The World Poker Tour hosts some excellent tournaments, including the Bay 101 Shooting Star. The World Poker Tour is now in Season 9, and part II of the major tournament aired this past Sunday. The tournament had 415 entrants and ran from March 14-18 with an incredible prize pool of $3,942,500. The main reason that this tournament draws so much interest is because of the excellent $5,000 bounties on each “Shooting Star” that is competing in the field. A Shooting Star is one of the many poker pros who compete in these events. Part I of the Bay 101 Shooting Star event featured the host Mike Sexton competing in his first ever World Poker Tour final table. Sexton made a very impressive run, and was definitely a fan favorite, but he was unfortunately eliminated in sixth place; but took home an solid $148,000.
Going into the final four of the Bay 101, the four players remaining were Steven Kelly (4,554,000 chips), Alan Sternberg (3,722,000 chips), Vivek Rajkumar (2,374,000), and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow (1,802,000 chips). As play continued to press on, Mike Matusow made a few moves with a big bluff, which unfortunately didn’t work, but doubled up after that. Vivek Rajkumar was knocked out in fourth place, making this his second appearance at a WPT final table in a row, with the last being the Los Angeles Poker Classic. Matusow was then the next to go, as Alan Sternberg raised to 180,000 and Matusow shoved over the top for 1.2 million more, and Sternberg called. Matusow turned over 9/2o against Sternberg’s K/Qs. This then left us two with Steven Kelly taking on Alan Sternberg.
The hand which won the tournament for Alan Sternberg was when he got Steven Kelly all in with his 10/8o against Kelly’s A/Qo. Kelly and Sternberg both hit a pair on the flop, with Sternberg flopping an 8, and Kelly’s queen putting him way ahead. The turn was a 7 to pair the board and eliminate even more outs for Sternberg. In a shocking river though, Sternberg spiked an 8 and took down the Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament, as well as $1,039,000.