Tag: Shooting Stars

20 Players Remain at WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Event

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The World Poker Tour’s Bay 101 Shooting Stars event is down to it’s final 20 players, and the play to this point has been incredibly exciting all around.  When the day began there were 149 players remaining, and 19 Shooting Stars left in the event as well.  The 19 Shooting Stars all had $5k bounties on them, so whoever sent them home would pick up a nice bonus.  To start the action Bryce Yockey was atop the leader board, but he was unable to make it through as one of the final 20 players remaining.

Pretty early in the day we had two of the Shooting Stars going heads up against each other as Jonathan Duhamel sent Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier home to pick up his own $5k prize.  Grospellier shoved over the top of Duhamel’s pre-flop raised for 12k, and Duhamel made the call.  Duhamel held pocket treys, while ElkY had A-Q, but the pocket threes held and sent ElkY home early on.  Another interesting match-up that we had was when Jonathan Little sent Mike Matusow home, and Mike McClain knocked off Scott Seiver.

When the action was down to the final 37 players it took about an hour for the money bubble to burst.  When it happened, it was actually two Shooting Stars who went head to head in Men Nguyen and Kathy Liebert.  Liebert shoved over top of Nguyen, who said that if it was for less than 100k, that he would call.  It was 92k and Nguyen called and turned over the A-10 of clubs.  Liebert had A-K, but the flop came down with 10-9-8 with two clubs as well.  The turn hit another club sending Liebert home on the bubble, and sent a $5k bounty to Nguyen.

A few other players who were knocked out before the end of the day included Allen Cunningham, Men Nguyen, Jason Mercier (by Jason Duhamel), Linda Johnson, and Fabrice Soulier.

Duhamel found himself sitting in 6th place at the end of the day with 751k, only about 600k behind the overall leader.  He is also playing this event for free now, after knocking out two of the Shooting Stars and taking home $10k in bounties.  There is only one other Shooting Star remaining in the event outside of Duhamel, and that is J.C. Tran.

World Poker Tour’s Shooting Stars Event Kicks Off

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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.