In rapid fashion, the players at the World Poker Tour’s Bay 101 Shooting Star event in San Jose, CA, rocketed through the money bubble to get down to the final 36 players that will take part in Day 3 action. At the head of the pack is a player with a limited tournament resume, Imad Allahham, who will have plenty of opponents looking to take him down on Thursday.
After the final round of late registration concluded just before the start of Day 2 on Wednesday, there were 269 players that looked to take fame and fortune in California from the 708 entries that started the tournament. Those players combined together to build a $5,026,800 prize pool and, for the second tournament in a row (the previous event was the L. A. Poker Classic), the winner will walk off with a million-dollar payday ($1,214,200, to be exact) and a seat at the 2015 WPT World Championship in Atlantic City.
With such riches on the line for the 72 players who would earn a cash from the Shooting Stars, it was expected that the play would be a bit more contemplative as the day began. The exact opposite was the case, however, as several Shooting Stars (players with a $2500 bounty on their heads for their elimination) departed the scene within minutes of the opening bell. Of the 31 Shooting Stars that returned for Day 2, Tyler Patterson, defending WPT World Champion Keven Stammen, Marvin Rettenmaier, Todd Brunson, Antonio Esfandiari, Darren Elias, Mohsin Charania, Matt Stout and Nick Schulman all headed to the rail within the first two hours of play.
As action moved towards the evening, the number of players falling drew into possibility that the money bubble would pop on Day 2. After the dinner break, there were only 85 players remaining, meaning that 13 unfortunate players wouldn’t earn anything from their trip to Northern California (unless they busted a Shooting Star, that is). Five of those players – Faraz Jaka, Chris Moorman, Mike Leah, Garrett Greer and Sorel Mizzi – were Shooting Stars, leaving plenty of bounty money out there for the players to fight over.
Hand-for-hand play only lasted for eight deals as, after Griffin Paul made a raise off the button, Larry Wright pushed his remaining chips in from the small blind. After the big blind departed, Paul made the call and tabled his pocket Jacks, holding the strong advantage over Wright’s pocket sevens. When the board ran out nine-high, Paul’s Jacks stood tall and Wright moved to the rail, one spot short of making the money.
The nearly 200 players that had been eliminated over the first six hours of Day 2 only ramped up as the players took their piece of the prize pool. Four more hours of play would see 36 players knocked out, including Shooting Star Leah, as Allahham quietly made his way to the top of the leaderboard for the start of Day 3 play on Thursday:
1. Imad Allahham, 1.717 million
2. Taylor Paur, 1.096 million
3. Giacomo Fundaro, 1.082 million
4. Eric Werner, 1.06 million
5. Chane Kampanatsanakorn, 1.049 million
6. Abe Aboukhalil, 975,000
7. Sorel Mizzi, 906,000 (Shooting Star)
8. Isaac Baron, 883,000
9. Faraz Jaka, 864,000 (Shooting Star)
10. Ravee Mathi, 859,000
The other two Shooting Stars remaining in the field are both under the average chip count of 590K. Moorman (560K) and Greer (270K) will have their work cut out for them if they are to make a drive towards the final table on Friday.
The final 36 players will take their seats at six-handed tables today with some intriguing matchups. Mizzi has a stacked table facing him as he will look out at Paul, Oliver Price, Baron, Shawn Buchanan and Tom Dobrilovic. Allahham will have to contend with Greer and Jaka has Byron Kaverman and Toby Lewis on his patch of felt. Moorman goes up against Ari Engel, former Shooting Stars champion Steve Brecher and Day 1B chip leader Haixia Zhang, while the other two tables are filled out with Fundaro, Paur, Ryan Julius, Jacob Bazeley, Danny Wong and others for their own festivities.
Day 3 will begin at noon (Pacific Time) and play down to the official WPT six-handed final table. Will a Shooting Star make the final table? The action on Thursday will determine that as well as the players who will vie for the top prize on Friday afternoon at the Bay 101.
