TV Table Set At WPT's Bay 101 Shooting Star

The 2006 Bay 101 Shooting Star main event is now down to the six who will appear at the televised World Poker Tour final table and compete for the $1,172,800 first place cash. Several top pros have lasted through the field of more than 500 players, including a very aggressive-playing David Williams, who is the sole bounty player remaining (Action Dan went out in 22nd - $55,000). It's a mighty accomplishment for the 2004 WSOP runner-up, as most of the 50 "stars" with the $5,000 price tag on their heads were sent to the rail early, with amateurs all too eager to knock out a big name for the quick cash and the bragging rights.

Other notables remaining include Chad "Hollywood" Brown, who continues to show he's an all-around solid player. We expect him to capture a big NLHE win this year to complement his 2004 WSOP runner-up finish in 7CS--although he has his work cut out for him at the Bay 101 as he's sitting with the smallest stack.

With the most chips in front of him will be Nam Le, who has yet to take the top prize in a $10k buy-in event but one look at his tourney stats over the years and it's clear he's got what it takes for a WPT title.

Here's how the stacks will look when the TV cameras turn on today at 5:00pm, over there on the left coast.

1. Nam Le (Huntington Beach, CA) - $1,309,000
2. Ravi Udayakumar (San Jose, CA) - $1,024,000
3. Danny Smith (Folson, CA) - $805,000
4. Fabrice Soulier (Paris, France) - $703,000
5. David Williams (Dallas, Texas) - $668,000
6. Chad Brown (Los Angeles, CA) - $652,000

With no tournament newbies in the mix, the bottom four evenly matched and the blinds not too punishing yet (we believe they're at 6k-12k, with 2k ante), this should make for some great play, and we're guessing the crowd favorite going in will be Bay 101 regular Ravi Udayakumar, who has never cashed in a major event, although he's shown some deftness at numerous final tables in smaller tournaments.

It will be interesting to see how David Williams will change gears from his aggressive play on Day 3. He hasn't made a WPT final table since 2004 and he didn't make too much noise in 2005, so he'll be playing for nothing short of first here. It's worth looking over the CardPlayer live logs from Day 3 to see Williams' journey to the final table. You draw your own conclusion on his "Let's Gamble" play as he went from near the bottom of the count on Day 3 to the chip lead mid-day to the final table as the night drew to a close.

Follow the action as it happens today over at CardPlayer.com and PokerWire.com