Blue Diamond Almonds Bold Player of the Day - Vanna Tea

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

Vanna Tea Outruns Greg "FBT" Mueller to the $10,000 Finish Line

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

WPT Bay 101, Day 1a Recap

The World Poker Tour returned to the San Francisco Bay area for the annual WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament. This is a unique tournament that really stands out from every other stop on the tour. 

The tournament gets its name from the "Shooting Stars," who are famous and/or accomplished poker players with a $5,000 bounty for anyone who busts them. That would be enough to distinguish it from most high-stakes tournaments, but the two Day 1s are also made more interesting with a $10,000 end-of-day chipleader bonus. 

This tournament also features a non-standard blind structure, with 60-minute levels on Day 1, 90-minute levels on Day 2, and 120-minute levels on Day 3 as they play down to the final table. Days 1 and 2 are played with a standard nine players per table, but Day 3 is played short-handed, with six players per table. 

Day 1a began with 136 players, and 17 of them were Shooting Stars. Ten of the bounties on Shooting Stars have already been claimed, as the field lost Eric "Basebaldy" Baldwin, T.J. Cloutier, Hoyt Corkins, Tom "Durrrr" Dwan, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier, Gus Hansen, Jennifer Harman, Kathy Liebert, Jason Mercier, and Gavin Smith.

The six surviving Shooting Stars are defending WPT Bay 101 champion Steve Brecher, Freddy Deeb, Mike Matusow, Greg "FBT" Mueller, Daniel Negreanu, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko. 

Mueller was in the running for the $10,000 end-of-day chipleader bonus, but he was overtaken in the final minutes by Vanna Tea, who finished with 143,900 to Mueller's 132,800. Mueller was upset even further by missing out on the Blue Diamond Almond Bold Player of the Day Award, and he suggested that since the chipleader received $10,000, the person with the second-most chips should at least receive the year's supply of almonds.

Day 1b begins tomorrow (Tuesday) at 10:45 am PT, with a larger field expected along with 25 more Shooting Stars. Return to WorldPokerTour.com for complete live coverage of all the action. 

Daniel Negreanu Live and Uncut

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

Day 1a Comes to an End with ~53 Players

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

Day 1a comes to an end with 53 players left (unofficially). Every player's chip stack is verified by the dealer, so the end-of-day chip counts that will be released by the casino are more official than most.

One reason for the verified chip counts is the $10,000 end-of-day-chipleader bonus. At the end of it all, here's how our chipleaders stacked up:

Vanna Tea  -  143,900
Greg "FBT" Mueller  -  132,800
Osmin "Odie" Dardon  -  105,500
Yevgeniy Timoshenko  -  97,600
Scott Montgomery  -  84,800

Vanna Tea receives the $10,000 chipleader bonus, and she is effectively freerolling from this point forward. Vanna sat down with our video hostess Jacque Williams for an end-of-day interview, which will be posted soon.

Nobody else in the field approached Vanna Tea and Greg Mueller, though there might be one or two who crossed the 100,000-chip mark. We won't know for sure until the official chip counts are released tonight.

Shooting Star Bio: Greg "FBT" Mueller

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

Ever since Canada won its Olympic gold medal in hockey, Mueller has been spotted at every tournament proudly wearing his Canadian hockey jersey. The look seems to be working well for him, as he was the Shooting Star who fared the best on Day 1A, finishing up with 132,800 chips. That was not enough to earn the $10,000 prize for being the end of day chip leader, but he is one of the biggest stacks left in the Day 1A field.

Mueller is no stranger to tournament poker success though. After retiring from a career as a professional hockey player in Europe, Mueller set his sites on poker and has over $2 million, one WPT final table and two WSOP bracelets, both of which came during the 2009 WSOP.

Daniel Negreanu vs. Yevgeniy Timoshenko

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

With the final board showing K8465 and about 10,000 already in the pot, Daniel Negreanu checks the small blind, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko bets 6,900 from early position.

Negreanu calls and turns over 54 for two pair, fives and fours. Timoshenko shows KJ for top pair, and Negreanu wins the pot. 

Daniel Negreanu  -  50,000
Yevgeniy Timoshenko  -  69,200

Chipleaders With 12 Minutes Left

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

Yevgeniy Timoshenko took a hit to his stack (details coming soon), and there has been some separation between the other four chipleaders. Curiously, nobody else has emerged as a contender.

Surprisingly, all four chipleaders are now seated at the same table. Odie Dardon's table broke, and he was moved into the one open seat at the chip-heavy table. One person suggested that there may not be enough chips on the other tables for a new chipleader to emerge -- all of the focus is on one table.

Greg "FBT" Mueller*  -  136,000
Vanna Tea  -  133,000
Osmin "Odie" Dardon  -  107,000
Scott Montgomery  -  94,000

* Mueller is a Shooting Star.

Shooting Star Chris "Jesus" Ferguson Eliminated

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

Shooting Star Chris Ferguson is all in preflop from the button with 66, and he's up against Phat Nguyen's KJ in the small blind. The board comes A104A10, and the two pair on the board counterfeit Ferguson's pocket sixes, and Nguyen takes the pot with his king kicker to collect the $5,000 bounty and the autographed t-shirt.

Chris "Jesus" Ferguson  -  Eliminated

Shooting Star Profile: Daniel Negreanu

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

The center of attention during Day 1A of play has to be Daniel Negreanu. Kid Poker held court at the feature table as a crowd of fans watched for hours as he played with the likes of Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Jonathan Little.

Negreanu has been a longtime fan favorite because of his friendly personality and his impressive list of poker results and statistics. He is the all-time WPT money earner with $5,574,530 in career winnings. He is also #3 on the WPT Cashes list with 18 cashes, tied for 2nd on most WPT titles with two and tied for third for most WPT final tables with seven.

Both of Negreanu's WPT victories came in Season III, when he won the Borgata Poker Open and Five Diamond World Poker Classic. He also posted a 3rd place showing at the World Poker Open in Tunica to lock up the honor of Season III WPT Player of the Year.

Chipleaders With 30 Minutes Left

Level 9: 300-600, 75 ante

With 30 minutes remaining in the final level of the day, here are the leading contenders for the $10,000 end-of-day 1 chipleader bonus:

Osmin "Odie" Dardon  -  105,000
Greg "FBT" Mueller  -  104,000
Vanna Tea  -  101,000
Scott Montgomery  -  100,000
Yevgeniy Timoshenko  -  97,500

As Odie Dardon pointed out, this is a tight group, with only a small pot separating any of them. The bonus is still up for grabs, and there are a lot of players in the 60,000-80,000 range who could easily leapfrog into the chip lead with a big pot.

It's interesting to note that some players considered the Day 1a field to be softer, because many of the traveling pros prefer Day 1b so they don't "waste" a day off on the road. What isn't debatable is that the Day 1a field will be noticeably smaller than Day 1b, which means there is less competition for the chipleader bonus.

All things considered from a game selection point of view, Day 1a is definitely the day to play.