Mykhailo Ostash Leads Final Five of EPT Malta Main Event

Sometimes poker really does feel like a cruel joke. Just ask Ben Heath.

Deep in the 2025 PokerStars EPT Malta Main Event, the British pro had just found the perfect spot. He picked up queens, and held against the ace-king of start-of-day chip leader Tom-Aksel Bedell to score a crucial double. Finally, he was back in the mix.

And then moments later, Heath peeled pocket kings and probably felt he was on top of the world. But across the table, Tomasz Brzezinski had aces. And as if that wasn’t brutal enough, the flop ran out giving Brzezinski quad aces.

The pot was worth hundreds of thousands and shattered Heath’s run. He was left with a handful of chips and soon after became the seventh-place finisher, taking home €118,650, but also leaving with one of the toughest beats of the tournament burned into memory.

When the penultimate day ended, five players bagged chips and booked their seats for Sunday’s final day. At the top is Ukraine’s Mykhailo Ostash, who’s on the ride of his life in his very first EPT. He’ll return with 9,870,000 chips (123 big blinds).

Right behind him sits 2016 champion Aliaksei Boika, who now has a shot at doing something never done before, winning the same EPT Main Event twice, nearly a decade apart, in the exact same city.

Brzezinski, the man who delivered the hand of the tournament, returns in third and has now reached back-to-back EPT Main Event final tables after finishing fourth in Barcelona. Spain’s Adria Calonge is fourth, while Bedell, who began Day 5 with the chip lead, comes back short-stacked but still swinging.

End of Day 5 Chip Counts

Day 5 Action

David Tous (15th – €38,950), Alessandro Barone (14th – €38,950), and Maxime Chilaud (12th – €46,750) started Day 5 fairly short, and all were eliminated in preflop confrontations during the first level of the day. Longmao Fan (13th – €46,750) unsuccessfully fired several big bluffs and joined them at the rail before the first break.

Spanish powerhouse and 2015 EPT Monte Carlo winner Adrian Mateos (11th – €56,050) had a double encounter with an unstoppable Brzezinski, first doubling him up when Brzezinski was at risk, and, not long after, being eliminated by him after an ill-timed squeeze play. Not much later, Luis Faria (10th – €56,050) bubbled the final table. First, Faria erroneously flipped his hand over preflop, thinking he was calling all in when he was not. Leaving himself a few chips behind, he busted a few hands later, and the final nine players converged on one table.

The players at the final table battled for three and a half hours, passing chips back and forth, before Joao Tomas was the first to be eliminated in a massive cooler against Boika. After that point, Ostash had taken over the chiplead, and he increased his advantage over the remaining contenders when he sent home Juan Pardo, who four-bet jammed ace-jack into his ace-queen.

The remaining seven contenders then took a short dinner break, after which big action kicked off. First, Ben Heath doubled in a flip against Bedell, leaving the latter short. However, two hands later, Brzezinski flopped quad aces and doubled against Heath’s kings for a chiplead pot, leaving Heath with even fewer chips than Bedell. Not to be outdone, Ostash took back the lead swiftly, flopping top set against the top pair of Brzezinski.

Boika busted Heath in seventh, with Heath earning the first six-figure payout of the Main Event, taking home €118,650. After Bedell doubled, short stack ninja Toni Kaukua became the final elimination of the night, pay-jumping his way to sixth place, good for €154,250.

The five remaining players battled for a little while longer before they bagged for the night. They will return tomorrow, Sunday, October 12, at 12:30 p.m. local time to crown the winner of the 2025 EPT Malta Main Event. There will be 15 hands left to play with blinds at 40,000/80,000 (80,000), after which every level will be played for 30 hands. They have locked up the eye-watering sum of €200,550 for their top-five appearance, but with four- and five-figure pay jumps coming up, there is everything left to play for.

Final Table Results & Remaining Payouts