Just a few hours after Matthew Salsberg, producer of the popular TV series Weeds, took down the WPT Grand Prix de Paris, the main event at WPT Malta kicked off at Portomaso Casino in St.Julians. Day 1a only attacked a field of 64 players willing to pay the €3,300 buy-in. The reason for this might be because of several expensive WCOOP on PokerStrars and/or that WPT Grand Prix de Paris was to close.
Anyhow, there were quite a few familiar faces in the crowd of players, including Phil Hellmuth, Marvin Rettenmaier, Jonathan Duhamel. When the day came to an end, Casper Toft from Denmark had 123,600 and the chip lead. 12-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth also made it through the day with 48,600 chips - even though someone dressed up as Spider-Man decided to sit behind him and comment on hands for about 5 minutes. Joining Toft and Hellmuth to Day 2 are WPT Venice Grand Prix third-place finisher Andrea Dato (106k), Jonathan Duhamel (40,000), Dan O'Brien (36.9k), Arnaud Mattern (13.9k), among others.
Day 1b of the tournament begins in an hour and notables such as Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst, Erik Cajelais and Kara Scottwill be taking part today. WPT are expecting a much bigger field on Day 1b, which is well-needed to boost the prize pool. We will return with another update tomorrow morning!
