Monday, March 14, 2011

Day 1A chip leader: Brian Schmidt


Brian Schmidt is the Day 1A chip leader with 187,700.  He will collect $10,000 for his large stack.

Play has concluded for the night

Play has concluded for the night, and players are bagging up their chips, about to embark on a one day sabbatical.  The tournament staff are checking to see who the Day 1A chip leader is, as he will collect $10,000.  We will post that information shortly.

Tune in tomorrow at 10am for the live stream of Day 1B!

$2k No Limit Final Results


256 entrants / $486,400 prize pool
Place / Name / Prize
1st Mimi Luu $105,500.00 * **
2nd Pat Lyons $105,500.00 * **
3rd Greg Flowers $53,400.00 *
4th Mike Sowers $38,910.00
5th Brian Henzig $31,620.00
6th Dana Gill $24,320.00
7th Sachine Modi $19,460.00
8th Rellie Sigua $14,590.00
9th Salim Batshon $10,000.00
10th Julia Sun $7,780.00
11th Anthony Winters $7,780.00
12th Mark Mosrowitz $7,780.00
13th Chad Laughlin $5,840.00
14th Ronald Lane $5,840.00
15th Kiran Desai $5,840.00
16th Gary Tighe $4,380.00
17th Roni Hayon $4,380.00
18th Hamid Khorram $4,380.00
19th Dave Fromm $3,000.00
20th David Forster $3,000.00
21st Derrick Yamada $3,000.00
22nd Grant Hillman $3,000.00
23rd Romik Vartzar $3,000.00
24th Axel Werner $3,000.00
25th Bill Kabage $3,000.00
26th Chris Roat $3,000.00
27th Francesco Conte $3,000.00
28th Cosimo Cricchio $2,000.00 **

* includes a $10k WPT Shooting Star seat
** denotes deal made to take $1,000 off 1st and 2nd place to pay 28th place
(second deal was made when heads up play began)

Deal made in the $2k

The $2k stopped to negotiate a deal at least four times, and every time negotiations broke down.  Finally when Pat Lyons and Mimi Luu were heads up, the two agreed to each take $90,000 cash plus the $10,000 WPT seat and play for the remaining $11,100.  Luu holds a small chip lead over Lyons, but Lyons seems confident in his heads up play.  They will take a brief break to collect themselves before battling it out to a winner.

Last break of the night

Players have just returned from their last break of the night.  The 81 players remaining from today's 142 that started are now playing 400/800 blinds with a 100 ante.  They will play this level and one more before finishing play for the night.

YouTube video: Frank Kasella elimination

Click here to view the video in HD

$2k final table plays on


While the $10k plays on, the $2k final table has been playing since 4pm.  In three hours, only two plays have been eliminated: Rellie Sigua in 8th place and Salim Batshon in 9th place.  The chip leader is once again Pat Lyons.

Post-dinner chip counts


We just grabbed some quick chip counts for select players as play returns from dinner break.  It looks as if Kara Scott is the chip leader as she doubled up in the previous level.

Kara Scott - 113,000
Gavin Smith - 89,000
John Juanda - 87,000
Brandon Cantu - 74,000
Daniel Negreanu - 72,000
Mike Matusow - 71,000
Dan O'Brien - 65,000
Jerry Yang - 54,000
Layne Flack - 52,000
Dwyte Pilgrim - 51,000
Joe Tehan - 43,000
Phil Hellmuth - 39,000
Matt Affleck - 38,000
Men "The Master" Nguyen - 35,000
Hoyt Corkins - 33,000
Scott Seiver - 32,000
Maria Ho - 32,000
Frank Kasella - 26,000
Erik Seidel - 25,000
Jason Mercier - 23,000
Jeff Madsen - 17,000

Dinner break

Players are now on their one hour dinner break, and will return at 6pm PST to play four more levels before completing for the night.  Next to our featured table, the $2k final table is now under way, and has attracted quite a rail.

Phil Hellmuth doubles up through Freddy Deeb

 
Phil Hellmuth has doubled up against Freddy Deeb when Hellmuth's pocket kings dodged Deeb's flush and straight draws.

YouTube video: "Black and Yellow" appreciation

There's a video floating around the Internet that is an auto-tune rap parody featuring Prahlad Friedman. At our featured table, Dwyte Pilgrim pulled up the video on his iPad, and Daniel Negreanu and Jeff Madsen got in on the enjoyment.

Click here to view the video in HD

Players on break


The second break of the day has arrived.  Registration is closed for Day 1A, and the board reads 142 players.  While it is not official, this should be a pretty close number of entrants for today.  Players will play two more hour-long levels and then take a dinner break, and then come back and play 4 more levels before wrapping up play for the night.

To entertain you on the break, we've included a picture above of the Royal Flush Girls along with Kimberly Lansing, Vince Van Patten, and Tony Dunst doing their introductions at the top of the day.

Day 1A Shooting Stars


Here are your Day 1A Bay 101 Shooting Stars:

Front row:
Erik Seidel
Jerry Yang
Men "The Master" Nguyen
Kara Scott
Marko Trapani's son *
Marko Trapani's wife *
Freddy Deeb
Justin Smith
Frank Kasella
Jason Mercier

Back row:
Mike Matusow
Gavin Smith
Hoyt Corkins
Dan Harrington
Daniel Negreanu
John Juanda
Phil Hellmuth
Joe Sebok
Dwyte Pilgrim
Thomas Marchese
Tony Dunst
Matt Savage *
Kimberly Lansing *

* not a bounty

Tom Marchese eliminated

YouTube video: Marko Trapani memorial

Click here to view the video in HD

Tony Dunst eliminated


With a board reading TT69x, Tony Dunst was all in on the river.  His opponent showed him pocket tens for quads, and Dunst's straight was no match.  Dunst is the first bounty player to be eliminated from the Shooting Star.

Marko Trapani memorial


Marko Trapani was the originator of the Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament, and last year he passed away.  Before starting the clock back up again, Marko's son said a few words to commemorate his father.  Then, a brief video was shown featuring some of poker's biggest names talking about Marko.

Day 1A - First break

Players are on their first break of the day, and the scene looks more like a cocktail party than a poker tournament as everyone's catching up with each other and hearing the stories of the day so far.

Along with the names mentioned earlier, we've also spotted Tom Marchese, Brandon Cantu, Layne Flack, Mike Matusow, Maria Ho, Victor Ramdin, Phil Hellmuth, and Tony Dunst.  Professional boxer Audley Harrison is also in the field.

Today's bounty players have just completed a photo shoot, so we'll have the pictures up on this site shortly.

Day 1A - Cards in the air!

Vince Van Patten has just announced, "Shuffle Up And Deal" and the cards are now in the air.  Daniel Negreanu is on our featured table in seat 5 as he was voted the player you'd most like to see in an informal vote on Twitter yesterday.  Yesterday's birthday boy Greg Sessler is also at the featured table in seat 8.

You can watch live by clicking on "Watch LIVE Video" at the top of this page.

We will have an official list of bounties posted shortly as soon as it is finalized.  Already seen in the field are NBC Heads Up champion Erik Seidel, Kara Scott, Dan Harrington, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Scott Seiver, Jon Aguiar, Robert Croak, Jason Mercier, and Gavin Smith.

Final table chip counts

The final 9 players will return at 4pm to play down to a winner.  Here are the seating assignments and chip counts:

Seat 1 - Mike Sowers - 708k
Seat 2 - Pat Lyons - 595k
Seat 3 - Bryan Henzig - 441k
Seat 4 - Rellie Sigua - 156k
Seat 5 - Sachine Modi - 201k
Seat 6 - Mimi Luu - 69k
Seat 7 - Dana Gill - 101k
Seat 8 - Salim Batshon - 194k
Seat 9 - Greg Flowers - 96k

$2k final table reached

The $2k tournament has reached its final 10 players.  The players have redrawn for seats and will continue playing until they eliminate a player.  The final 9 will return tomorrow at 4pm to play down for a winner.  Here are the final 10 players listed by seat number:

Seat 1 - Mike Sowers

Seat 2 - Julia Sun

Seat 3 - Pat Lyons

Seat 4 - Brian Henzig

Seat 5 - Rellie Sigua

Seat 6 - Sachine Modi

Seat 7 - Mimi Luu

Seat 8 - Dana Gill

Seat 9 - Salim Batshon

Seat 10 - Greg F

The pace is quickening

When the tournament hit the money, action was a bit slow.  It took over an hour to get from 27 players to 21 players.  But in the span of a half hour, the field has been cut to just 15 players.  In five minutes, the blinds will increase to 3k/6k.