The next big World Poker Tour event got underway Monday, staying in California this week at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star. Held at the Bay 101 Casino in San Jose, California, the tournament is one of the most fun on the Tour, as a number of well-known poker players are designated as “Shooting Stars,” each of whom has a bounty on his or her head. Anyone who knocks out a Shooting Star receives $5,000 along with an autographed t-shirt emblazoned with the bounty’s smiling face. Bryce Yockey emerged from Day 1A as the chip leader with 245,300 chips, a solid 50,000 chip advantage over the next closest competitor, Brandon Wong.
The bounties for Day 1A included Mike Matusow, Gavin Smith, Kathy Liebert, Will “The Thrill” Failla, Sam Stein, Jonathan Duhamel, Liv Boeree, Maria Ho, Joe Hachem, Daniel Negreanu, Christian Harder, Joe Tehan, Erik Seidel, Andy Frankenberger, Vanessa Selbst, Phil Hellmuth, Dwyte Pilgrim, Faraz Jaka, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko. Only five – Selbst, Harder, Duhamel, Matusow, and Liebert – are amongst the 54 players (out of 142) moving on to Day 2.
As for Yockey, it was a wild end of the day. During the last level of the night, he made two gigantic moves to come out of nowhere and take the chip lead. The first came against Shooting Star Erik Seidel when the eight-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and one-time WPT champ moved all-in pre-flop with A-9 against Yockey and his pocket Sevens. The community cards helped neither, but since Yockey had a made hand, that was good enough for him and he grew his chip stack to 125,000. On top of that, he received the $5,000 bounty and t-shirt for eliminating Seidel.
Just a few minutes later, Yockey and Paul McCaffrey got into a raising war on the river with the board showing Th-Tc-6h-6c-Kh before Yockey eventually moved all-ina nd McCaffrey called. Yockey proudly flipped over pocket Sixes, which not only gave him a flopped full house, but also Quads on the turn. That was it for McCaffrey as Yockey became the first player to eclipse the 200,000 chip mark. Day 1A ended just minutes later.
Bryce Yockey is now on a total freeroll from here on out, as he not only won $5,000 from the Erik Seidel bounty, but also a $10,000 bonus for being the chip leader at the end of Day 1A. With a combined buy-in and fee of $10,000, Yockey has already profited before even reaching the money in the tournament.
Day 1B will begin at 10:45am local time Tuesday with a whole new group of players and a new batch of 28 Shooting Stars. The tournament will run through the rest of the week with the champion being decided on Friday.
WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star – End of Day 1A Chip Leaders
1. Bryce Yockey – 245,300
2. Brandon Wong – 195,600
3. Amir Khaziri – 187,700
4. Shannon Shorr – 183,400
5. David Peters – 142,100
6. Neil Blumenfield – 139,400
7. Erik Cajelais – 128,900
8. Vanessa Selbst – 125,400
9. Christian Harder – 107,700
10. Jonathan Duhamel – 102,200
