Battle of Malta Day 2 Coverage: Thor Hansen in the House, Busts Out

We are here covering Europe’s biggest stand alone poker tournament, the Battle of Malta, all week long.  This is Day 2 of our coverage of this event, which contributes close to 20% of Malta's GDP, the most after tourism.

See Our Day One Coverage of the Battle of Malta Here

November 7 - 8 pm - Some Key Player Counts

Note that William Hung as almost double the number of chips as poker pro Maria Ho

Ivan Timotic    115000
Jens Krister Karlsson    95000
Mika Hautakangas    85000
Somar Al-Darwich    85000
Ken Lennaard    70000
Andreas Hoivold    60000
Kim Herold    55000
Giulio Spampinato    46000
Erik Sylven    45000
Udo Gartenbach    40000
William Hung    35000
Age Spets    21000
Maria Ho    19000
Age Flones Ravn    13000
Antoan Katsarov    11000

November 7 - 7:30 pm - The Champ is Done

The reigning BOM champ is out.  Antoan Katsarov lost all five of the hands he played and had to forfeit 5,000 chips.

November 7 - 7:30 pm - 70 888 Poker Players to Take Part in BOM

From our friends at PokerListings.com

There are about 10 different sponsors at BOM 2015 but Platinum Sponsor 888poker clearly has the edge in bringing the most players here.
As their representative Doron tells us they'll bring 70 players in total to the main event, coming from all over Europe.
888poker has the recently signed Dominik Nitsche and Sofia Lövgren as their top brand ambassadors in European poker and they’ve been representing them pretty well.
Most of the online qualifiers at 888poker are playing today and to celebrate this they brought one gimmick back that was first used at the 888Live! Event in Marbella earlier this year.

November 5 - 5:30 pm - Thor Hansen Busts Out

One of the bigger names in poker, Norway's own Thor Hansen, was in the house but busted out early. 

Hansen was awarded the first Norwegian Poker Player of the Year award in 2005. He is considered by many Norwegian poker players as their “Godfather" much as Doyle Brunson is in the United States.

His live winnings are over $2 million, much of that made from WSOP events.

November 5 - 4:45 pm - Maria Ho Performs Double Duty as both host of Battle of Malta and today she has opted to play

Maria interviews William Hung about his new poker career

November 5 - 4:15 pm - Hung Hanging On

William Hung is playing especially well.  Starting with 27,000 chips, Hung played five out of eight hands in this orbit, winning three without any shutdowns.  In doing so he increased his chip count by 4,350.

November 5 - 3:30 pm -

The PokerListings.com crew is working diligently to upload last night's performance by American Idol icon William Hung, whose "Achy Breaky Heart" performance we provided a sample of already here.  Hung is here now playing in the tourament. 

November 5 - 3:30 pm - Sponsorship Breakdown Courtesy of PokerListings.com

888: 39 players (7.0%)
Betsafe: 27 players (4.8%)
Betsson: 21 players (3.8%)
NordicBet: 13 players (2.3%)
PAF: 11 players (2.0%)
Redbet: 7 players (1.3%)
Guts: 6 players (1.1%)
Ladbrokes: 2 players (0.4%)
Paddy Power: 1 player (0.2%)

Some other numbers of note:

Woman in the field: 10 (1.8%)
Guys wearing Pink: 6 (1.1%)
Guys with full beards: 26 (4.6%)
Guys wearing muscle shirts: 1 (0.2%)

November 5 - 3 pm - Full House

There were 835 entrants at this year's Battle of Malta so far with the big day three still coming tomorrow.  This number already exceeds the 2013 Battle of Malta.  We will soon know if records are shattered by end of day tomorrow.

November 5 - 2:15 pm - Player Chip Counts Heading Into Day 2

Player                      Chips
Alexander Kosholap    213700
Linus Loeliger    200000
Rasmus Ericson    176900
Mateuz Moolhuizen    176000
Alexis Urli    169600
Jacki Cachia    168400
Alexandre Bey    159800
Bernardo Cucio    148600
Claudio Pagano    141500
Sesay Sulaiman    140000
Alan Gilmore    133600
Sergei Cutajar    131700
Domenico Cappiello    125400
Jan-Anders Tangen    123800
Oscar Petterson    120000
Carlos Valvao    119000
Kami Kwatosinski    115200
Feliciano Montalbetti    114400
Norbert Berent    113100
Tony Oberg    110200
Colin Lovelock    102800
Kamil Wiercinski    102000
Per Alfred Karlsson    100500
Magnus Tunell    98700
Grzegorz Skowinski    97400
Grimaldi Giuseppe    95800
Jan-Einer Johansen    95400
Alexander Hahn    95000
Robert Berglund    93400
Robertino Tulli    89600
Fabio Berti    86600
Massimiliano Rosi    86300
Per-Erik Kol    86000
Niklas Nyman    85200
Vladimir Sakovich    83300
Josette Agius    80900
Rafal Ludczynski    80500
Falk Römer    79500
Johann Nilsson    79300
Noah Vaillancourt    77900
Vadim Fedoton    74500
Ronny Vik    74100
Michele Casaburi    74000
Martynas Racinskas    71400
Benjamin Grundtman    71000
Mohamed Alman    70600
Hozan Bamerni    69900
Mathias Olsson    68200
Julien Lagarde    67500
Radoslav Wesiersk    66900
Krasimir Paunov    64400
Hanus Wojciech    63800
Dylan Petrecca    62600
Robin Andersson    62200
Leone Domenico    61900
Thomas Atkins    60400
Fabio Assenato    60000
Raymond Bellante    59900
Arthur Popov    59500
Steffen Kylevik    59100
Andres Rengito    57200
Mark Anthony Vella    56300
Clint Sammut    55000
Bo Jehlstedt    54400
Konrad Abela    54200
Zlatan Kresic    53600
Kajetan Orecki    52700
Bozza Dome    52100
Anders Kvam    50800
Jerry Bailey    49700
Sergiy Strelbytsky    45600
Johan Linder    44800
Anders Schou    44300
Jonas Broden    43800
Mikael Hultberg    43300
Sabina Hiatullah    39900
Eirik Löxning    38500
Piero Compagnoni    37000
Borislav Shishkov    35200
Gustav Kurt Eriksson    34400
Yanev Chaudar    33900
Kalle Gasstorp    32400
Marcin Krzan    31500
Mariusz Cepeniuk    30900
Felix Stephensen    30800
Tommy Laudal    30000
Stephen Mallia    29700
Jan Gustafsson    26100
Alba Antonio    25800
David Mandil    25700
Giancarlo Falvo    25300
Sandra Bergiuno    22300
Robertas Žebruskis    21700
Gundar Ehetrapp    9500

November 5 - 11 am - Hunging Out -

Back in the day, circa 2005 through 2007 it was a common joke to refer to Gambling911.com as "American Idol 911" as we would cover the odds on the hit American television contest religiously. 

The online gambling operators would laugh at us but our traffic was through the roof as were the queries for American Idol related contestant odds, so much so that these very same operators began offering betting on American Idol after much resistance.  During its peak, our servers would often crash and we once caused some type of malfunction with one of our bandwidth providers in Canada where G911 is based following a massive traffic surge during the results show  (true story).

William Hung was one of the big American Idol icons that came out of that era and, while he got very little fanfare performing "Achy Breaking Heart" here in Malta last night, all of our American friends were going gaga that he is taking part in the Battle of Malta.

He's not just here to sing in bars though.  Hung, we are told, is becoming quite the accomplished poker player.

November 5 - 10:30 am - Most of our poker players are still snugly sound asleep in their hotel beds.  Today we anticipate a much larger turnout from yesterday's 305.  Friday should be the largest turnout with that being the third and final day in which to register.

November 5 - 3 am - As promised, Gambling911.com has the world premier of poker pro and Battle of Malta hostess Maria Ho performing “I like Big Butts” and the one and only William Hung from “American Idol” doing “Achy Breaky Heart”.  We kick off Day 2 coverage below.

You will have to wait for the official PokerListings.com video of William Hung as our “video crew” storage capacity reached its max right after Hung started singing. 

Enjoy both video premiers at our Facebook page here.

- Nagesh Rath, Gambling911.com