World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star

“The Bay 101 Casino is the friendliest place to play poker in the Bay Area, by far. The dealers, the staff, and the floor people make a person feel comfortable. I also love their Shooting Star World Poker Tour tournament, and I play in it every year.”. The World Poker Tour heads back to the Bay 101 in San Jose this week as the second leg of the WPT California Swing in underway. Close to 50 players will be tagged as 'Shooting Stars' for the WPT. Directed by Frank Ishizaki. With Brittany Bell, Jeannie Duffy, Tony Dunst, Kimberly Lansing.

A total of 806 entries were made in the 2017 World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star $7,500 no-limit hold’em main event, a record field for the unique event that dates back to the second season of the WPT. This year’s six-handed final table played the host to a number of exciting storylines, including Chino Rheem looking to become the first-ever four-time WPT main event champion and two-time bracelet winner Paul Volpe going for his first title on the WPT at his third final table. In the end, the storyline that won out was Sam Panzica capturing his second title on the tour less than six months after winning his first. Panzica overcame the record field and the stacked final table to emerge victorious, earning the first-place prize of $1,373,000 and adding his name the WPT Champions Trophy.

Panzica’s prior win came in the WPT bestbet Jacksonville Bounty Scramble for $354,335. This second win came in a larger buy-in event with more than double the entries, and as a result Panzica found it accordingly more rewarding.

“This one is definitely better. First place is four times as much as Jacksonville,” Panzica told WPT reporters. “But Jacksonville was cool though since it was my first one.'

Panzica came into the final table of six in third chip position, although he had only 40 big blinds while chip leader Chino Rheem had over 130. Rheem also scored the first two eliminations at the final table, sending Rainer Kempe (6th – $188,460) and Dennis Stevermer (5th – $243,090) to the rail and increasing his stack to more than 11 million with roughly 24 million in play.

World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Starter

Rheem continued his run of knockouts by sending Paul Volpe home in fourth place ($349,610) but in the meantime Anthony Spinella had won some key pots and began to challenge for the lead, which the two traded back and forth while Panzica simply tried to stay alive in the event as the shortest stack. The three battled it out for quite a while, with Panzica able to slowly mount a comeback and get himself back into the thick of it. On the 151st hand of the final table Panzica picked up AA and got all in preflop against Rheem’s QJ preflop. Panzica held to take the lead from Rheem, who had been pulling away again.

From there on Rheem was on a downward spiral, losing another key pot to Panzica to fall to just 12 big blinds. Shortly after that Spinella double up through him, leaving him on fumes. Rheem hit the rail the following hand in third place, earning $521,660 for his deep run.

With that the heads-up showdown was set, with Panzica holding more than a 3-to-1 chip advantage over Spinella. The final battle lasted only five hands, with Spinella getting his last chips in with A8 only to run into Panzica’s A10. The board ran out J5345 to secure the pot and the title for Panzica, sending Spinella to the rail as the runner-up with $786,610.

In addition to the trophy and the money Panzica also earned 1,824 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win. This was his second final table finish of 2017 and it was enough to see him move into fourth place on the POY leaderboard, which is presented this year by Commerce Hotel & Casino.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY awarded to the final nine:

World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star Wars

Winner photo courtesy of Joe Giron / WPT.

There were 27 players remaining at the start of day 3 at the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event. At the end of a very long day of play just six players remain, including one of the biggest names in poker, Phil Hellmuth(pictured right). The Poker Brat is also the final shooting star remaining in the event from the 50 select players (333 entered overall) that began with a $5,000 bounty on their heads in San Jose.

Heading into day 3 it appeared that the television table of six would be reached relatively early, especially with an 11 a.m. start time. Fast action was aided by the fact that tables would remain six-handed until a final table of seven would battle for the final elimination of the night. Things started out according to plan and the final two tables were reached just before 4 p.m. John Cernuto busted in 11th place just after 6 p.m. and then the tournament hit a road block.

Bay 101 Shooting Star 2019

The deep blind structure set up by Matt Savage and his tournament staff took over and the players settled in for a skilled battle to advance to the final day. The battle for 10th place lasted five and a half hours before David Forster was eliminated (see below). After he hit the rail the flood gates opened up and Brian Rast (ninth place) and Scotty Nguyen (eighth place) fell in the next 15 minutes.

The final seven players took their seats at the final table just after midnight to determine who would finish in the unenviable position of television-table bubble boy. It took 44 more hands of poker to determine the final elimination and just before 2 a.m. the television table was reached and play ended for the night, 15 hours after cards initially got into the air.

Hellmuth will enter his fifth WPT final table in second chip-position with 1,433,000 and he will be joined by professionals Andy Seth (2,164,000), Hasan Habib (455,000), Matt Keikoan (371,000), and Dan O’Brien (1,129,000). The winner will walk away with $878,500. Here is a look at the seating chart for tomorrow’s final table with chip counts:

Seat 1: Hasan Habib — 455,000
Seat 2: Phil Hellmuth — 1,433,000
Seat 3: Andy Seth — 2,164,000
Seat 4: Matt Keikoan — 371,000
Seat 5: Mclean Karr — 1,112,000
Seat 6: Dan O’Brien — 1,129,000

1st: $878,500
2nd: $521,500
3rd: $292,800
4th: $234,300
5th: $175,700
6th: $117,000

The final table will begin at 4 p.m. PST tomorrow and it should be an exciting one. A full recap of the final table will be available after a champion is crowned at Bay 101. Check back to see if Hellmuth can finish the job and capture his first WPT title to go along with his record 11 World Series of Poker gold bracelets. Here is a look at the tournament statistics from day 3:

24: Thomas Marchese — $20,500
22: Jonathan Little — $20,500
20: John Monnette — $20,500
18: Faraz Jaka — $23,400
15: Joe Elpayaa — $23,400
14: Chau Giang
13: Nick Schulman — $23,400
11: John Cernuto — $29,300
9: Brian Rast — $38,000
8: Scotty Nguyen — $58,600

David Forster Eliminated in 10th Place ($38,000)

After five and half hours of play with 10 players remaining in the tournament, David Forster bet 65,000 under the gun. There was a flop of Q 8 2 sitting on the table along with 104,000 in the pot when he did this and action was then on Mclean Karr. He asked for a count of Forster’s stack and after learning his opponent had 106,000 left behind he raised all in. Forster made the all-in call and they flipped over their cards:

World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star

Forster: K Q
Mclean: K 9

Turn and River: 3 and 4

Mclean had flopped the flush and he won the hand to grow his stack to 1,170,000. Forster was eliminated in 10th place and he was awarded $38,000 in prize money.