Home / Poker News March 2010 / WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star – Day 2 report
WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star – Day 2 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2010-03-13 10:04
After another overnight chip leader (Eugene Katchalov) had collected a $10k extra reward on Day 1B of the WPT’s Bay 101 Shooting Star event, Day 2 saw 126 players return to the
poker tournament action. At the end of 6 levels, only 27 were left in contention. The overnight chip lead was clinched by none other than the Poker Brat, Phil Hellmuth, who had been maneuvering around on a short-stack at the beginning of the day.
During the first level of play, Hellmuth was forced to commit his entire stack in one instance, trusting his tournament life (and $5k bounty) to an Ad, 2d he’d picked up, on a flop of 10d,9d,5s. JC Tran made the call and he had Kd,Qd for the perfect hand draw. The perfect hand would not materialize though as neither player hit his flush. An A which fell on the turn though gave Hellmuth a lease on his poker tournament life. Hellmuth then proceeded to eliminate Yevgeniy Timoshenko, who had a bounty on his head too. Besides picking up the $5k, Hellmuth took his stack to 300k chips and grew into a serious factor at the table.
His 10,8 hit a pair of 8s against Timonshenko’s A,K for the win.
Faraz Jaka had an excellent day too. He scored a huge pot against Eugene Katchalov during Day 2 to shoot to 7th overall by the end of the day. Katchalov had finished Day 1B in the chip lead, so he had plenty of chips to drop to Jaka. The two of them got it all-in on the turn of a board of: J,6,2,Q. Katchalov was the one who made the move and Jaka was more than happy to call him with his pocket Qs for the top set. Katchalov had pocket rockets, and as the river landed a 6, he sunk back into the field, his stack smaller than 10 BBs.
Despite the flurry of Shooting Star eliminations, 4 players still carry a bounty on their heads, going into Day 3. Besides Hellmuth, Scotty Nguyen, Chau Giang and John Cernuto also made it past the Day 2 hurdle.
Daniel Negreanu failed to preserve his bounty, together with Howard Lederer, Greg Mueller, Freddy Deeb and Barry Greenstein. Eugene Katchalov was eventually bounced too, having gone from hero to zero within a day.
