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