The WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star event didn't turn out the way most people had predicted. Firstly, for the first time in Bay 101 Shooting Star history, not a single Shooting Star made it to the final table. Secondly, a satellite winner ended up beating a field of 364 players and grabbed the title and almost $1 million in prize money.
Kim Moon, a local amateur player, won his entry to the tournament via a $1,000 satellite. After 4 days of play in the Bay 101 Shooting Star event, he had made it all the way to the final table with the 3rd largest stack. On the final table he was up against much more experienced players and many thought that he needed a lot of luck to win the tournament. But Moon didn't need any luck on the final table as he played amazing poker and bluffed his opponents in several big pots. Also, he got the most out of the pots when he had strong hands.
No one can say anything else than that Kim Moon deserved to win the tournament and get the first prize of $960,900. Moon, like many poker players before him, has shown that dreams come true in the poker world.
Now it will be interesting to see whether he stops his ordinary "8-5 job" and plays poker for a living. One thing is for sure though, he now has the money to do whatever he wants to.
Final Table Results:
1st: Moon Kim - $960,900 (includes $25,500 WPT World Championship seat) 2nd: Ubaid Habib - $570,200 3rd: Joe Serock - $320,400 4th: Erik Cajelais - $256,300 5th: Andrew Badecker - $192,300 6th: Joseph Elpayaa - $128,200
Looks like amateurs are giving each time more headaches to pro players, this is always good news. If pros want to keep the status they won to be consider as pros, they have to keep fighting every day for it. As for Kim Moon, he had a big advantage of not having any pressure under him besides the pressure of being in the game. No one was expecting nothing from him, so he could play as he want to, and that’s what he did, and well, winning $1 million and a ticket that can give him much more fame than he just got for winning this. Let’s see how he makes in the WPT!
