The World Poker Tour event at Bay101 in San Jose is a little different than any other tournament out there. Matt Savage has done a great job of developing a tournament that players look forward to going to and that many call their favorite stop of the year. Brandon Cantu (right) will most likely be among those singing the praises of the Bay101 Shooting Star event. Cantu was the player that benefited most from the different rules, and he went on to win the tournament as well, taking home an even $1 million for first place. <READMORE>At the end of Day 1A Cantu picked up $10,000 for being the chip leader and he already had a pocket full of hundred dollar bills from a few of the $5,000 bounties he had claimed. By the end of the tournament Brandon had eliminated six players with bounties on their heads for a total bounty take of $30,000 on top of the $10,000 he got for being the chip leader.
Adding 50 bounty players to the tournament and prizes for being the chip leader at the end of each of the day ones added a unique twist to the tournament and was a catalyst for a lot of action even in the very early stages of play as some players went out of their way to try to knock out a bounty player. Along with the bounties, the tournament also went to 6 handed play once the field was down to the final 36 players.
Cantu picked up the Day 1A chip leader bonus with over 240k chips at the end of play. Day 1B had more players turn out, but for whatever reason the stacks that emerged weren’t nearly as large as Cantu’s. Blair “blur5f6” Hinkle was able to pick up the $10,000 for being the Day 1B chip leader, finishing the day with 170k. Hinkle was just coming off an 11th place finish at the LA Poker Classic and wasted no time putting himself right back in the mix at another major event. Hinkle is still looking for his first WPT final table though, finishing a little short again in this event with a 24th place finish for $20,000.
On day 2 Cantu continued to build chips and he and Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis established themselves as the chip leaders. Both players took a hit midway through day 2 though. Cantu doubled up Jason Gray (left) in a large pot that put Gray near the 500k chip mark while dropping Cantu back down into the 250k range. Gray was able to use his large stack to carry him through to the very late stages of the tournament, but with 3 tables remaining he went card dead and ended up being eliminated in 10th place after losing a coinflip to Lee Watkinson with his AQ suited against Lee’s pocket nines. The finish was worth $44,000 for Gray.Billirakis took his big hit at the hands of Mike Baker, who was able to parlay his stack into a final table appearance. Baker went into the final table with almost 2 million in chips and the only person that had enough chips to put a dent into Cantu’s stack. Instead, Baker made a play that left everyone scratching their heads, first getting over half a million chips in preflop with K
3 and then calling off his last 1.2 million on a flush draw. Cantu had aces with the ace of diamonds and after black fives filled out the board he had a stranglehold on the final table with over 5 million chips of the 7.5 million in play and no other player with even 1 million and Baker was left wondering what had happened and a 5th place finish.
Cantu had a large chip lead at the final table, but he also had some tough competition. John Phan was the first out in 6th place, but even after Phan and Baker were gone that still left Steve Sung, Jennifer Harman, and Noah Jefferson for Cantu to finish off. Brandon was able to maintain his stack while putting constant pressure on the other players and never really putting himself at risk. After Jefferson went out 4th, Cantu was then able to finish off a short stacked Harman and then close the deal in a short heads up match with Sung. In the end Brandon Cantu had pocket fours against Steve Sung’s pocket threes, and with no help for Sung’s underpair Cantu was able to claim the title and put an impressive end to his tournament run at the 2008 Bay101 Shooting Star event.Matt “Claw1980” Holtzclaw (right) was able to battle with a short stack from early on day 1 all the way to a 26th place finish and a payout of $16,000. Matt’s bustout hand was a standard race with his AQ against pocket eights that held up to send him to the rail. Considering he was the short stack for most of the tournament, hanging on as long as he did was a major accomplishment.
Next up for PocketFivesLive is a trip to Foxwoods for the World Poker Tour event there in early April and then back to Vegas for the WPT Championship at the Bellagio.
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