As the fields combined on day 2 of the Bay 101 Shooting Star, of the 138 total players that remained, only 16 were Shooting Stars. Despite the early start time and the supposed lack of star power, the fans still came out in droves, hanging on the rail to cheer on their favorite poker professionals.
It didn’t take long to lose the first Shooting Star, as a short-stacked Men Nguyen was knocked out by Robert Cheung’s runner-runner flush. Nguyen’s elimination seemed to spark a string of bustouts, and, in the first level alone, we lost nearly 30 players. Among the fallen Shooting Stars were Mike Matusow, Phil Laak, Scotty Nguyen, Kathy Liebert, John Cernuto, and Allen Cunningham. The field continued to shrink at a rapid rate and didn’t seem to let up until just before the dinner break, when the realization of a possible payday hit the players.
Barry Greenstein fought hard all day on the short stack, doubling up several times before finally succumbing after his overpair was rivered by a flush just before the dinner break. Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis spent most of the day moving closer and closer to the chip lead, but two huge confrontations with Michael Baker sent him to the rail and gave Baker nearly 700,000 for the chip lead. Baker doubled up Jennifer Harman after the field returned from dinner, but, for the most part, he kept accumulating chips to end the day, when he had 952,500.
Right after the dinner break, Phil Hellmuth made an appearance to wish some of his friends good luck on their quest for the first-place prize of $1,000,000. Tournament Director Matt Savage made the minor mistake of handing the Poker Brat a microphone, much to the delight of the crowd. Hellmuth then spent about 30 minutes moving from table to table to tell stories and compliment the play of his colleagues.
After Rich Belsky eliminated Brandon Schaefer in 47th place, there were a few short stacks left in the field, so the bubble process wasn’t expected to take very long. But not even Hellmuth could have predicted the confrontation that would burst the bubble:
On a flop of 8
75
, Ralph Perry moved all in, and Clonie Gowen made the call. Gowen turned over 8
8
for top set but was up against the monster draw of Perry, who held 65. The turn and river bricked out for Perry as the J and 10, and he went home as the official bubble boy of the tournament. Luckily, Perry took out bounty Gavin Smith yesterday for a nice $5,000 rebate.
Once things got into the money, it took only 35 minutes for the field to lose the last nine players for the night, each of whom took home $10,000. Here is their order of finish:
44. Taylor Raines
The remaining 36 players will come back tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. PST to play down to the final table. This tournament will feature a unique format, as the rest of the event will be played at sixhanded tables with two-hour levels.
Here are the top five in chips and the last of the Shooting Stars:
Top five in chips:
1. Mike Baker — 952,500
Jennifer Harman — 164,500
