Bay 101 Shooting Stars Revealed

Do you know the way to San Jose? Fifty shooting stars certainly do …

INTRODUCING THE SHOOTING STARS

The WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star is one of the most unique tournaments in the world. Not only do hundreds of fans rail the tournament in search of an autograph and the chance to meet one of their favourite poker pros and hundreds of others qualify their way into the tournament by playing one of the numerous satellite events, the tournament is setup in a “bounty” style setting where eliminating one of the 50 “Shooting Stars” earns an opponent a $2,500 USD bonus.

On Sunday, Tournament Director extraordinaire Matt Savage posted, on the Two Plus Two forums, the list of the 50 Shooting Stars selected for the upcoming WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event in San Jose, California.

What makes the list interesting is that there is a great mix of players on the list. Young and old, American and European, legends and young guns … a great job in selecting the players by Savage and his team.

FIVE PLAYERS OF THE DECADE SELECTED

The Global Poker Index recently released the list of the Top 9 poker players of the past ten years. Led by Player of the Decade Daniel Negreanu (GPI#2), five of the nine players – including the Top 3 – have been selected as Shooting Stars. Joining Negreanu are Erik Seidel (GPI#17), Michael Mizrachi (GPI#124), John Juanda (GPI#225) and recent November Niner J.C. Tran (GPI#304).

Negreanu is also on of the Top 10 players currently at the top of the GPI300 who also received Shooting Star invitations. Marvin Rettenmaier (GPI#3), current 2014 GPI Player of the Year leader Vanessa Selbst (GPI#5), Paul Volpe (GPI#7) – who final tabled the Bay 101 Shooting Star last season – and Ravi Raghavan (GPI#10) are the other Top 10 players in the field. 33 members of the GPI300 all received invitations.

SIX WSOP WORLD CHAMPS IN THE FIELD

Six World Series of Poker Main Event Champions, including reigning and defending Champ Ryan Riess (GPI#362), have also been selected as Shooting Stars. Riess, who won the Main Event this past November, will be making his very first appearance at the Bay 101 Shooting Star in March.

The Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth (GPI#139), Jonathan Duhamel (GPI#16), Carlos Mortensen (GPI#532), Joe Hachem (GPI#904) and Scotty Nguyen (GPI#1068) will all make a return to the Bay 101, all five World Champions have been Shooting Stars in the past.

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The 2014 $7,500 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star begins March 10, 2014 at the Bay 101 in San Jose, California. The WPT TV final table will take place on Friday, March 14th.