WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Won By Alan Sternberg

Alan Sternberg has won the $10k WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star, after overcoming a field of 415 players over five days to lift the title, as well as collect the $1,039,000 first place prize.
The forty-five “shooting stars” entering the tournament with a $5,000 bounty on their head included such notable names as Daniel Negreanu, Kara Scott, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, and Phil Hellmuth.
However, by the time the final table of six got underway on Friday just Mike Sexton and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow were left representing the “shooting stars” contingent. The other players at the final table also included Alan Sternberg, Steven Kelly, Vivek Rajkumar and Casey McCarrel.
Mike Sexton was sitting on a short-stack of just 18 big blinds when the action got started and he was well aware of the task ahead of him when he tweeted:
“Extreme short stack at Bay 101 final table. Gonna have to get very lucky early and double up a couple of times to become a force.”
Sexton looked on course to do just that, too, after moving all-in from the small blind with K-Q against Matusow’s K-J, but a jack on the river soon put paid to his tournament hopes as he was sent to the rail in 6th place for $148,000.
The next player to leave the arena was Casey McCarrel in 5th ($221,800), holding A-Qs to Vivek Rajkumar’s Jc-10s, who then fell himself next in 4th ($295,800) holding K-J to Steven Kelly’s K-Q.
With the blinds now at 40k-80k with a 10k ante, Mike Matusow responded to Sternberg’s 180k button bet by moving all-in from the big blind for his remaining 1.38 million stack. Unfortunately for Matusow, Sternberg called with K-Q and Matusow with 9-2 then exited in 3rd for $369,800.
As the heads-up battle got going, the chip counts were fairly even between Alan Sternberg and Steven Kelly. However, Sternberg soon managed to carve out a lead for himself before the defining hand was played with both players all-in pre-flop and Kelly holding A-Q to Sternberg’s 10-8.
With the board running out Q-8-7-7, Kelly seemed likely to double up but an 8 on the river sealed his fate and so Kelly had to content himself with  $595,300 for his runner-up finish.
In the meantime, Alan Sternberg was crowned the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Champion and collected a cool $1,039,000 for his well deserved victory.