Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/416739
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2014 News 17 certainly room for improvement, "the tournament was a nice vali- dation of my Poker career so far!" Brincat's main competitor, Kat- sarov, outlasted a field of 1,447 entries – the biggest in Maltese history – over three days of play to claim the €122,750 first-place prize. Brincat was the second Maltese player to make the final table and finish as runner-up, since last year Konrad Abela also finished second. The record 1,447 entries in the main event this year surpassed the 888 entries of last year's main event which held the previous record for biggest ever tourna- ment on Malta. Eight countries were represent- ed at the 10-man final table with Sweden (3), the Netherlands, Bulgaria, France, Ireland, Poland and Italy all having players at the table. Combined, the final 10 players split €424,895 between them – another record for the Battle of Malta. "It's amazing how towards the end, your mind completely switches to patriotic mode," Brin- cat says. "You just start thinking – 'I'm gonna win this for my coun- try'. It's subconscious, you don't even notice that you're doing it. "But that's how I felt, sitting there at the final table. I just thought, 'I want to win this so badly, I'm going to give this the hardest game possible'," Brincat says, adding that he was hum- bled by the support he received from fellow Maltese poker play- ers – a "tight knit" community he considers to be more than ready to spar with their international counterparts. "Some of the players based here are foreign, but the Maltese peo- ple are catching up now… and I think I'm a good example of that. I think we have some good play- ers over here, that's for sure. And playing against these foreign pros is an opportunity for us to learn, and know that we can give them a good fight." Asked what he was going to do with the prize money, Brincat confesses to going for the "sensi- ble" option. "I'll be giving some of the money to my parents, so that they can enjoy a decent holiday, and in- vest the rest in some property or something. It's boring – I know!" For more information on the Battle of Malta, log on to http://www.pokerlistings.com/ treljic@mediatoday.com.mt 'To be honest, I didn't eve n think about the money' Gozo accounts for only 2.5% of domestic violence cases JAMES DEBONO THERE was an annual average of 24.6 cases of domestic violence – just 74 in the past three years – in Gozo, crime statistics presented in parliament show. Between 2011 and 2013, 2,903 reports of domestic violence were made in the whole country. Al- though Gozo accounts for 8% of the Maltese population, cases of reported domestic violence there amounted to just 2.5% of the total number of cases. The small community of San Law- renz was the only locality in the en- tire country in which not a single case of domestic violence was re- ported in the past three years. In the same time-frame, only one case was reported in Ghasri and Gharb. The highest number of cases in Gozo (19) was reported in Victoria, followed by Xaghra (12) and Nadur (8). St Paul's Bay emerges as the lo- cality where the highest number of domestic violence cases (273) was reported, followed by Qormi (135) and Birzebbugia (118). One in every 10 cases of domes- tic violence is reported in St Paul's Bay. When population size is taken into account the localities reporting the highest number of cases were Kirkop and Safi; 0.53 cases for every 100 inhabitants each year, followed by Qrendi (0.5), Birzebbugia (0.46), and Xghajra, Bormla and St Paul's Bay (0.43). Apart from Mdina, where only one case was reported in the past three years, in Malta the lowest per cap- ita number of cases were recorded in Attard and Lija, where only 0.1 cases for every 100 inhabitants were recorded each year. Statistics on domestic violence do not necessarily reveal the actual prevalence of the offence, but throw a light on how much it is reported. The statistics suggest that the least number of cases of domestic vio- lence is reported in Gozo and in af- fluent localities. On the other hand the highest rate of domestic violence is reported in south eastern, south- ern and the northern conglomerate of St Paul's Bay. "I'll give some of the money to my parents, so that they enjoy a decent holiday, and invest the rest in some property"