When last viewing the European Poker Tour's Monte Carlo Grand Finale, I saw Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem and Antonio Esfandiari battling it out when Hachem made a button raise only to be popped by "The Magician" in the big blind. Neither would show their cards as Antonio, the new face of the World Poker Tour, would use a hefty continuation bet to take down a nice sized pot. The hand I viewed was courtesy of EPTLive.com that shows the action "live via webcast for people who want to see poker beyond the all-in coin flips.

According to the PokerStarsBlog up to this minute, they are down to ten players after the 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event champ went down in 11th place, and breaking for the day. Glen Chorny from Canada will start the final table (TV final table is actually eight players) with 3.3 million in chips, ahead of the man who broke Hachem, Isaac Baron who stands with 2.3 million. Esfandiari took a hit before the final table but is still in the hunt with 735,000 chips.

Play begins again tomorrow at 1pm as stated by the PokerStarsBlog crew and the TV final table will start up once two players are eliminated.

Not to be forgotten as this tourney has brought out all the blogging/media stars, PokerNews.com is also providing great live reporting on this truly Grand Finale.