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Before the €1.5M Battle, Kate Jackson and the Warm-Up Winners Got There First

21 minutes ago

Samantha Doyle 21 minutes ago

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Kate Jackson won the €330 Super Double Bounty, earning €5,320 from 108 entries.
The Main Event with a €1.5 million guarantee has started, led by Angelo Patane after Day 1A.
A charity event for Antoine Degiorgio raised almost €4,000, won by Chris Barclay.

By the time the Battle of Malta Main Event began on Wednesday afternoon, a handful of players had already done what thousands more had travelled to the island hoping to do: leave Casino Malta with a trophy.

The Road to Battle of Malta ran for four days before the official Autumn Edition, giving us a group of warm-up champions headed by Kate Jackson. Once those tables were cleared, attention immediately shifted almost towards the €1.5 million guaranteed Main Event and a Mystery Siege.

Kate Jackson Gets the First Big Win

The €330 Super Double Bounty was the largest warm-up event and produced the most substantial first-place payout.

Place	Player	Country	Prize*
1	Kate Jackson	United Kingdom	€5,320
2	Mark Vella	Malta	€3,275
3	Alkan Aydingoez	Germany	€2,370
4	Florian Dietrich	France	€4,330
5	Gintas Dirse	Lithuania	€3,070

*Includes bounties.

Jackson beat Malta's Mark Vella heads-up after the tournament attracted 108 entries and generated €25,056.

Four Smaller Trophies Follow

The Afternoon White Knight had a quicker route to a trophy. One ran on each day of the warm-up, producing four champions before the official festival began.

Winner	Prize
Christian Schneider	€1,575
Anthonius Henderiks	€2,050
Branimir Bizjak	€2,535
Tudor Popa	€3,115

Tudor Popa's €3,115 was the largest of those four wins, closing out the White Knight run on October 26 and opening the way to the Battle of Malta Autumn Edition.

Angelo Patane Sets the First Main Event Mark

Day 1A of the €1.5 million guaranteed Main Event brought 300 entries into Casino Malta but only 45 players left with chips.

Rank	Player	Country	Chips
1	Angelo Patane	Italy	769,000
2	Dimitrios Stampoultzis	Greece	681,000
3	Sami Pulliainen	Finland	568,000
4	Karl Eric Sandoff	Sweden	545,000
5	Harald Redl	Austria	521,000

Italy's Angelo Patane finished comfortably ahead on 769,000, while Stampoultzis and Pulliainen supplied the nearest challenges.

The field also contains at least one player who knows exactly how the final week can end. Dimitrios Anastasakis, the 2022 Autumn champion, survived with 354,000. He is one of 45 Day 1A qualifiers, although calling anyone a front-runner after one flight would be ambitious.

There are eight more to play before everybody finally combines on November 1.

A Charity Trophy Finds a Home Too

It would be unfair to ingore one result that was outside the normal tournament schedule. The charity event for Antoine Degiorgio attracted 134 entries and raised almost €4,000 for Degiorgio and his family, alongside more than €5,000 in additional prizes contributed by the poker community.

Chris Barclay won the tournament and also received a €1,600 package for the 2027 Battle of Malta.

While it's unlikely to be the largest trophy lifted in Casino Malta over these nine days, it may already be one of the easier victories to remember.

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Chris Barclay	United Kingdom	€910
2	Jason Glatzer	Lithuania	€620
3	Jennifer Barr	United Kingdom	€410
4	Freddy Rolland	Norway	€340
5	Algirdas Tamasas	Lithuania	€270