Luca Topazio wins the inaugural WSOP Tour Malta Main Event

Luca Topazio won the inaugural WSOP Malta Main Event, beating out 879 entries to earn €200,000 and a WSOP Tour ring. He defeated Radosław Kopec, who finished as runner-up for the second consecutive year.

For the first time, the World Series of Poker Circuit rings were contested in a Maltese casino, with players from all over Europe gathering at the Texaspoker-hosted event to add the WSOP trophy to their collections.

After three days of intense competition, the most coveted €1,500 WSOP Main Event ring now belongs to Luca Topazio.

Topazio emerged victorious from a field of 879 entries with a total prize pool of €1,115,451, winning the €200,000 champion's prize and a €5,000 ticket to the next WSOP Paradise with his aggressive play.

His toughest match at the final table was against Radosław Kopec, who finished second again this year after finishing runner-up in last year's WSOP Circuit Middlesbrough Main Event.

WSOPC Malta Main Event Final Table Results

Champion's reaction

Sixteen years ago, Topazio won the Italian Poker Tour Main Event, earning €190,000 and launching his poker career. This achievement remains his biggest prize to this day.

"I'm very happy, I played a very good game of poker," a tournament director translated from Topazio's Italian. Although the two prizes seemed quite close, his experience accumulated over the years helped him go further this time.

"I'm more mature now. I adjusted my playing style to achieve this result," he added.

Judging from his performance at the poker table, his playing style seems loose, but he is not afraid to attack at all.

"As the chip leader, my strategy is to make everyone's chips shorter, and then eliminate everyone."

This strategy has brought him championships, as well as other achievements such as his recent 11th place finish in the EPT Barcelona Mystery Bounty.

Building on this success, Topazio now plans to participate in the Battle of Malta at the Malta Casino at the end of this month, followed by the EPT Prague in December. Of course, he will also take his newly won season tickets to the Bahamas for WSOP Paradise.

Final Table Results

At the start of the final table, no player had less than 20 big blinds. All nine finalists knew they had to be patient, but it wasn't long before Christopher Jensen became the first to go all-in and double up with a Queen against Alexander Georgiev's AK. A few hands later, Nicola Boldinion wasn't so lucky; his 5 became the first player eliminated.

Now only eight people remain, and the live stream begins, but Jensen ultimately takes one more coin toss to survive. This time he fails, losing to Lucas van den Belte and finishing in eighth place with €17,300.

Meanwhile, Vitaly Bibik successfully doubled up, and Georgiev also doubled up with two lucky consecutive flushes. However, by the next break, they were still the two shortest stacks. After the break, Bibik was again at risk with Q-10. Matteo Rico held A-7 and held, sending the Polish player to the stands (7th place – €23,000), before doubleing up himself from Kopech.

Alberto Chiliano also hoped to double with KQ, but crashed into Van den Belte's A and finished in sixth place (€31,000). Ten minutes later, Georgiev (5th place – €43,000) suffered the same fate, losing to eventual champion Topazio.

On the chip leaderboard, Kopech was just one card away from elimination, but he hit an Ace on the river to double up and regain the chip lead. Topazio also doubled up with AQ against AJ, but then Van den Belte bluffed him, causing him to fold his Ace, leveling the chip stacks among the remaining four players.

Kopech eventually regained the lead by eliminating Rico (4th place – €60,000) and further extended his advantage after Van den Belt doubled up. However, this didn't last long, as Topazio made a beautiful hero call and then hit a full house. He also took down Van den Belt's chips (3rd place – €85,000) to enter heads-up play with a 5:1 chip lead.

With such a huge advantage, Topazio only needed two hands to end the game, hitting a full house and becoming the inaugural WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event champion.

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