Travel Report: EPT13 Malta, Day 4 -- Bojang Brings It

Today’s Italian Poker Tour Malta Main Event finale was kind of wild, especially during the first 45 minutes when the six players who returned were suddenly carved down to just two. In fact, the four knockouts happened within about five hands, including one double-knockout (like on Day 3), which got us thinking it could be over within an hour.

Things did settle down thereafter, with heads-up taking a few hours before at last Ismael Bojang ended up winning the title.

No surprise seeing Bojang do well. Back at the start of this summer’s World Series of Poker I actually picked the German (who lives in Austria) as my favorite to win the WSOP Player of Year. He’d already gathered 32 cashes in four years and as player of mixed games always has a chance to gather lots of POY points. The title was ultimately clinched handily by Jason Mercier, although Bojang did manage to gather nine cashes.

Watching him during heads-up play I tricked myself into thinking occasionally that as a so-called “mixed-game” guy, perhaps Bojang wasn’t quite as dominating or sure of a player when it came to no-limit hold’em. But it didn’t take long to disabuse myself of that notion, as it became evident that pretty much every decision where the results were observable, he was making the right choices.

Bojang’s heads-up opponent, the Italian Francesco Leotta, also played very solidly, it seemed, although perhaps not quite as consistently well as Bojang. Still, luck played a significant role affecting the outcome, as both players were within one card of winning only to see the other draw out a fortunate river card to survive.

We did end up finishing up by around dinner time, so I motored over to help for a couple of hours with the first Day 1 flight of the EPT Main Event before signing off and getting back to the room at a decent hour. Had some other work to do and so actually spend the evening watching NFL football and sweating my Pigskin Pick’em picks, which was kind of nice even though the games that were shown were kind of dreadful (both blowouts).

Will be back at it tomorrow helping with Day 1b of the EPT Malta Main. As always, visit the PokerStars blog to follow along.

Photo: courtesy Manuel Kovsca / PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: EPT13 Malta, Day 3 -- Double-Knockout

Another long-but-not-too-long day here as I helped cover Day 3 of the Italian Poker Tour Malta Main Event.

They played down from 31 to the eight-handed final table, but kept on going in order to get the tournament down to six for Sunday. The pace was relatively steady throughout the day and night, getting us to eight-handed in good enough time. Then came a lull, and with the stacks moderately deep it appeared it might take a while to get to the end of the night.

There was one short stack -- Filip Demby -- but he’d been folding for a long while and appeared ready to do so much longer until a premium hand finally came along. But suddenly another player, Daniel Portiansky, open-pushed his below average stack, and when it folded to Demby he kind of surprised us by calling all in.

There was still another player left to act, Alexander Lakhov, and after just a short bit of consideration he called. Having the other two covered, Lakhov tabled pocket queens while the all-in players each had ace-king. The board ran clean, and boom -- we were done.

That got us out of the tournament room in good enough time to take another dining trip, this time to the bottom of the Hilton Malta right next to the casino to a Thai restaurant called the Blue Elephant.

The food was fantastic. For a starter I had the fancily-named “Pearls of the ‘Blue Elephant,’” kind of a sampler of the best starters that included chicken satay, spring roll, Thai fish cake, dim sum, crispy paper prawn, and enoki seafood salad. Then for entree I had the Massaman lamb curry with coconut milk along with Thai sweet potatoes (with cashews), and rice.

To follow that earlier one that ended Day 3, dinner was another double-knockout. I wish I’d had two stomachs to eat it all a second time.

Of that entree, the menu said “this dish was described in a poem by King Rama II.” I’ll refrain from waxing too lyrical about it, using that precedent as an excuse to get on with other things. Still, the dish was as delish as one could wish.

Both Ismael Bojang and Dominik Panka made that final six. Check the the PokerStars blog on Sunday to see if either of them can grab the IPT trophy.

Travel Report: EPT13 Malta, Day 2 -- Back at It

My second day of reporting here in Malta involved my helping cover Day 2 of the Italian Poker Tour Malta Main Event, a €1,100 buy-in tournament that saw 775 enter and now just 31 advancing on to Saturday’s penultimate day of play. The work has really begun.

A decent number of recognizable folks still left in this one, including Dominik Panka, Rasmus Agerskov, Ismael Bojang, Stean Jedlicka, and Cate Hall. Ole Schemion, Martin Staszko, and Pierre Neuville were among those cashing today. I’ve mentioned before how the EPTs generally speaking often feature a high percentage of good tournament players, and such can even be the case in these relatively lower buy-in prelims or “side events,” even though this one is labeled a “Main” by the IPT.

There were a lot of semi-unusual hands (runner-runner saves, straight flushes, quads, etc.), as we highlighted a little at the start of the end-of-day recap. As happens with players, though, after many years of doing it’s hard not to look on such out-of-the-ordinary happenings with a somewhat clinical eye. Which is probably a good thing, from a reporter’s point of view, as you are better able to keep track of it all.

We got out early enough to take a stroll a couple of blocks over to have a fantastic dinner at the Lore & Fitch steakhouse here in Saint Julian’s. Had a filet mignon which was excellent, and my buddies sampled some Italian beer which they liked a lot. Have already experienced some way above average eats as well as some very hospitable service, too, which has made everything more comfortable.

Still, I miss being on the farm and find myself getting bit a little earlier than usual by the homesick bug. Maybe it’s all those cats meowing that I sometimes hear even up in my hotel room, making me think of our Freckles and Sweetie, both of whom like to meow a lot, too. Was a little frustrated over the last couple of days as well knowing I couldn’t be at home to help out with things when a little bit of trouble arose on the farm here at week’s end -- nothing too major, but felt a bit helpless being five thousand-plus miles from being able to do anything.

I sometimes will refer to whatever digs I end up in while on the road my “home away from home,” but that’s just a phrase. It’s never really “home” out here -- just more or less accommodating while I’m away.

As always, head over to the PokerStars blog to follow along with this IPT and the other events happening on this here archipelago.

Photo: courtesy Manuel Kovsca / PokerStars blog.