WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star 2010 Won By Mclean Karr

Mclean Karr has won the 2010 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star, after defeating a field of 332 players to take down the title and earn a massive $878,500 in the process.
The 28 year old US Air Force Academy graduate initially secured entry into the  $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event in San Jose, California via a $1,200 satellite competition.
Once there, Mclean Karr had to make his way past a top class field of players which had 25 big name poker pros, each with a $5,000 bounty on their heads. These included Phil Hellmuth, Dave Williams, Annie Duke, Matt Keikoan, Eli Elezra, Erik Seidel, Erick Lindgren, Joe Sebok, Sorel Mizzi, John Phan, Eugene Katchalov, Tim McDermott, Antonio Esfandiari, Joe Hachem, Tom Marchese, Men Nguyen, Greg Mueller, Scotty Nguyen, JC Tran and Jerry Yang.
On his way to the final table, Karr found himself short stacked and in danger of crashing out of the tournament but eventually fought his way back into the game and managed to knock out Erik Seidel, Greg Mueller, and John Cernuto for an extra $15,000, before taking his place alongside the remaining six finalists.
I definitely thought it was possible,” he said. “But it was definitely a long shot. I’ve played a lot of tournaments and there have been times where I’ve gotten down really short and came back, so I knew it was possible. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle against this field though. There were a lot of great players.”
As Mclean Karr, Andy Seth, Dan O’Brien, Hasan Habib, Matt Keikoan and Phil Hellmuth took their places at the final table, it was the 11 times WSOP winner Hellmuth who was first to exit after pushing with pocket Q’s and geting called by Andy Seth’s Ac Jc. Hellmuth looked all poised to double up until an A on the river eliminated him from the competition but he collected $117,000 for his sixth place finish.
Next out was Matt Keikoan in fifth ($175,700) after his A7 ran into pocket 9’s, followed by Hasan Habib in fourth ($234,300), whose flush draw failed to improve against Karr’s trips which then improved to a full house.
After Dan O’Brien exited in third for $292,800, heads-up play begun and lasted 56 hands before Andy Seth went all-in holding pocket 4’s, only to be called by Karr with 8’s. Andy Seth then took an impressive $521,500 away for his runner-up finish, while Mclean Karr earned himself $878,500 for his victory and his largest poker score to date. Karr’s previous 8 career cashes had earned him  $113,592.
Commenting on the result, Karr said: “I got a little bit of luck and picked some good spots and, wow, here I am.”