Home / Poker News March 2010 / WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star – Day 1A report
WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star – Day 1A report
Posted by: Jo Martin - Wed, 2010-03-10 18:48
Barely had the dust settled in the wake of the last WPT event, the Bay 101 shooting star took over the headlines almost immediately. The unique format of the poker tournament made it possible for participants to make serious money without ever reaching past the money bubble. 136 players showed up for the opening of the event, 17 “shooting stars” included. The Shooting Stars were well-known, so called “name” players who each carried a $5k bounty. In addition to the 17x5,000= $85,000 available in bounties, players could make money by finishing atop the provisional leader board. The overnight chip leaders of both Day 1 flights would get $10,000, which was pretty much the equivalent of getting their buy-ins back and playing on for free.
TJ Cloutier was among the early victims of Day 1A, and because he carried a $5k bounty too, he made one player extremely happy. In Cloutier’s final hand, the chips went all-in on a flop of A,J,4. Cloutier had pocket Qs but Wade Griffith turned over A,J for the two pair. The turn and the river bricked out and Cloutier was bounced.
Gus Hansen followed him to the rail after a few blinds-levels. He committed his last chips on a flush draw which failed to materialize. He too had a $5k bounty on his head. Jennifer Harman was the next bounty player to bite the dust. She had an A,K and took a flip for her
poker tournament life against Masa Kagawa. Other players to have their bounties collected were Jason Mercier, Tom Dwan and Bertrand Grospellier. As the field thinned out and as players were moved to other tables to keep things together, sometimes rather unusual concentrations of bounty players occurred. Mike Matusow, Steve Brecher, Gavin Smith and Chris Ferguson sat at the same table, so it was inevitable that some of the Shooting Stars would end up collecting their fellow bounty-bearers’ rewards. Hoyt Corkins was the one who lost his bounty to a fellow Shooting Star first though. His Ac, Kc ran into Greg Mueller’s pocket rockets and he was bounced.
At the end of it all, Vanna Tea managed to secure the overnight chip lead, picking up the extra $10k.
Daniel Negreanu, Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Freddy Deeb all survived Day 1A of the poker tournament.
