Of the Team PokerStars Pros making it through to today's Day 2 of the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event, Andre Akkari was returning to the most important stack of the bunch.

Except he hasn't returned. Not yet.

A picture of where Akkari is not

The reason for Akkari's absence is inconspicuous enough, coming all the way down to the physical impossibility of anyone to be in two places without delay -- an unalterable truth of our existence those people running backward and forward from the media room to the tournament area identify with quite well.

"I registered and sat down yesterday," Akkari was explaining earlier, alluding to his having drawn Table 1, Seat 1 on Thursday for FPS Monaco. "AFTER WHICH I remembered... Shark Cage!"

They're shooting new episodes of the preferred show this week, and indeed Akkari have been scheduled to play at the show today -- something that had slipped his mind when registering for this event. Such would not have been a topic for him had the day gone less well than it did, as he managed to complete the night with 113,900, comfortably above the average.

Akkari's sitting at the main stage at present, playing the Shark Cage game. Meanwhile his stack has dwindled to lower than 90,000, putting him below the typical now that another group of players was eliminated and the full field have been carved right down to just over 200 players.

Meanwhile, Giuliano Bendinelli began the day in even better shape than Akkari with a top five stack, but by the day's second level was much worse off than the Brazilian after falling victim to Joao Brito's pocket aces.

Giuliano Bendinelli

That hand catapulted Brito as much as around 330,000, making him the chip leader as they're now just over 60 eliminations shy of the cash.

Joao Brito

Key FPS Monaco Main Event Facts:- Firstly of Level 15, 207 players remain from the starting field of 993- The highest 143 finishers make the money; a min-cash is €1,790- Arnaud Mattern (170,000), Richardo Graells (150,000), and Luca Dal Cerro (146,000) are above the average- Recent eliminations include Paul-Francois Tedeschi, Dermot Blain, Karl Alfredsson, and Kevin Monroe- Click here for an entire list of chip counts to start out Day 2- The tournament is scheduled to play 8 one-hour levels today, with 15-minute breaks every two levels (there's no dinner break)

To get the entire latest news, chip counts and payouts, be sure to download the EPT App on both Android or IOS.

Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: France Poker Series]