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Kings of Tallinn Reaches €500K Main Event After Busy Opening Week

2 hours ago

Samantha Doyle 2 hours ago

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The €1,100 Main Event with a €500,000 guarantee is underway at the Kings of Tallinn Autumn Edition, with registration still open.
Noah Rogers captured two trophies, including the €555 Championship for €30,005, while Emmanouil Chalkiotis won the 555-entry Mini-Main for €19,875.
UK and Irish players have cashed in smaller events, but bigger opportunities remain as the Main Event progresses.

The autumn poker calendar is crowded enough that British players could have stay relatively close to home this week. Yet, Tallinn still managed to pull an international field towards Estonia.

The Kings of Tallinn Autumn Edition is running until October 18 and has now reached its €1,100 Main Event, carrying €500,000 guaranteed. Before the headline tournament arrived, Noah Rogers picked up two trophies, Emmanouil Chalkiotis won a 555-entry Mini-Main while several UK and Irish players found their way into the money or later stages of the opening events.

€500K Main Event Moves Through Four Starting Flights

Main Event play began on Wednesday with Flights 1A and 1B, followed by two more flights on Thursday.

Flight 1A attracted 124 entries, with 38 surviving. Mikael Haapaniemi leads that group on 256,000, followed by four Estonian players.

Flight 1A Leader	Country	Chips
Mikael Haapaniemi	Finland	256,000
Tiiu Naar	Estonia	242,800
Sander Leigri	Estonia	230,500
Stanislav Smeljov	Estonia	202,900
Siim Suviste	Estonia	189,900

Registration remains open into Friday’s Day 2, meaning there is still some way to go before the final field can be compared with previous Tallinn numbers.

The February edition of Kings of Tallinn went considerably bigger, with 1,033 Main Event entries and a €1 million guarantee. Finland’s Veli-Pekka Penttinen won that tournament for €149,775 following a three-way deal.

The autumn version is intentionally smaller, but its first edition still attracted 701 Main Event entries when it debuted in 2024.

Noah Rogers Turns One Trophy Into Two

Norway’s Noah Rogers has been the most prolific winner so far.

He began by taking down the €200 NLH Turbo for €1,868, then reached the final table of the Kings of Tallinn Cup before producing his biggest result of the week in Wednesday’s €555 Championship.

Rogers defeated local player Alger Pissarev heads-up to win €30,005 from a 319-entry field.

€555 Kings of Tallinn Championship Results

Place	Player	Prize
1	Noah Rogers	€30,005
2	Alger Pissarev	€20,290
3	Dennis Zetterman	€14,830
4	Marek Zigel	€11,130
5	Ben Devers	€7,930
6	Jawad Habib	€5,770
7	Edgars Hauks	€4,530
8	Siim Taliaru	€3,760
9	Mario Colavita	€3,140

Chalkiotis Beats 555 in the Mini-Main

The €250 Mini-Main was the festival’s first large NLHE field.

Emmanouil Chalkiotis Wins €250 Mini-Main

Its 555 entries generated €113,553, with Greece’s Emmanouil Chalkiotis and Estonia’s Simo Saarniit eventually agreeing a heads-up deal. Chalkiotis won the remaining play and finished with €19,875.

€250 Mini-Main Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Emmanouil Chalkiotis	Greece	€19,875*
2	Simo Saarniit	Estonia	€16,618*
3	Ranel Käsi	Estonia	€10,160
4	Casper Jensen	Denmark	€7,480
5	Oskar Ojaveer	Estonia	€5,480
6	Gerardas Luksenas	Lithuania	€4,140
7	Enea Subashi	Greece	€3,040
8	Marko Paasikoski	Finland	€2,400
9	Atso Lindell	Finland	€1,940

*Heads-up deal.

UK and Irish Players Pick Up Smaller Cashes

Tallinn is still holding out for a British winner in one of the headline events, although several players from Britain and Ireland have appeared deeper in the festival.

Matthewman also advanced to the second stage of the Kings of Tallinn Cup, while Ireland’s Alexander Rhys-Davies eventually finished 15th in that €350 event for €990.

On the other end of the casino, Irish player James Noonan reached the final table of Tuesday’s €250 PLO5 Progressive Bounty, finishing sixth for €570 from the regular prize pool, with bounty money paid separately.

The bigger opportunity for UK players is still ahead of all of them. Main Event registration remains open into Friday, with the €500,000 guarantee to be settled before the tournament plays towards Sunday’s final table.

For UK followers, that also means the most useful Kings of Tallinn update is probably still a day or two away: once Day 2 begins, the remaining British and Irish contingent, and the size of the final prize pool, should be much clearer.