The World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star Championship is one of the most unique tournaments on the WPT calendar.

Every year, excited poker fans from all over head to San Jose, California, to rail the scene as many of the best poker players in the game compete with near literal targets printed on their backs.

Starting Monday, March 16th, 50 of these top invited pros will attempt to navigate what is traditionally a very large WPT starting field, one that is full of players aiming to knock these “Shooting Stars” out. If successful, along with an autographed t-shirt, the victor collects a $5,000 bounty for each Star shot down.

The 2009 list of “Shooting Stars” is an impressive one and holds top flight European players, online pros, long time Vegas legends and more than a few PokerRoaders. This year’s list includes Phil Ivey, Annie Duke, Daniel Negreanu, Nenad Medic, Mike Matusow, T.J. Cloutier, Jonathan Little, Barry Greenstein, David Pham, Jeff Madsen, Jerry Yang, Chris Ferguson, Gavin Smith, Joe Sebok, Antonio Esfandiari and last year’s winner Brandon Cantu.

Cantu earned that victory by surviving a 376-person field and a final table that held, among others, Jennifer Harman and PokerRoad blogger Steve Sung. With the win, Cantu netted $1,000,000 and the right to come back to San Jose this year, not only as the defending champion, but also as a “Shooting Star” with a price on his head.

Other previous winners of the Bay 101 Shooting Star Championship include Ted Forrest and Nam Le.

The final table finishes for the 2008 World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star Championship were as follows:

This year’s $10,000 buy-in ($9,500 + $500) Bay 101 event will start players off with 20,000 in tournament chips, feature multiple day ones, and will have 60 minute levels. Tournament Director extraordinaire, Matt Savage, will once again run the event.

As the Internet’s best source for the inside scoop behind all the big buy-in tournaments, PokerRoad will be in San Jose all week (3/16 – 3/20), bringing you news, videos, blogs and PokerRoad Radio, featuring everyone’s favorite gang of miscreants, Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith, and Ali Nejad.

Given all this content, it would probably be wise to check back often.