Bay 101 champ goes wire-to-wire
By Arnold Warner

The World Poker Tour came to San Jose again, with the Bay 101 Casino’s annual Shooting Star tournament starting on March 10 and finishing up on Friday, March 14. Brandon Cantu of Vancouver, WA was the chip leader at the end of Day 1A and never relinquished the lead on his way to the title and $1 million first prize.

Bounties of $5,000 each were placed on the heads of 50 poker celebrities and Cantu took down more than his share of these, eliminating Bill Edler, Jennifer Harman, John Juanda, Phil Laak and J.C. Tran. He also received bonuses as the chip leader at the end of Days 1A and 2.

The tournament’s first real excitement occurred with 24 minutes left in round one of Day 1A, when Chanh Pham of Fremont cashed in the first bounty, taking out David Williams.

When the final table got under way on Friday, it was clear that the crowd favorite was Jennifer Harman who started the day in fourth chip position with 541,000. Cantu was sitting in front of 3,323,000 in chips with Mike Baker in second at 1,964,000. Third was Noah Jefferson (842,000), fifth Steve Sung (474,000) with John Phan on the short stack with 347,000.

Phan saw his chips dwindling away and eventually went all-in with Qd-8d and was called by Jefferson’s 6-6. With a board of Kh-3c-2c-6s-3s Phan was eliminated in sixth place, taking home $135,000.

Soon after that, things got a little strange when Baker raised from under the gun to 25,000, then Cantu bumped it up to 75,000. When Baker reraised to 200,000 Cantu took quite a bit of time before finally raising it again to 500,000. Baker called and the flop was Qs-10d-2d. When Baker checked Cantu went all-in. After a lengthy pause, Baker said he was ready to gamble and called.

No one was surprised when Cantu turned over A-A, but you could hear the jaws dropping in the crowd when Baker revealed that he had gone four raises preflop against the chip leader with Kd-3d and had put his tournament on the line with a flush draw. After the turn and river were both black 5s, Baker was gone in fifth place (worth $200,000) and Cantu had almost three-fourths of the chips on the table.

Nearly 100 hands went by before the next major confrontation occurred, with Jefferson raising to 110,000 on the button, followed by Sung reraising enough to put him all-in. Jefferson quickly called with Ad-Kd, while Sung showed 7-7. When the pair of sevens held up Jefferson went out in fourth place, taking $265,000.

Harman’s fans were vocal in their support, and looked like they might get what they were looking for when she was all in with Ah-Kd against Cantu’s pocket nines. The door card on the flop was a king, but a 9 came right after that, giving Cantu a set on the flop to Harman’s kings. When no miracle arrived on the turn and river, Harman was out in third place for a $330,000 payday.

Heads-up play began with Cantu at 6,133,000 and Sung 1,385,000. After a few hands Cantu made a set of jacks on the river to cripple Sung.