We said yesterday that the World Poker Tour (WPT) Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event is one of the most popular tournaments of the year; it’s popularity continues to grow. When added to the 312 players from Day 1A, the 401 players who signed up to play on Tuesday’s Day 1B created a total field of 713 players, destroying last year’s Bay 101 Shooting Star record of 643 players. Late registration is allowed up until the start of Day 2, so that number might grow slightly. Because of the size of the field, the level duration on Day 2 has been cut from 90 minutes to 60 minutes.
Lucas Ke finished Day 1B as the chip leader with 252,000 chips, putting him just a hair shy of the overall chip lead. Giorgio Medici came out of Day 1A with 254,600 chips, while Hai Tran was right behind him with 253,500. It is crowded at the top of the leaderboard, to say the least.
There were 27 shooting stars in Tuesday’s action, each of whom came with a $2,500 bounty on their head (by the way, should a shooting star win the event, he or she will get the bounty). Eleven of them survived Day 1B: Jeff Madsen, Phil Laak, Scott Seiver, Aaron Massey, Ravi Raghavan, Jason Mercier, Jeff Gross, Scotty Nguyen, Maria Ho, Andy Frankenberger, and Ludovic Lacay.
The shooting stars who were unable to advance to Day 2 (though they can still buy-in again before the day starts) are, in alphabetical order: Bruce Buffer, Will Failla, Barry Greenstein, Galen Hall, Kyle Julius, Allen Kessler, Christina Lindley, Pat Lyons, Ana Marquez, Chris Moorman, Ryan Riess, Vanessa Selbst, Joe Serock, Dan Shak, Dan Smith, and Jennifer Tilly.
As already mentioned, tournament officials made the decision to speed up the levels on Day 2 because of the tremendous size of the field; 297 players will pull up chairs today. Cards will be dealt until 2:00am or until just 36 players remain, whichever milestone comes first. The prize structure will also be announced today once all late entries are tallied.
2014 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event – Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Lucas Ke – 252,000
2. Ron Minnis – 232,300
3. Shankar Pillai – 201,000
4. James Carroll – 191,100
5. Carlos Villamarin – 182,000
6. Jeff Madsen – 173,200
7. Nam Le – 160,800
8. Phil Laak – 147,300
9. Scott Seiver – 141,800
10. Erkut Yilmaz – 131,500
2014 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event – Combined Day 1 Chip Leaders
1. Giorgio Medici – 254,600
2. Hai Tran – 253,500
3. Lucas Ke – 252,000
4. David Forster – 225,200
5. Shankar Pillai – 201,000
6. James Carroll – 191,100
7. Mukul Pahuja – 189,100
8. Bryan Campanello – 182,300
9. Carlos Villamarin – 182,000
10. David Chiu – 174,000
* Chip counts, player, and tournament information provided by wpt.com