Last Minute Cooler Keeps Alfie Poetra on Top in Bay 101 Shooting Star Championship

The ultimate 16 gamers are set within the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Taking pictures Star Championship, with Alfie Poetra sustaining his lead after one other action-packed day at Bay 101 On line casino in San Jose, California.

Poetra ended Day 3 with 4,770,000 (95 massive blinds) after delivering a final-hand cooler to Derek Wang to win the most important pot of the match to this point. His kings held towards queens to cement his place atop the counts.

Probability Kornuth (4,085,000 – 82 massive blinds), who started the day third in chips, bagged the third-biggest stack as soon as once more, whereas Kharlin Sued (4,100,000 – 82 massive blinds) climbed into second after a late double-up when his queens held towards 2015 Bay 101 champion Taylor Paur (300,000 – 6 massive blinds).

Paur was left with simply six massive blinds and can start Day 4 on the backside of the leaderboard, joined within the hazard zone by Nicholas Palma (470,000 – 9 massive blinds), the one different participant with fewer than ten massive blinds.

Followers of Nick Rigby will observe that the “Soiled Diaper” maestro could not preserve his start-of-day second-biggest stack and bowed out in twentieth place for $28,500.

Bay 101 Taking pictures Star Championship Chip Counts

Who’s Nonetheless within the Combine?

Kornuth and Paur are two of the three members of the WPT Champions Membership nonetheless in competition. Kornuth captured his maiden WPT title at Choctaw in 2022, whereas Justin Younger — the third remaining champion — is chasing his first WPT crown in practically a decade.

Younger, who took down the 2016 WPT Seminole Onerous Rock Poker Showdown, has additionally carved out a powerful presence within the poker content material area. He co-hosts the Desk 1 Podcast alongside Julian “Artwork” Parmann, a present that is rapidly gaining traction for its laid-back conversations with a few of poker’s greatest names.

Current visitors have included 2025 WSOP Predominant Occasion champion Michael Mizrachi, PokerGO founder Cary Katz, and old-school legend Steve Zolotow, amongst others.

Victoria Livschitz, the final lady standing, can be within the midst of one other deep run in a large-field occasion, joined by established professionals Danny Wong, Michael Berk, and Ben Underwood.

In the meantime, Yuefan Wang and Aobo Li stay the relative unknowns of the group however are each having fun with breakout performances. In response to The Hendon Mob, Wang has already secured the most important rating of his profession. He entered the occasion with $67,635 in reside earnings and a earlier greatest money of $10,909, however no matter occurs on Day 4, he’ll cross the $100,000 profession milestone.

Li, who had $21,416 in whole reside earnings from 5 2025 cashes, has additionally surpassed his earlier marks. Earlier than Bay 101, his largest buy-in cashed was an $1,100 occasion, however his $5,300 buy-in shot take has already greater than doubled his whole poker earnings.

Last Six to be Set After Day 4

The Bay 101 Taking pictures Star Championship resumes on Tuesday, October 28, at 12 p.m. PDT. Day 4 begins at Degree 24 with blinds of 25,000/50,000 and a 50,000 massive blind ante.

Play will proceed till simply six gamers stay, advancing to the televised WPT Last Desk in December, which will likely be filmed in Las Vegas.

Every remaining participant has already locked up $33,500, with the subsequent elimination incomes a pay leap to $38,000. Those that attain the televised last desk will likely be assured not less than $101,000, whereas the eventual champion will declare $480,700 and a $10,400 seat to the season-ending WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.

You may comply with the reside updates on WPT.com.

Remaining Payouts

*Features a $10,400 seat to the season-ending WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.

Remaining Schedule

Whereas registration for marquee occasions just like the $5,300 Championship has closed, there’s nonetheless loads of motion left on the calendar for these trying to be part of the enjoyable.

The remaining open tournaments function a mixture of No-Restrict Maintain ’em and Omaha codecs, with buy-ins starting from $600 to $2,200

All imagery courtesy of the World Poker Tour/Spenser Sembrat

Calum has been part of the PokerNews group since September 2021 after working within the UK power sector. He performed his first hand of poker in 2017 and instantly fell in love with the sport.

Calum has written for varied poker retailers however discovered his dwelling at PokerNews, the place he has contributed to numerous articles and reside updates, offering insights and reporting on main poker occasions, together with the World Collection of Poker (WSOP).