The PokerStars Championship is back in action, now in sunny Monte Carlo, Monaco. I am not there, personally, so I cannot guarantee that it is sunny, but I would like to think so because whenever I see anything about Monaco on television or perhaps in a James Bond film, it is always wonderful from a weather standpoint. I suppose I could check a weather report on the internets, but that would be a waste of bandwidth. This event is called the PokerStars Championship presented by Monte-Carlo Casino, which is painfully inelegant. I much prefer the standard live tournament naming convention using the city or country rather than the casino name (and the awful “presented by”), so therefore, as you can see in the title of this article, I am siding with my colleague Earl Burton and calling it “PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo.” At any rate, after Day 2, Nick Petrangelo is the chip leader with 562,000, so congratulations to Nick for the time being.
There were two starting flights, but frankly, we are going to ignore those because they occurred when I wasn’t schedule to write and therefore for all intents and purposes* never happened. When registration closed Monday, there were a total of 727 entries for the €5,300 Main Event, creating a €3,525,950 prize pool. 143 players will make the money, but first place will get half a million Euro plus another €800. That’s nice.
Everybody playing on Tuesday has already made the money, as the money bubble burst at the very end of Day 2. Salvatore Candido Graziano had just 28,100 chips with blinds and antes at 1,500/3,000/500. Davidi Kitai made the call, showing A-K against Graziano’s pocket Queens. Race! An Ace flopped and that was it for Graziano, who went home with nothing after many hours of poker.
Odds are (ha, that’s kind of a gambling pun) most of the remaining players are sleeping fairly well Monday night, knowing that they have made the money. One might expect that there will be a bunch of quick eliminations early in Tuesday’s action as the short stacks go all Leeroy Jenkins to try to make amazing happen.
Start time is noon in Monte Carlo and the plan is to play five hour and a half levels. Stay tuned for more hard-hitting coverage!
*I was going to make a joke along the lines of Donald Trump probably thinking the phrase is “all intensive purposes,” but let’s be honest, his vocabulary isn’t advanced enough to even string those words together incorrectly.
2017 PokerStars Championship Monte-Carlo Casino Main Event – Day 2 Chip Leaders
1. Nick Petrangelo – 562,000
2. Michael Kolkowicz – 470,500
3. Patrik Antonius – 452,500
4. Faraz Jaka – 416,500
5. Mark Teltscher – 408,000
6. Stefan Schillhabel – 402,000
7. Sebastian Malec – 382,500
8. Andreas Klatt – 375,000
9. Fabrice Soulier – 364,500
10. Dmytro Shuvanov – 353,000
