Garrett Beckman Blog

Monte Carlo has been a blast this week. The tournament has been going well for me and it always fun to kick it with my poker buddies on the road. Its the last stop on the European Poker Tour and got a record 935 entrants for the 10.6k euro (~$14k) buy in.
After day the two day 1’s had finished I was sitting in about 20th of the 527 remaining with a 125k stack from the 30k starting stack. I came into day 2 feeling great. I had a great table draw to start the day off but unfortuantely they broke us about an hour in.
My second table was a bit more solid and i had the pleasure of sitting to Phil Laak’s left. He is QUITE the character let me tell ya. He was constantly chatting it up with rediculous antics which made the greuling grind of a full day of live poker seem to pass by a bit quicker.
I had some ups and downs today and was able to finish with 184,500 chips, which is an average stack. I feel great about the way I played today, I’m more focused determained to win than I have been in months. There are 149 players remaining heading into day 3 where we will play 8 handed until only 32 players remain, 88 of which will be getting paid. The minimum cash level I believe is like 20k euro and first is 2.6M euro.
The blinds will start off tomorrow at 2500/5000 with a 500 ante. Its safe to say with the limits rising and plenty of short stacks remaining that we will be in the money fairly quickly tomorrow. Check back for an update in 24hrs…

Garrett Beckman

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I’ve been on the road for a few days now and haven’t been grinding enough. Unfortunately I had prior commitments when I decided I would accept the Bluffmagazine and Lockpoker invitation to the Bluff Online Poker Challenge. I was able to satellite into the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament on Full Tilt and it appears that I’ll miss a few more days of grinding online for the challenge. This could hurt my chances of winning as Sno0owman has already created a significant gap in the standings but nonetheless I’ve got another shot a that all mighty $1Million first place prize of a WPT event!

With 19 hours of driving under my belt, my girlfriend Kenzie and I stopped off in Vegas for the night. I planned to suprise her with tickets The Beatles Love by Cirque Du Soleil but I spilled the beans about 1 hour into the drive and told her all the plans for the trip. The show was great and lived up to the hype! I would recommend it to anyone and I plan to see another Cirque Du Soleil show when I’m back in Vegas this summer.

We stayed in a sweet suite at Bellagio which I am adding a short video walkthrough of the room and an update clip from the road but I’m having issues with the videos importing so they will be up as soon as I figure out the issue.

I play day 1B tomorrrow and I am about to go check out the casino and see how the turnout is shaping up for day 1A today.

GBecks

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Unfortunately I busted the MCOP main event on day 2, it’s a little disappointing but there is a big online weekend ahead and I’m sure I can find a way to stay busy here in Amsterdam. I plan to play FTOPS events 19, 21, 22, 24, and 25 over the weekend along with the other weekly majors and fly back home on Monday.

I made an exciting last longer bet with rusostreet in the Poker Stars $100 rebuy tournament on Wednesday. At the time he had about 50k to my 25k so I asked for 3:2 odds. It was an up and down battle but my 15th place finish was enough for the victory. Most of my profits for the night came from my Full Tilt nightly $150 final table where I finished in 5th for $7,500.

If I had cashed in the MCOP or won a little more online I probably would have joined my buddies for EPT Warsaw this weekend but I think my decision to play the FTOPS main event and the $5k shorthanded tournaments will prove to be profitable. I want to wish Alex Bolotin, Kenny Hicks, Danny Ryan, and Aditya Agarwal best of luck in Warsaw. Congratulations to Russ Crane on his $100k score in the Borgota $2k and Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy for winning FTOPS Event #15.

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The MCOP main event started today at 3pm local time. I arrived a couple hours late to the tournament because I played the FTOPS $1k from 3-8am. It’s a rough schedule but its only for the week. I finished day 1 with 17k up from the starting stack of 12k but under the average. I believe there were about 340 entrants and half the field has dropped so the average is ~24k. There are more weak players than I imagined for it being about a $9,300 USD entry tournament.

The trip has been great so far, I’m staying with my buddy Adi, he goes by “Intervention” online. With so much poker going we haven’t been able to do too much around the city but we have visited some worth mentioning. First of all if you come here you have to get breakfast at Barney’s Uptown. The food is great with a touch I’ve never seen. They served baked beans on the plate with my normal fried eggs, hash browns, and bacon. A great combo followed up with a chocolate milkshake, it was the tits as far as breakfast goes.

I’ve met a lot of guys that I run into in the online tournaments which is always a fun part of traveling. New faces I’ve met so far have been Riverman1, Imperium, Moorman1, Rubenrtv and many more. Catching up with Danny “The D r y” Ryan was probably the most fun though I’ve got to say. He is a fun guy to chat with and somewhat of a modern hippie the way he speaks of the Earth, nature, life& It is nice to talk about something other than poker now and then.

My favorite part of the trip was a couple of nights ago just kicking it in the room with Adi, Sorel, and Danny and the discussions that arose. We are all from different backgrounds and cultures. Sorel was raised in Canada, Adi is from India, and Danny is from Minnesota although currently lives somewhere in Spain I believe. We discussed religion, government, politics, and most of all the election. I rarely discuss these topics and don’t find it easy to do so. Interesting things happen when you sit around a circle to spark some of the Dam’s finest.

I’ll be back with a day 2 update tomorrow.

-GBecks

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