The Bay 101 Recap

Brandon Cantu started off strong, finishing day 1A as the chip leader with over 240,000 chips and picking up the $10k bonus for being the chip leader at the end of play.  The unique tournament structure that allows for a chip leader bonus also set Cantu up to pick up a slew of $5,000 bounties for each “shooting star” he eliminated.  Over the course of the tournament he grabbed 6 of them, for another $30,000.  The $40k in bonus money is a tidy sum in itself, but a drop in the bucket to the even $1 million Cantu picked up for winning the World Poker Tour Bay101 Shooting Star Event.

There were 50 players in the field that had a bounty on their head, along with many other known pros all doing their best to come out on top.  Cantu was able to work his way through the field in dominating fashion though, never really finding himself in jeopardy after the early stages of day 1.  He came into day 2 as the overall chip leader, but did suffer some minor setbacks that took him out of the chip lead going into day 3 play and the lead up to the final table.

Day 3 was all Cantu though.  He was picking up pots, making hands, busting players and just generally controlling the action.  Another feature of the Matt Savage ran tournament was 6 handed play once the field was down to the final 36.  Cantu rolled through the short handed play just like he had everything else, if anything he was even able to ramp up his success a little more once play went 6 handed.  At one point late in day 3 Cantu was able to rake in 17 consecutive pots.  As Cantu was building a large chip lead to go into the final table, other top pros were positioning themselves for the title as well. 

JC Tran ended up being the 7th place finisher, going out on the TV final table bubble when his set of kings ran into Cantu’s set of aces (that’s a good example of how things were going for Brandon).  Once Tran was out the final table was set with John Phan, Jennifer Harman, Steve Sung, Noah Jefferson and Mike Baker all chasing Cantu. 

Baker was the unknown at the final table, but also the player coming in that had enough chips to put a dent in Cantu’s stack.  Instead, those chips ended up building another wing to the mansion of chips in front of Brandon.  After a short stacked John Phan was eliminated in 6th place ($135,000) Cantu then got a gift from Baker. 

Baker was still solidly in second place in chips with 1.7 million when he played a fatal pot with Brandon.  Baker opened the pot for just under 4 times the big blind to 30k.  Cantu showed strength and make it 75k.  Mike came back over the top for an additional 125k and then Cantu put in yet another bet adding another 300k to the pot.  Baker called, putting the pot at over 1 million chips already, but still leaving Baker with 1.2 million and more chips than anyone left except Cantu.  On the Q-T-2 flop there were two diamonds and Baker checked to Cantu who moved all in. 

Mike Baker then made the decision to put his chips in, saying “ok, lets gamble” and making the call with the K-3 of diamonds for nothing more than a flush draw.  Cantu, not surpisingly, had a little stronger holding with pocket aces including the ace of diamonds.  Even with the massive blowup and the calling off a 1.2 million chips, Cantu still had to fade the flush draw to pick up the chips.  Things continued to go his way, as two black fives filled out the board.  Baker left the table in something of a daze to collect his $200,000 payout for 5th place while Cantu stayed behind to stack up all the chips.

After the huge pot the pace slowed down.  Brandon had a stranglehold on the other 3 players and did an excellent job of applying pressure while not giving them opportunities for easy double ups.  He was able to whittle away at them, keeping everyone below a million chips for most of the rest of the tournament, and most players at or below 500k. 

Steve Sung was able to win a coinflip with pocket sevens against the A-K of Noah Jefferson to bust Jefferson in 4th place.  By this point Jennifer Harman was almost critically short stacked, and even after gaining Noah’s chips Sung still only had about 25% of the chips that Cantu was sitting behind. 

Cantu was able to pick up his 6th bounty when he eliminated Jen Harman in 3rd place with his pocket nines against her A-k.  Harman’s finish was worth $330,000 but left her short of the WPT title she was hoping for.  Her elimination left Sung heads up with Cantu for the title and the million-dollar prize.

Playing well, running well, and a massive chips lead are hard to overcome and proved too much for Sung.  After Cantu chipped away at Sung to get him down to half a million Steve was able to double up, but he was still out chipped by 6 to 1.  On the next hand after the double up the two players were all in preflop and Cantu exposed his pocket fours.  Instead of immediately turning his hand over Sung shrunk into his hoodie, indicating he was somehow crushed by the low pair.  After a few seconds he showed a pair of threes and 5 cards later Brandon Cantu was the official winner of the 2008 Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament.

Ted Forrest made a run at back to back titles, but fell out of the tournament in 25th place.  Anna Wroblewski and Paul Wasicka both made the money, but not by much.  They finished in 30th and 34th places respectively, making it in the top 45 that made the money.  With all the pros and all the bounties there was a lot of fan excitement and a lot of unique twists to the tournament.  But from the start Brandon Cantu was the dominating force and the story of the tournament.