Tereza Vernerova Wins Battle of Malta Autumn 2026 Main Event After ICM Deal
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Quick Summary
| Detail | Information |
| Champion | Tereza Vernerova (Czech Republic) |
| Winner’s payout | €162,630 + Battle of Malta Knight Trophy |
| History made | First woman to win the Battle of Malta Main Event (per the official Battle of Malta report) |
| Buy-in | €600 |
| Total entries | 5,368 |
| Prize pool | €2,413,281 |
| Guarantee | €1,500,000 (beaten by 61%) |
| Final day | November 4, 2026 (finished early on November 5) |
| Runner-up | Ofer Tadmor (Israel) |
| 3rd / 4th place | James Malatynski (UK) / Lulei Hu (China) |
When we last checked in, 24 players were left in the Battle of Malta Main Event. Estonia’s Anton Makejev held the lead, and Tereza Vernerova sat a quiet fourth with 12,050,000 chips. Forty-eight hours later, she was lifting the trophy.
Her win closes the 2026 Autumn Edition at Casino Malta with a genuine piece of history. According to the organisers’ official winner report, Vernerova is the first woman ever to win the Battle of Malta Main Event, a series that began in 2012. Speaking on the stream moments after the final hand, she said she was “very happy to be a first woman champion in Battle of Malta.”
The scoreboard tells a more interesting story than “chip leader wins.” Vernerova lost the lead and dropped to one of the shorter stacks. She signed a deal while sitting second, then came from behind heads-up. And if you expected a €227,835 winner’s cheque, read on, because the money didn’t land the way the payout ladder suggested.
Final Table Results and Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Ladder Prize | Actual Payout | Difference |
| 1 | Tereza Vernerova | Czech Republic | €227,835 | €162,630* | −€65,205 |
| 2 | Ofer Tadmor | Israel | €141,250 | €175,000* | +€33,750 |
| 3 | James Malatynski | United Kingdom | €92,550 | €124,000* | +€31,450 |
| 4 | Lulei Hu | China | €62,150 | €62,150 | — |
| 5 | Marios Kapiris | Greece | €43,400 | €43,400 | — |
| 6 | Rosario Saddemi | Italy | €32,000 | €32,000 | — |
| 7 | Ivane Khazaradze | Georgia | €25,150 | €25,150 | — |
| 8 | Marco Lopez Coronado | Spain | €21,150 | €21,150 | — |
*Three-way ICM deal. The official deal announcement and elimination update listed Malatynski’s share as €125,000. The official final results table shows €124,000, which matches the combined top-three prize money of €461,635, so that figure is used here. The winner’s total is shown as €162,630 in the results table (€140,000 + €22,635 = €162,635 in the report text, a €5 rounding difference).
The Correction: Why €227,835 Became €162,630
Several early reports headlined the winner’s prize as €227,835. That figure was real, but it was the advertised first prize, published when the payout structure was set. It is not what Vernerova was paid.
Once Lulei Hu busted in fourth, the last three players paused the clock to look at deal numbers. The stacks were badly lopsided:
| Player | Chips | Share of Chips | Big Blinds | Deal Amount |
| Ofer Tadmor | 117,900,000 | 60.6% | 59 | €175,000 |
| Tereza Vernerova | 46,300,000 | 23.8% | 23 | €140,000 |
| James Malatynski | 30,200,000 | 15.5% | 15 | €124,000 |
| Set aside for the winner (with trophy) | — | — | — | €22,635 |
| Total (= original 1st + 2nd + 3rd prizes) | €461,635 |
Blinds at the time of the deal: 1,000,000 / 2,000,000.
Vernerova entered that deal as the second stack, a long way behind the leader. She locked up €140,000, then collected the €22,635 reserve by finishing first.
Was It a Fair Deal? We Ran the Numbers
We ran the exact three-handed stacks through a standard ICM calculation. We used the top-three ladder, with the €22,635 winner’s reserve taken off first place before splitting.
| Player | Agreed Deal | Pure ICM (Our Calculation) | Chip Chop (Our Calculation) |
| Ofer Tadmor | €175,000 | ≈ €175,500 | ≈ €190,400 |
| Tereza Vernerova | €140,000 | ≈ €139,400 | ≈ €131,000 |
| James Malatynski | €124,000 | ≈ €124,100 | ≈ €117,600 |
The agreed figures sit within a few hundred euros of textbook ICM. Nobody was strong-armed, and nobody got a gift.
The chip chop comparison is the useful lesson for anyone who might face a deal one day. In a chip chop, everyone gets third-place money, and the remainder is split purely by chip percentage. Here, a chip chop would have handed Tadmor around €15,000 more and cost Vernerova roughly €9,000.
ICM protects shorter stacks because tournament chips are worth less the more of them you hold. Doubling your stack never doubles your share of the prize pool.
Practical takeaway: if you’re a short or middle stack in a deal discussion, ask for ICM numbers, not a chip chop. If you’re the big stack, expect to give up some of your chip advantage. Decide before the clock stops whether you’d rather play on for the trophy.
How the Final Day Played Out
Vernerova started the final table with 68,750,000 chips, over a third of the chips in play and more than double Tadmor’s 31,250,000. Her Day 4 surge was built on pocket kings, which held twice in elimination pots: against Vasileios Tsaknis’s pocket queens, and against Alessandro De Michele’s ace-jack.
The final day was far less smooth. She went card-dead early and dropped small pots to Ivane Khazaradze and Rosario Saddemi. She also paid off James Malatynski’s set of queens with pocket nines.
The big swing came just before the dinner break. Vernerova held 4♦4♠ against Tadmor’s T♦9♦ on a 7♦3♥6♦ flop, which gave her a straight-flush draw. Tadmor turned a straight flush with the 8♦. She raised the turn, then fired 20 million on the Q♦ river. Tadmor check-raised all-in and she folded.
She recovered quickly after the break. Pocket kings, again, held against Marios Kapiris’s K♥Q♣ to double her up to 35.2 million, and Kapiris busted shortly afterwards.
Chip Swings Through the Final Day
| Moment | Vernerova | Tadmor | Leader |
| Final table start (8 left) | 68,750,000 | 31,250,000 | Vernerova |
| Five-handed | 47,500,000 | 41,200,000 | Vernerova |
| Dinner break (after straight flush hand) | 22,400,000 | 95,100,000 | Tadmor |
| Deal struck (3 left) | 46,300,000 | 117,900,000 | Tadmor |
| Heads-up start | 74,600,000 | 119,800,000 | Tadmor |
| After first heads-up hand | 151,200,000 | 43,200,000 | Vernerova |
| After kings trap | 174,700,000 | 19,700,000 | Vernerova |
Elimination Order
| Place | Player | Losing Hand | Eliminated By | Winning Hand |
| 8th | Marco Lopez Coronado | A♣5♦ | Marios Kapiris | A♠K♥ (rivered spade flush) |
| 7th | Ivane Khazaradze | 4♦4♣ | Ofer Tadmor | T♥T♣ |
| 6th | Rosario Saddemi | A♦K♥ | Marios Kapiris | A♥Q♥ (caught a queen on the board) |
| 5th | Marios Kapiris | J♣5♦ | Ofer Tadmor | A♣8♦ |
| 4th | Lulei Hu | J♠2♦ | Ofer Tadmor | 4♠4♦ (fours full of aces) |
| 3rd | James Malatynski | J♣5♣ | Ofer Tadmor | 4♠4♣ (tens full of fours) |
| 2nd | Ofer Tadmor | J♥7♥ | Tereza Vernerova | T♦4♣ (flopped trip tens) |
Tadmor scored five of the seven knockouts. That is why he held a 60% chip lead when the deal was struck.
Three-Handed and Heads-Up: The Comeback
With the money mostly settled, the poker got looser. Malatynski, the short stack, triple-barrelled Q♠6♣ into Vernerova. He only picked up a pair of sixes on the river, while she held top pair with K♣7♠. She used a time bank, called, and doubled to 69.5 million.
Malatynski went out soon after. His J♣5♣ lost a flip to Tadmor’s pocket fours, and the board ran out tens full.
Vernerova started heads-up behind, 74.6 million to 119.8 million. That lasted one hand. She flopped trip fours with 9♥4♣ on a 4♦4♠8♣ board, and Tadmor turned two pair with K♣8♥. When he jammed, she called for her tournament life. Her stack rose to 151.2 million against 43.2 million, a 3.5-to-1 lead.
She then trapped Tadmor with K♠K♥, calling him down on an ace-queen-ten board. The A♠ on the river confirmed she was good. Tadmor showed real fight, doubling up three times: once with pocket sixes and twice with pocket kings.
The end came on a T♣7♣T♥ flop. Tadmor jammed with J♥7♥ for a pair of sevens, and Vernerova snap-called with T♦4♣ for trip tens.
How This Event Compares
| Edition | Entries | Prize Pool | Winner | Winner’s Payout |
| Autumn 2026 | 5,368 | €2,413,281 | Tereza Vernerova (CZE) | €162,630 (deal) |
| Summer 2026 | 2,667 | €1,186,962 | Alejandro Asenjo (ESP) | €94,520 |
| 2025 (edition per official BoM report) | — | — | Candido Cappiello (ITA) | €225,770 |
| 2016 | 1,813 | €879,305 | Robert Berglund (SWE) | €160,000 |
Key Numbers at a Glance
| Metric | Value |
| Entries vs Summer 2026 | 2.01× |
| Prize pool vs Summer 2026 | 2.03× |
| Prize pool vs guarantee | 161% |
| Winner’s payout vs buy-in | ≈ 271× |
| Winner’s share of total prize pool | 6.7% |
| 8th place payout vs buy-in | ≈ 35× |
| Lulei Hu career tournament earnings | $1.7M+ |
The field doubled in just five months, and the guarantee was never in danger. The numbers also show how flat big-field payout structures have become: the winner took only 6.7% of the pool, and even 8th place earned 35 times the buy-in. Both Vernerova and Tadmor were already on course for their biggest live results before the final day. Lulei Hu, the most experienced player at the table, finished fourth.
What Players Can Learn From This Final Table
| Lesson | What Happened |
| A big lead is not a guarantee | Vernerova went from about 35% of the chips to under 12% in a few hours |
| Know ICM before the final table | The gap between ICM and a chip chop was worth about €15,000 to one player |
| Ranges widen after a deal | Malatynski bluffed more and Vernerova called lighter once the pay jumps flattened |
| Stay composed after a cooler | She lost a huge pot to a straight flush, then played her best poker after the break |
The Battle of Malta heads into a busy 2027, with stops announced in Malta, Barcelona, Slovakia and Tallinn. Full Autumn Edition results are available on the official Battle of Malta website.
Source: Battle of Malta – Official Final Day Live Blog & Winner Report
FAQs
Who won the Battle of Malta Autumn 2026 Main Event?
Tereza Vernerova of the Czech Republic won the Main Event. The final day began on November 4, 2026, and play finished in the early hours of November 5. She beat Israel’s Ofer Tadmor heads-up. According to the official Battle of Malta report, she is the first woman to win the Main Event.
How much did Tereza Vernerova win?
Her official payout is €162,630. That is €140,000 from the three-way ICM deal plus the €22,635 set aside for the winner.
Why didn’t the winner receive the €227,835 first prize?
€227,835 was the advertised first prize on the original payout ladder. With three players left, the finalists agreed an ICM deal that split the top three prizes by chip stack. Tadmor held over 60% of the chips, so he took the biggest share (€175,000) despite finishing second.
What is an ICM deal in poker?
ICM stands for Independent Chip Model. It estimates what each chip stack is worth in real money, based on the remaining payouts. In an ICM deal, players take those calculated amounts instead of playing for the full ladder. Short stacks usually receive more than they would in a chip-proportional split.
How many players entered the Main Event?
The Main Event drew 5,368 entries and a €2,413,281 prize pool. That beat the €1,500,000 guarantee by more than €900,000 and roughly doubled the Summer 2026 turnout of 2,667 entries.
Who finished in the top four?
1st Tereza Vernerova (€162,630), 2nd Ofer Tadmor (€175,000), 3rd James Malatynski (€124,000), and 4th Lulei Hu (€62,150).
When is the next Battle of Malta?
The 2027 schedule includes stops in Malta, Barcelona, Slovakia and Tallinn. Check the official Battle of Malta website for confirmed dates and online satellites.
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