The PokerStars European Poker Tour Malta €5,300 Main Event is shaping up to be one for the record books. A total of 898 entries created a prize pool of €4,355,300, the largest in EPT Malta history, with the winner set to receive €760,000.
Roman Stoica ended Day 2 as the chip leader with 928,000, more than 100,000 ahead of Mykhailo Ostash, who climbed the counts after winning a big pot against 2024 EPT Cyprus Main Event champion Ognyan Dimov. Aliaksei Boika (672,000) and Giuseppe Spitale (663,000) also finished among the top stacks.
Top Ten Chip Counts
Roman Stoica
Day 2 Action
Day 2 saw 46 late registrations, bringing the starting field to 337 players. By the end of play, 135 players had made the money for a guaranteed €8,400 payout, while 108 bagged chips for Day 3.
Early eliminations included Lars Kamphues, Hannes Jeschka, Jacob Amsellem, Jamie Flynn, and Mateusz Wozniak.
The tournament reached the bubble just before the dinner break. With only one player needing to bust to enter the money, play switched to hand-for-hand mode. The bubble burst soon after dinner when Ole Schemion shoved with an overpair, but ran into Evaldas Aniulis’ flopped two pair, securing the remaining players a spot in the money.
Bubble EPT Malta 2025
Several former EPT champions remain in contention, including defending champion Aliaksei Boika (672,000), Adrian Mateos (401,000), Ognyan Dimov (194,00) Tom Middleton (185,000) and Dominik Panka (117,000).
After early exits from Julien Dupré and Fintan Hand, Kenny Hallaert is the last PokerStars ambassador standing with a short stack of 50,000.
Other notable stacks include Ilija Savevski (555,000), EPT Malta €100K Super High Roller third-place finisher Ben Heath (280,000), Felix Schneiders (191,000), and Enrico Camosci (102,000).
Kenny Hallaert
Play resumes on Day 3, Thursday, October 9, at 12 p.m. local time, with blinds at 2,000/5,000 and likely four 90-minute levels will be played. The feature table will be streamed on YouTube and Twitch from 12:30 p.m. local time.
Be sure to follow PokerNews tomorrow for live updates from Day 3 of the Main Event as the field battles to reach Day 4.