WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star: Once Again, the Biggest Names Didn’t Win

Being a big poker name is way-y-y-y overrated in the short term. Take a final table with three big names and three anonymous punters, and you know what? Just about half the time one of the punters walks away with top honors.

The latest example of this comes from the Bay 101 Shooting Star finale, one of the more venerable World Poker Tour stops. Six seats in the final, three of the occupied by big names: Mike Sexton (earning himself a break from the color commentator’s seat), Mike “The Mouth” Matasow, and Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar, who had made back-to-back WPT finals.

Guess who won? Alan Sternberg, who satellited into the Shooting Star tourney and came to the finale second in chips. Sternberg had the least impressive resume among the six finalists — that is, before taking down this title — since the remaining two seats were non-slouches Steve Kelly and Casey McCarrel. But in the short term, which really defines any given tournament but absolutely includes the couple of hundred hands or less likely to comprise a final table, subtle differences in skill generally have little effect. While Tony Dunst hopped up to the booth to help Vinnie Van Patten make the call, a short-stacked Sexton exited first, with Rajkumar exiting third (in fourth place) and Matusow the next one to fall. It’s like tossing darts or spinning the wheel when it comes to final-table time: anyone can win.

That’s one of the great things about tournament poker — virtually anyone with a decent grasp of the game can make a long run and score big. It’s what brings fresh faces to the table and what keeps grizzled veterans grinding away, looking for that next big score. There’s such a randomness to it all that it takes years or decades for the true cream to rise to the top.

And occasionally, it makes for good TV. The WPT’s been fortunate this season in having big names and interesting matchups at several of its final tables, and this one is no exception. From the tour’s perspective it doesn’t matter who wins as long as people turn it on and watch, but stopping the channel-surfing can be tough, too. It’s a little early to call the WPT resurgent but it certainly seems to have stabilized, cementing its long history in high-stakes tourney poker.

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