The World Poker Tour’s Shooting Stars event is one of the most talked about events on the World Poker Tour schedule, mainly because of it’s unique format. On top of that though, it also draws in some of the biggest names in poker consistently, and is also played in the wonderful state of California. This event kicked off earlier today, and will feature two starting days for the players, both of which will have a group of “Shooting Stars” that have $5,000 bounties on their head if you are able to eliminate them.
The bounties will be spread out between Day 1A and Day 1B, and will feature big names on both days. Another nice bonus for this event that other events don’t offer, is the fact that they pay out a bonus of $10,000 to the chip leader on both of the opening days. So what this means is that if you are able to finish at the top of the leader board at the end of either of the days, you’ll be playing the event for free, since the buy-in is only $10k!
Day 1A will feature Shooting Stars like Joe Hachem, Jonathan Duhamel, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Vanessa Selbst, Liv Boeree, Maria Ho, Kathy Liebert, and Christian Harder. Obviously as you can see by these names, none of them will be easy outs by any means, and any of these players could seriously contend for the championship on any day of the week as well!
Day 1B will include a strong list of players as well, starting with Men “The Master” Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, Barry Greenstein, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Allen Cunningham, and Alan Sternberg as well. Mike Sexton, who is a current member of the Poker Hall of FAme and is also a commentator for the Tour will have a bounty on him as well. Sexton was actually a final tablist at this event last year as well, so he’s definitely had some success.
One last difference from this event that is worth pointing out is the fact that they will switch the action from nine handed play to six handed play with 36 players remaining instead of just at the final table like standard World Poker Tour events are.