Stefan Schillhabel Wins 2016 World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event

The World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star $75,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event drew a record field of 753 entries in 2016, creating a $5,346,300 prize pool. In the end the lion’s share of that was awarded to Stefan Schillhabel. The student from Dueseldorf, Germany was awarded $1,298,000 and his very first major poker tournament title after outlasting the huge field and a stacked final table.

For the win Schillhabel was also awarded 1,824 Card Player Player of the Year points, enough to move him into ninth place in the overall standings.

Schillhabel came into the televised final table of six players with the chip lead, but had the likes of Mario Ho (6th – $179,930), 2015 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown main event champion Griffin Paul (5th – $231,310) and Andjelko Andrejevic (4th – $331,500). Ho was the last ‘Shooting Star’ bounty left in the event. Had she come out on top she would have become the first female WPT champion in an open main event.

American poker pro Adam Geyer did much of the eliminating at the final table, taking out the first three players at the final table to wrest the lead from Schillhabel. By the time the German busted Bryan Piccioli in third place the two had nearly identical stacks.

The final heads-up battle lasted nearly three hours. Schillhabel was able to pull away over the 53-hand showdown and by the time the final hand was dealt he had nearly a 10-to-1 chip advantage.

With blinds of 150,000 – 300,000 and antes of 50,000 Geyer moved all-in from the button for 1,850,000. Schillhabel thought it over before making the call with the 87. Geyer was in the lead with the K9 and even improved after a K103 flop. The 8 on the turn paired Schillhabel though, giving him outs heading into the river. The 8 improved the German to three of a kind, securing him the pot and the title. Geyer earned $752,800 for his second-place finish, the largest score of his career.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo courtesy of World Poker Tour / Joe Giron.

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