The final table of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament included some really big names from the poker world: Mike Matusow & Mike Sexton just to mention 2. However, it was none of the very experienced players who made it all the way to the title but a satellite qualifier.
Alan Sternberg arrived at the final table with the second biggest stack, but many didn't believe he would stand a chance against the other players. Well, Sternberg didn't let the other players previous results scare him as he continued playing fantastic poker and, after many hours of play, suddenly he found himself playing heads-up against Steven Kelly, who was in the lead when the final table begun.
Sternberg took a big lead early thanks to a couple of big pots in which Kelly flopped big draws but ended up missing all of them. It didn't take long before Kelly was low on chips and had to double up to stay in the game. In the final hand, Kelly looked down at A
Q
and pushed all-in. Sternberg called with 810.
The flop came Q
8
7 and gave Kelly a pair of queens against Sternberg's pair of 8's. The turn card was the 7 and it seemed like Kelly would double up as Sternberg only had 2 outs. But Sternberg got lucky as the river card was the 8 and he took down the tournament with three of kind 8's.
For the win Alan Sternberg received $1,039,000. The runner-up, Steven Kelly, received $595,300.
Final Table results
1st: Alan Sternberg - $1,039,000
2nd: Steven Kelly - $595,300
3rd: Mike Matusow - $369,800
4th: Vivek Rajkumar - $295,800
5th: Casey McCarrel - $221,800
6th: Mike Sexton - $148,000
.
