World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star Day 3: Final Table Set: Seth On Top, Hellmuth Second
The second-to-last day at the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star concluded Thursday with 27 players returning to the felt to play down to the televised final table of six. It was Andy "BKiCe" Seth who finished out the day as the chip leader and will take that lead into the televised final table on Friday.
Phil Hellmuth came into the day as the clear chip leader. He held on to that chip lead for most of the day, but in the last couple of levels Seth stormed to the front after eliminating Brian Rast in ninth place. Seth's A♣10♠ held up against Rast's A♥7♣ to send Rast to the rail and move Seth to the top of the board.
A short while later, Seth knocked off Scotty Nguyen in eighth place when he called the all-in bet of Nguyen with the K♥Q♦. Nguyen held the J♥8♥. After the board rolled out Q♣4♦2♠6♦A♠, it was all over for Nguyen. From there Seth went on an aggressive tear, winning the majority of hands on the way to the final table.
It was only fitting that Seth was the player who helped set the official final table after he busted Lon Diamond. After Diamond opened with a raise to 35,000, Hellmuth called on the button, Seth then reraised from the small blind to 132,000, and Diamond moved all-in. Hellmuth got out of the way, and Seth made the call with the Q♣Q♦ and was dominating the A♦Q♠ from Diamond. A clean board followed for Seth, and Diamond was eliminated in seventh place, taking home $58,600.
The other five players who will be joining Seth at the final table are Hasan Habib, Hellmuth, Matt Keikoan, Mclean Karr and Dan O'Brien. Hellmuth is the only remaining Shooting Star.
Things didn't go so well for Tom Marchese (24th), Jonathan Little (22nd), John Monnette (20th), Faraz Jaka (18th), Chau Giang (14th) and "Miami" John Cernuto (11th). They all finished in the money but saw their deep runs cut short before the final table.
Here's a look at the seating assignments and chip counts for the WPT televised final table.
Seat 1. Hasan Habib - 455,000
Seat 2. Phil Hellmuth - 1,433,000
Seat 3. Andy "BKiCe" Seth - 2,164,000
Seat 4. Matt Keikoan - 371,000
Seat 5. Mclean Karr - 1,112,000
Seat 6. Dan O'Brien - 1,129,000
All remaining players get a nice treat and getting to sleep in on Friday before the final table kicks off at 4:00 p.m. local time-out in San Jose. Will Seth, the young up-and-comer, be able to ride his surge from Day 3 to a victory? Will the veteran Hellmuth finally find his way to a WPT title?. It's going to be a great final table and will be interesting to see how it plays out.
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