Thursday marks the play down day in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Bay 101 Shooting Star event emanating from San Jose, California. At the end of two days, 27 players remain, led by UB.com pro and 11-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, who owns a stack of 550,000 chips. Flanking Hellmuth on Wednesday at the feature table was Andy BKiCe Seth (pictured at right), who wound up with the third largest stack at 453,000. Play will continue today until a final six-handed table is determined.
Seth made waves on Wednesday by busting Shooting Stars on back-to-back hands. Each marked pro carries a $5,000 bounty, meaning that Seth is officially freerolling in the marquee WPT event. First, Seth sent 2006 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event winner J.C. Tran (pictured at left) to the rails after Tran committed his chips with K-5 on a board of K-8-5-10. However, Seth turned over pocket eights for a flopped set. A seven on the river sealed his win in the hand and boosted Seth’s real life bankroll by $5,000.
On the very next hand, Seth struck again. Seth shoved all-in on a flop of 9-5-2 with two spades and 2007 WSOP Main Event champ Jerry Yang (pictured at right) called for his tournament life with pocket fives for middle set. Seth showed a wired pair of nines for top set and a commanding lead. The case five failed to fall on the turn or river and Seth’s reign of terror continued. On the double knockouts, Seth told WPT Live Updates Hostess Jacque, “I put sick coolers on both of them.”
Also making waves on Wednesday and sitting at the same table as Seth and Hellmuth was Faraz The-Toilet Jaka (pictured at left), who has been on a live poker tear in recent months. In the last seven months of 2009, Jaka recorded three six-figure live scores for $1.75 million combined, including WPT final tables at the Bellagio Cup and Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. In February, Jaka took fifth in the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) High-Roller event for $95,000. Although Hellmuth stole the chip lead away from Jaka late in the day after showing a full house against him, the online poker player sits in seventh on the leaderboard entering the play down day with a stack of 332,500.
Yevgeniy Jovial Gent Timoshenko (pictured at right) hit the rails on Wednesday holding A-K against Hellmuth’s 10-8 of hearts. The flop came eight-high and no help arrived on the turn or river, sending Timoshenko, a Shooting Star, to the sidelines. Timoshenko signed his shirt “Good luck, Phil” per Hellmuth’s request. One hour later, the money bubble burst when Michael Cooper was eliminated in 37th place.
After the money bubble, PocketFives.com members hit the rails in droves. Mohsin chicagocards1 Charania (pictured at left) went all-in with a gutshot straight draw and a flush draw against Hasan Habib, but the board bricked out; Charania landed in 35th place for $14,000. Following him out the door was Steve gboro780 Gross, who ran pocket nines into “Miami” John Cernuto’s pocket aces. Gross took 34th place for the same $14,000. The final elimination of the day went to Chris Fox Wallace, who landed in 28th place for $17,000.Here are the chip counts of the 27 players remaining:
1. Phil Hellmuth - 550,000
2. Hasan Habib - 496,000
3. Andy BKiCe Seth - 453,000
4. Dan O'Brien - 439,000
5. Matt Keikoan - 426,500
6. Nick Schulman - 381,500
7. Faraz The-Toilet Jaka - 332,500
8. Brian tsarrast Rast - 322,000
9. Chau Giang - 307,500
10. David Forster - 305,500
11. Joseph pokerjoe9 Elpayaa - 302,000
12. Vanna Tea - 279,000
13. Lon Diamond - 242,000
14. Lars Elmoe - 216,000
15. Taylor Raines - 198,000
16. John Monnette - 179,000
17. Jonathan FieryJustice Little - 177,500
18. Dan Gamon - 170,500
19. Jonathan driverseati Tamayo - 154,000
20. “Miami” John Cernuto - 134,500
21. Scotty Nguyen - 132,500
22. Tom Marchese - 117,500
23. Ted Jivkov - 105,500
24. Tim McDermott - 80,000
25. Thuy Phan - 78,000
26. Kafir Nahum - 73,000
27. McLean Karr - 30,500
When play resumed on Thursday at 11:00am PT, the blinds were 1,500-3,000 with an ante of 500. All players remaining are assured a payday of $17,000 and the members of the six-handed final table will pick up at least $117,000. Stay tuned to PocketFives.com for the latest WPT coverage of online poker players.
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