WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star - Thursday Update

The World Poker Tour’s Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament in San Jose, California started with a total of 391 entrants including 50 Shooting Stars who had a bounty on their head. After two days of play the field was narrowed to the final 36 with the leader being Michael Kamran.

In recent poker tournaments, Kamran has had a lot of success including a second place finish in the Caesars Palace Classic back in October. He took 16th place in the 2008 World Series of Poker $2,500 No Limit Holdem event last year.

Kamran has the lead with just over 570,000 in chips followed by Tony Behari and Chris Moore. There are four poker Shooting Stars left in the field with the bounty on their heads. Kathy Liebert leads that group with 385,000 in chips. Paul Wasicka, Hoyt Corkins and Joe Sebok are the other remaining bounties to be picked up.

WPT Bay 101 Thursday Chip Stacks

1st: Michael Kamran - 570,500
2nd: Tony Behari - 548,000
3rd: Chris Moore - 539,500
4th: Daniel Obrien - 478,000
5th: John Monnette - 459,000
6th: Tyler Cornell - 425,000
7th: Kathy Liebert - 405,000
8th: Chau Vu - 315,500
9th: Steve Dempsey - 302,500
10th: Paul Wasicka - 297,000

Monnette is in 5th place and he holds the honor of winning two $5,000 bounties on the same hand. He sent Freddy Deeb and Brandon Cantu out as his A-Q defeated pocket tens and pocket fours. Monnette could have a tough time continuing as he has Kamran, Wasicka and online poker pro Marco Johnson at his table.

Many of the top pros in the world were part of this field including Phil Hellmuth, Erick Lindgren, John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey, Jennifer Harman, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, J.C. Tran and others.

First place in the Bay 101 Tournament will pay out just over $1 million while second place pays out just over a half million. Third place pays out $291,000. Fourth place pays $230,000, 5th place $180,000, and 6th place $135,000. All of the remaining 36 players are guaranteed at least $15,000.

Last year in the Bay 101 it was Brandon Cantu taking home the title and $1 million dollars. Last year a total of 376 players were in the field.