixed Games event, featuring 2-7 single draw, 2-7 double draw, no limit hold'em and PLO.

Before he was the tournament beast that he has so rapidly become, Urbanovich was known as a mixed game specialist, so this was right up his street. The tournament only actually attracted five players, so they were straight to the final, but Urbanovich still needed to defeat three Finns (Jussi Nevalinna, Sampo Ryynanen and Jyri Merivirta) and Great Britain's Adam Owen to prevail.

He picked up €15,760 for his title--the fifth he has won in Malta in this calendar year. I'm assuming he brought a bigger bag to the island this time around. He had a hell of a job getting the four trophies home last time.

(Merivirta finished second, for €8,490.)

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

I didn't know until reading it this month that Charles Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop is a novel about gambling addiction. It really is. Little Nell and her grandfather are required to flee the titular emporium because of gambling debts, and the novel has a couple of scenes of card-playing that must be among the earliest in English literature.

Dickens was a peerless observer of humanity, both timeless and prescient in a lot of what he saw. His descriptions of the card table are characteristically astute and when he wrote of the players in a game in the Valiant Soldier public house that "there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything but their cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no greater show of passion or excitement than if they had been made of stone", he might easily have been writing about the final table of the Malta Cup.

They are down to five players in that particular jamboree and it is playing out in the furthest, darkest corner of the main tournament room. There is no conversation whatever between the final five, and the only indication that they are not indeed made of stone comes when they are forced to post blinds or declare betting intentions, or occasionally skittering to talk to friends on the rail.

For all that, it's a cosmopolitan affair, with players from Austria, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Poland and Hungary, and some fascinating end-game strategy being applied by each of them.

Roman Skudar, Neil Ryder and David Breitfuss are very closely grouped at the top of the chip ladder, with around 4 million each (blinds 60,000-120,000). But when I arrived, Grzegorz Wyraz and Andras Stumpf were in desperate danger, each with only about eight big blinds.

In the traditional sense, Stumpf had position on Wyraz, i.e., Stumpf was to Wyraz's left. But in the particular circumstances, Wyraz was making the most of the fact that he was able to get his chips in the pot first and moved all in twice when he was in early position, folding only when Breitfuss and Ryder wanted to play a pot when he was in the big blind.

Wyraz then open-shoved from the small blind, forcing Stumpf to fold his big blind, and then open-shoved again from the button, again getting it through.

The hand between Breitfuss and Ryder threatened to be one of those dreams for the short stacks. Both Wyraz and Stumpf looked on with glee after the Austrian opened to 250,000 and Ryder three bet to 500,000. Breitfuss called and they saw a flop of [4h][4s][ah]. Check, check.

Breitfuss check-called Ryder's bet of 375,000 on the [8s] turn, then they both checked again on the [kc] river. Breitfuss's [as][js] beat Ryder's [9d][9h], with both men realising it would be very foolish to get knocked out with the shorties still at the table.

The blinds went up to 80,000-160,000 and Wyraz again started shoving every hand. He managed to get his stack up to more than 2 million in the process, without ever being called, and was even able to push Ryder out of a pot when Ryder opened the button and Wyraz shoved from the big blind.

Stumpf was frustrated. He had dwindled all the way to four big blinds, obviously finding no appropriate spot to get his chips in. Eventually when he did jam, it was scarcely appropriate too: he had only [tc][7d] when he decided to defend his big blind against Ryder's open.

Ryder had [ac][Ts], but was certainly somewhat more animated than previously when the flop fell [8s][9h][5d]. That gave Stumpf an open-ended straight draw, which didn't get filled on the [2d] turn. But the [jc] was one of Stumpf's outs and he doubled back to eight bigs.

Down they all sat again and turned back to stone.

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

6:20pm: Metaal doubles first hand back
When Govert Metaal has needed help today, the deck has come to his rescue.

He moved all in for 1,320,000 from the small blind and was called Natan Chauskin to set up a showdown.

Metaal: [ad][kh]
Chauskin: [as][9h]

The board ran [8h][jd][jh][qc][4d] to send the chips the Dutchman's way.
6:10pm: Play resumes
The final three players are back in their seats. Here's how the chip stacks stand at the beginning of level 31:

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

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

The PokerStars Live Manila poker room at City of Dreams Manila held its final day of the P1 Million Guaranteed Main Event with 66 players returning to the felt. After seven hours of play, Filipino player David Erquiaga bested them all to claim the championship trophy.

Prior to today's activities, the past two days saw a combined total of 368 entries fill the seats to capacity bringing the prize pool to PHP1,570,624, well above the guarantee. With only 36 getting paid, it was no surprise to see heavy action early.

As soon as the cards were in the air, players immediately fell to the wayside starting with Japanese player In Sin who was one of the players already at the bottom part of the ladder. Immediately after, more short stacks joined him making it difficult to keep up with who busted who and what happened.

The short stacks were not the only ones hitting the rail, several big stacks also saw their stacks getting pummeled. One of them was Korea's Young Chull Kim who was one of the day's chip leaders. Kim lost a big pot when a full house toppled his straight.

The bubble burst when one of the Asia Player of Year top contenders, Yang Zhang (China), was eliminated by the highly exuberant Luke Pangan. Zhang shoved with his [ad][9d] but Pangan's pocket tens held up sending Zhang to the rail without any pay.

With the remaining players now seeing a profit, the tournament continued in turbo mode. The overall chip leader coming into the day, Filipino poker pro Jessie Leonarez was one of those who surprisingly busted out immediately after the bubble.

The final table of nine was decided when Filipino player Noel Araniel eliminated Nicholas Gorman with his pocket aces staying strong the whole way against Gorman's pocket kings. Araniel entered the final table as the only player having crossed the million-mark.

At the final table, Archie Mariano and Justin Worth were running very hot. Overall, they both caused the most damage to the field by claiming three victims each. Mariano's first victim was Filipino poker pro Mike Takayama. Takayama was also the first player to be eliminated at the table. Worth's first victim was Araniel who fell right after Takayama.

When the table eventually downsized to four players namely, Pangan, Worth, Mariano, and Erquiaga, they tried to strike a deal but to no success. Action then continued with Pangan eliminated by Worth's pair of ducks. At three-handed, Mariano quickly doubled up with his [as][ks] against Worth's [kh][jc] and took the chip lead away. After a short break, the players discussed a deal again and this time came to an agreement. All that was left was to play for the value added package and the trophy.

Worth quickly jumped back into the leader's seat when he doubled up with his pocket queens against Mariano's [ad][4s] but it was short-lived. Mariano immediately retaliated and reclaimed all his chips (and more) from Worth with his pocket aces. Worth fell further when his [qc][th] doubled up Erquiaga's [js][jd], and was unable to survive with his very short stack. Mariano put an end to Worth's day and it was heads up.

The heads up action saw Mariano ahead with 3.4M to Erquiaga's 2.1M chips. As the trend of the day, it was still fast and action packed. Erquiaga won almost all the pots between them, and in just fifteen minutes, Mariano was fighting for his tournament life. Mariano was all in with [8d][6c] for an open ended on a board of [7d][5h][7h]. Erquiaga had trips with [7s][6d]. The turn of [kc] and river of [tc] were of no help to Mariano and with that, Erquiaga took the championship.

Congratulations to David Erquiaga! He earned PHP237,400, Main Event trophy, and the P100,000 Macau Poker Cup package. Erquiaga also won the first side event, the P200,000 Guarantee. Great payday for Erquiaga at the P1M Guarantee series!

P1M Guarantee Main Event
Total entries: 368
Total prize pool: PHP1,570,624
Payouts: 36 (in PHP)
1st - David Jansen Erquiaga - Philippines - 247,400 (deal made)
2nd - Archie Mariano - Philippines - 281,000 (deal made)
3rd - Justin Worth - Australia - 231,524 (deal made)
4th - Christopher Luke Pangan - Philippines - 124,000
5th - Ashley de Guzman - Philippines - 93,600
6th - John Sayo - Philippines - 68,400
7th - Ernesto Camerino - Philippines - 53,200
8th - Noel Araniel - Philippines - 44,900
9th - Mike Takayama - Philippines - 29,700
10th - Nicholas Gorman - United States -
11th - Raul Aquino - Philippines - 25,100
12th - Man Ho John So -Hong Kong - 25,100
13th - Mansueto Padernal - Philippines - 20,500
14th - Joseroy Jeremial Jr. - Philippines - 20,500
15th - Alan King Lun Lau - Hong Kong - 20,500
16th - Fritjof Per Jonas Torstensson - Sweden - 16,700
17th - Kunal Shetty -India - 16,700
18th - Daisy Wain - Philippines - 16,700
19th - Hyung Jin Chun - Canada - 13,700
20th - John Riad - Denmark - 13,700
21st -Eugene Co - Philippines - 13,700
22nd - Timothy de Leon - Philippines - 12,200
23rd - Delfino Ty - Philippines - 12,200
24th - Roden Munoz - Philippines - 12,200
25th - Steven Chua - Philippines - 10,600
26th - Nickolai Alexandrov - United States - 10,600
27th - Bernard Camposanto - Philippines - 10,600
28th - Soo Jo Kim - Korea - 9,900
29th - Pasi Heinanen - Finland - 9,900
30th - Rommel Orbigo - Philippines - 9,900
31st - Jessie Leonarez - Philippines - 9,900
32nd - Joven Huerto - Philippines - 9,900
33rd - Masayasu Tomiyama - Japan - 9,900
34th - Jae Chul Chang - Korea - 9,900
35th - Anthony Gabitan - Philippines - 9,900
36th - Myoungsoo Koh - Korea - 9,900

If you missed the live action of the final day/final table, just head to the P1 Million: Final Day Updates to read up on some of those we were able to witness.

Side Events Results

Event 4: Deep Stack Hyper Turbo Freezeout
Entries: 15
Prize pool: PHP130,950
Payouts: 3 (in PHP)
1st- Nicolas Noguera - France - 70,450
2nd- Do Kweun Kim - Korea - 36,300
3rd- Daryl Green - Philippines - 24,200

Event 5: KO Bounty (P200,000 Guarantee)
Entries: 127
Prize pool: PHP207,518
Payouts: 12 (in PHP) (additional P63,500 awarded in bounties)
1st- Wendell Garcia- Philippines - 52,300
2nd- Jiayi Sun - China - 35,300
3rd- Man Ho John So - Hong Kong - 23,700
4th- Scott Davies - United States - 18,800
5th- Jerez Mercado - Philippines - 14,800
6th- Muge Dizerkonca - Turkey - 12,800
7th- Kunal Shetty - India - 10,900
8th- Hamid Hamzavian - Australia - 8,900
9th- Peter Uy - Philippines - 6,900
10th- Christopher Mateo - Philippines - 4,818
11th- Tin Fu Trajano - Philippines - 4,000
12th- Zhinning Chen - China - 4,000

It's a profoundly bitter experience to bubble a major poker tournament, particularly after more than two days' work. And so few people could blame Charbel Salloum for scooting out the door the minute he learned he had been eliminated during hand-for-hand play on the €2,000 IPT High Roller bubble.

The dealer at Salloum's table tried to get him to stay, but for whatever reason Salloum wasn't interested. Off he went. However, the dealer wasn't intending to cast him into some absurdist administrative nightmare, as he possibly feared. Rather the dealer wanted to let Salloum know that another player, Filippo Lazzaretto, was also all in on another table and he too was facing elimination.

Salloum was due half of the payout for 56th place, but wasn't anywhere to be seen.

All of this information was relayed second hand by one of the tournament officials (PokerStars Blog was regrettably not in attendance). It was a truncated conversation, however, because the tournament official had to scurry away and join the search for Salloum.

"The other guy [meaning Lazzaretto] was asking whether he was going to get all of it," the official said. "But the first guy [meaning Salloum] has to get it. That's the rules."

Soon enough, Salloum was located. Mercifully, he had not opted to throw himself into the sea after his painful elimination, nor had he scooted all the way to the airport and back to Lebanon. He was eventually dragged kicking and screaming (metaphorically) back to the cash table where he was given €1,918 for finishing in what was deemed officially to be 56th place, while Lazzaretto got €1,917 for 55th.

That left the remaining players in the money. It was a gathering that included the esteemed likes of Steve O'Dwyer, Yann Dion, Michael Tureniec and Leo Margets.

The latter was a short stack and so, as the first break of the day approached, things were a little anxious. Margets' Red Spade friend and colleague, Fatima Moreira de Melo, had popped by to rail the Team PokerStars Pro, but Moreira de Melo had become distracted by a conversation with Jorryt van Hoof.

Unbeknownst to Moreira de Melo, Margets was in the process of moving all in. Jesper Feddersen, with a stack of similar size, pondered the call and then decided to make it, tabling [as][td]. Margets flipped [7h][7d].

"You need to be calling for a seven," Margets said, interrupting the two Dutch pros' conversation.
"Oh f---," Moreira de Melo said, immediately fulfilling every expectation the world has of the potty-mouthed pro.

But Moreira de Melo had accurately summed up the mood, especially after a [ts] appeared on the flop. The board then ran [kd][ks][6c][kc] and at least Margets was able to say that she lost boat under boat.

Away the rest of the field went for a break. There are fewer than 40 left now, and no Red Spades among them.

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