With Day 1b of the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star recently completed, the crucial how-manys and what-fors are now known to all involved.

415 players in total signed up to play in this latest $10,000 buy-in WPT event, enough to create a total prize pool of $3,697,500.  That pool is large enough to payout the top 45 places, and award the champion a grand prize of $1,039,000- or more if they collect any $5,000 Shooting Star bounties, or end up the chip leader at the end of one of the Day Ones.

The $10,000 Day 1a chip lead bonus for instance went to Brian Schmidt, who will be joined on Day 2 by such notable Day 1a survivors as Layne Flack, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Hoyt Corkins, Jason Mercier, Dwyte Pilgrim and Gavin Smith.

Day 1b survivors include Hasan Habib, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Shannon Shorr, Mike Sexton, Howard Lederer and Chris Trapani, the Day 1b chip leader and winner of its $10,000 bonus.

Players of note already sidelined include Freddy Deeb, Kristy Gazes, Dan Harrington, Phil Laak, Erik Seidel, J.C. Tran, Vanessa Selbst, Antonio Esfandiari and PokerRoad’s own Joe Sebok.

For more information on the opening days of the WPT 2011 Bay 101 Shooting Star main event visit www.worldpokertour.com.