Twenty-four players are left standing in the Bay 101 Shooting Star event, a stop on the World Poker Tour (WPT). With four tables in action on Thursday, Joris Springael leads the way with nearly 1.5 million in chips and is one of three players to cross the seven-figure chip mark.
Full Tilt Poker pro and Shooting Star John Juanda was the final elimination of Wednesday’s action in the San Jose, California tournament. Juanda moved all-in on a board of 10-9-5-10-7 and showed K-9 for two pair. However, Dan Smith flipped up pocket sevens for a rivered boat and that was all she wrote for the former World Series of Poker Europe Main Event champion.
Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar relegated Tuan Nguyen to the rail in 26th place after the latter came out on the losing end of a race with K-10 of clubs against pocket fives. Nguyen flopped a gutshot straight draw when the first three cards came down J-9-4, but a running 8-6 didn’t improve the situation. Nguyen and Juanda each picked up $22,000 and were among the 45 in the money finishers at Bay 101. Rajkumar holds the third largest chip stack entering today’s play at nearly 1.1 million.
Kathy Liebert doubled up through Springael with A-6 against Q-J to survive Day 2. She’s at #15 on the leaderboard with a stack of 351,000 and is one of three Shooting Stars still breathing. Liebert, who was debating the merits of Full Tilt’s Onyx Cup in the moments leading up to Wednesday’s action in the WPT event on Twitter, posted to close the day, “Ty all. I need sleep.”
The WPT may be lacking an announcer at the final table of this event, as host Mike Sexton is still in the hunt for the $1 million first place prize. Sexton enters Day 3 at 13th on the leaderboard with 361,000 and doubled through PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event winner Galen Hall late in the day. Sexton’s A-K stood firm against Hall’s A-Q to push Sexton over 300,000 in chips. For you Hall fans out there, don’t worry. He’s just ahead of Sexton on the Day 3 leaderboard at 429,000.
The Bubble Boy of this year’s Bay 101 was none other than recent “The Showdown with Jon Friedberg” guest Layne Flack. He was all-in pre-flop with pocket jacks and up against Matt Berkey’s A-K. Flack was ahead until the river, when a king hit to send him home. He racked up three $5,000 bounties during his stay, so he won’t be going away empty-handed.
Here are the final 24 players remaining in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star event:
1. Joris Springael – 1,477,000
2. Alan Sternberg – 1,106,000
3. Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar – 1,076,000
4. Casey McCarrel – 874,000
5. Brian Schmidt – 842,000
6. Andrew Weisner – 755,000
7. Dan Smith – 703,000
8. Steven Kelly – 653,000
9. Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee – 542,000
10. Mark Dickstein – 477,000
11. Ty “puffinmypurp” Reiman – 450,000
12. Galen Hall – 429,000
13. Mike Sexton – 361,000
14. Mike Matusow – 352,000
15. Kathy Leibert – 351,000
16. Chris Trapani – 330,000
17. Eric “blizair” Blair – 297,000
18. Noah Lathrop – 291,000
19. Zach “CrazyZachary” Clark – 238,000
20. Ben Hamnett – 220,000
21. Danny Nguyen – 211,000
22. Brandon Crawford – 203,000
23. Brian Park – 128,000
24. Edmond Genoves – 98,000
When play stopped on Wednesday, the blinds were at 4,000-8,000 with an ante of 1,000 and, by the end of the day today, a six-handed final table will be determined. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest from Bay 101.
