The opening starting flight of the Season XV WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star $7,500 Main Event attracted 361 entries, which is 30 more than in last year’s record-setting event. All signs point to a new record being set at Bay 101 Casino in San Jose, CA, and it was Eddy Sabat (pictured) who best positioned himself to charge forward with his leading stack of 265,600 in chips.
Sabat was joined at the top of the leaderboard with notables Sergio Aido (242,500), Justin Young (231,000), and Garrett Greer (216,000), but as of the end of Day 1a everyone was looking up at Sabat.
Sabat got two nice boosts to his stack towards the end of the night when he busted Todd Brunson first and Jake Schindler second. By busting Brunson, Sabat earned a Shooting Star bounty worth a $2,500 bonus and a priceless t-shirt that only Brunson could produce.
When he busted Schindler, Sabat had the 
to Schindler’s 
. The board fell clean for Sabat and his kings — [pcQh8h2d6h9c[/pc] — and Schindler was out the door.
The opening day finished with 119 players. Shooting Stars abound, only 14 of the 38 Shooting Star players who played in the opening flight advanced to Day 2. Chief among the 14 surviving Shooting Stars was Greer. Noah Schwartz (165,300) and Mike Matusow (132,000) rounding out the top three stacks for Shooting Stars.
At the bottom of the Shooting Star list was two-time WPT Champions Club member Mohsin Charania, who finished the day with 18,600. Charania was knocked down to less than one big blind when Ty Reiman doubled through him, but then Charania went on a run of doubles to get back to a manageable stack of 12 big blinds to end the day. A chip and a chair, right?
Among the Shooting Star players to bust on Day 1a were Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu, Qui Nguyen, Antonio Esfandiari, Mike Sexton, Matt Salsberg, Vince Van Patten, and Ema Zajmovic, with both Sexton and Zajmovic informing the WPT that they plan to return for Day 1b on Tuesday.
Day 1b, the second of two starting flights in the Season XV WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star $7,500 Main Event, will kick off at 11 a.m. PT at Bay 101 Casino in San Jose, CA. It’s going to be another jam-packed day of poker with millions of dollars on the line, and you don’t want to miss it.
Stay tuned right here to WPT.com for continued coverage of the Season XV WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star $7,500 Main Event