By Raymond T. Akers
The Bay 101 Casino in San Jose recently concluded the Bay 101 Open series of tournaments consisting of seven events from Aug. 20 to Aug. 27.
Event 5 was their No-Limit Hold’em Championship, held Aug. 24 to 26, with a buy-in of $1,080. It had two starting days and attracted 491 entries for a prize pool of $491,000. Claiming first place was David Chase, a 34 year old pro from Alameda and a regular in the $30/60 limit game at the Oaks Casino in Emeryville. He received $93,500 and a seat in the 2013 Shooting Star Tournament worth $10,000 more.
“Being able to leave a tournament where you’ve won—it doesn’t happen every day or even once a month or every few months—you have to really bask in that glory a little bit just because when you’re playing these things … we must be demented to deal with the punishment that we take as poker players,” Chase said after the tournament.
At the end of Day 1 he was second in chips and managed to maintain a large stack through the end of the money bubble. About his journey through the field he said, “After we made the money and I actually was tightening up, because everyone just kind of goes crazy after the bubble, I ended up losing two coin flips, then I had a bad beat where I had a smaller pair beat my larger pair, all-in preflop, so I was crippled and down to about five big blinds with about 20 players left. So that was kind of annoying.
“The good news is the very next hand after that I had pocket aces and everyone thought I was just throwing in the chips because I just had a bad beat. I ended up winning that hand and the very next hand I had A-Q and I went over the top of somebody who had A-10 and that brought me back up to about 20 big blinds. Within 30 minutes I was chip leader again. It ended up being pretty smooth after that.”
The overall experience at the Bay 101 Casino he had plenty of praise for. “Matt Savage always runs a good tournament. You always know that the structures are going to be there. I definitely do not want to travel to any kind of tournament where every person’s going to have 18 big blinds by the second level. When the structures are good it’s definitely going to bring the players. It was very nice to see so many players at this one because when my friend David Forster won a couple of years ago I think it was about half the field, maybe because there’s now two Day 1s. Whatever they did they’re definitely making it to where players put it on their calendar instead of just showing up because it’s a normal Saturday.”
Here are the rest of the results at the Bay 101 Open and the top five finishers in each event.
Event 1, $345 No-Limit Hold’em, 258 entries, $77,400 prize pool: 1st, Ilyas Yonisi, Union City, $18,220; 2nd, George Castro, Gilroy, $12,780; 3rd, Tri Tran, Concord, $8,220; 4th, Muhib Georges, Fremont, $6,090; 5th, James Dybas, Milpitas, $4,570.
Event 2, $345 Omaha Hi-Lo, 117 entries, $35,100 prize pool: 1st, Steve Hoshi, Santa Clara, $9,410; 2nd, unknown, $6,590; 3rd, Nelson Wong, Sunnyvale, $4,240; 4th, Kulwant Singh, Fremont, $3,140; 5th, Keith Harran, Dublin, $2,350.
Event 3, $345 No-Limit Hold’em, 265 entries, $79,500 prize pool: 1st, Ashish Purohit, Fremont, $17,560; 2nd, Wesley Chong, $12,320; 3rd, Randy Gil, Morgan Hill, $7,920; 4th, D. James Petty, Pacifica, $5,880; 5th, Joey Bui, San Jose, $4,410.
Event 4, $345 No-Limit Hold’em “Knockout,” 221 entries, $44,200 prize pool + $22,100 bounties: 1st, Wilson Chan, Fremont, $10,400; 2nd, Nikola Fustar, Cupertino, $7,300; 3rd, Miki Murzi, $4,690; 4th, Jesus Pena, San Francisco, $3,490; 5th, Santiago Baraceros, $2,610.
Event 5, $1,080 No-Limit Hold’em Championship, 491 entries, $491,000 prize pool: 1st, David Chase, Alameda, $93,500; 2nd, Exequiel Fernando, $65,500; 3rd, Luong Trinh, $42,130; 4th, Daniel Cassetta, $31,170; 5th, Thiagarajan Arumugam, $23,380.
Event 6, $120 All-in Or Fold, 103 entries, $10,300 prize pool: 1st, James Reynolds, San Jose, $2,900; 2nd, M.S., Livermore, $2,030; 3rd, Jon Nakatani, $1,300; 4th, Dave Bertelsen, $970; 5th, Julie Parker, $730.
Event 7, $440 No-Limit Hold’em Partners, 86 teams, $34,400 prize pool: 1st, Ron Lewis & Ali Mohammadi, $10,320; 2nd, Greg Pincombe & Tony Dedo, $7,220; 3rd, Leo Fontillas & Arlene Fontillas, $4,650; 4th, Mitch Arreola & Joel Calcagno, $3,440; 5th, Mathews Velikkettel & Gabriel Sankey, $2,580.
