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While poker tournaments around the world announce shutdowns, a few stray events have gone forward. One such event concluded over the weekend in Bay 101 Shooting Star $5,200 Main Event, however.

The 2020 running of the Bay 101 Shooting Star $5,200 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event drew 290 entries, building a $1,331,000 prize pool despite the growing concerns around the country regarding the spread of COVID-19. The field was narrowed down to stacked final ten that were set to return on Friday, March 13 to play down to a winner. Before play resumed, though, the remaining players negotiated a ten-way chop of the remaining prize pool based on ICM numbers. The Casino’s live bloggers covering the event explained that the decision was “due to circumstances surrounding the Coronavirus.”

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World Poker Tour champion and World Series of Poker bracelet winner Craig Varnell held the chip lead at the time the deal was made, and was awarded the largest payout of $159,710 and the title. The score brought his career earnings to $2,643,430.

Two-time WSOP bracelet winner Kristen Bicknell was second in chips when the deal was made, and was awarded $141,520 as the second-place finisher in the final results listings. The cash was enough to see Bicknell surpass $5 million in career live tournament earnings, making her only the third female player to ever do so behind Vanessa Selbst and Kathy Liebert. After the deal was made, she took to Twitter to note how tough the situation was to assess.

One of the strangest chop situations I could have imagined. Would have loved to play it out and personally don't think ending play at this point would reduce any possible spread, but I could be wrong

— Kristen Bicknell (@krissyb24poker) March 13, 2020

Bicknell also Tweeted that it was, “Unfortunate to not play this out, I hope all are safe and well! Thanks to [Bay 101 Casino] and [Tournament Director Matt Savage] for hosting another great event and handling this the best that they could.”

There were plenty of other highly accomplished players who were involved in the deal, including WPT and WSOP winner Tyler Patterson, who took home $113,860 for fourth place. Patterson described the result as a “Covid-19 induced ICM chop” on Twitter.

Swedish poker pro Michael Tureniec was awarded $91,180 as the sixth-place finisher, while three-time WPT champion and two-time bracelet winner Anthony Zinno cashed for $55,600 as the eighth-place finisher. Bracelet winner and two-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Anthony Spinella earned $50,000 for ninth place, while Lexy Gavin earned her largest career cash of $41,060 for tenth place.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded to the final ten:

Winner photo via Bay 101 News’s tournament blog.

Table Of Contents

While poker tournaments around the world announce shutdowns, a few stray events have gone forward. One such event concluded over the weekend in Bay 101 Shooting Star $5,200 Main Event, however organizers and players came to an agreement to end the event before a final table could be played in light of the growing threat of coronavirus.

As the final 10 players were scheduled to play out Day 3 on Friday, they instead chopped the remaining prize pool 10 ways.

Healthy Field Turns Up

Despite the growing pandemic, 290 entries were logged for the $5,000 event, which also featured $2,000 bounties on select 'shooting stars.' While that represented a drop from last year's 440, it wasn't a catastrophic one.

That created a prize pool more than $1.3 million, likely one of the last large prize pools that will occur in the near future in the live poker realm.

Of those, 37 would be paid. Max Young, Andrew Moreno, Mike Matusow, Chino Rheem and recent two-time WPT champTony Tran were some of the players who cashed.

PPC champ Phil Hui and WPT legend Darren Elias were the last two players to bust on what was scheduled to be penultimate day. According to the live updates, Hui busted with king-queen against ace-ten of Kristen Bicknell while Elias flopped top pair with and was outkicked by the of Anthony Zinno.

The final 10 bagged up with a stacked field still left. Craig Varnell held the chip lead. Along with Varnell, other shooting stars left were Bicknell, Zinno, Tyler Patterson and Lexy Gavin. Anthony Spinella, Michael Tureniec and John Andress also remained in contention.

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Deal Made in Lieu of Final Day

The last 10 players showed up on Friday to play out the event, but mounting concern over the coronavirus changed everyone's plans. Bay 101 is located is located in San Jose, and the Bay Area of California has been one of the more hard-hit areas of the U.S.

Varnell and Bicknell secured the top two prizes, and everyone got between $41,060 and $159,710. Varnell added the Bay 101 trophy to his WSOP bracelet and his WPT500 title.

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10-Way Chop Results

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