While the remaining players in the field have been engaging in mental warfare, attacking each other with precise raises and calculated bluffs, Marc Steel has been engaged in an epic battle of his own.
For a period spanning more than four hours, Steel has been grinding a micro-stack of just two or three big blinds. He has accomplished this Herculean feat through a combination of subtle stalling methods, such as asking the dealer pointless procedural questions, along with sheer grit and determination. Steel told PokerNews that his goal has been to reach the next pay jump scheduled at 54th place, and during the last twenty minutes or so, he reached the summit.
This was accomplished over the course of three hands, with the tournament screens showing 58 players remaining and Steele holding just 10,000 chips, good for under two big blinds. In the first hand, half of Steel's stack went into the pot as the big blind, and he nearly received a walk before being raised off by the small blind. In the next hand, he folded his small blind away after the same player raised preflop.
This left Steel with just 2,000 chips on his button, and each successive hand chiseled 500 away in the form of antes. With calls of "Payout!" heard around the Amazon Room, and just a single 500 chip in front of him, Steel watched as the TV screens flashed his magic number: 54 remaining players. He had reached his goal and earned an extra $1,420 for his work.
Steel later told us that "while that kind of money doesn't mean anything to these guys, it means alot to me and my wife," adding "this validates to her why I play the game." With the railbirds and even his opponents celebrating Marc "Survivor Man" Steel's chip-and-a-chair grind, Day 2 of this tournament has provided all the validation Steel will ever need.
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500
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Marc Steel
![[user135779]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
but needed a lot of help against the 
of John Snedegar.
wasn't of any help to Doyle and he had no hope when the 
appeared on the turn. The river 
was just an afterthought.
of Armstrong's pocket jacks. That'll be all she wrote, sports fans.
