WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star final table is set, with Quoc Mai on top and Phil Hellmuth out in 48th

The $5,300 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Championship in San Jose, California, is down to six players. Quoc Mai leads with 10,165,000 chips after Day 3 on Monday, Oct 26, per WPT.com's live updates. The final six won't play again until Dec 15. That's when they finish the tournament in Las Vegas, as a televised WPT final table during the WPT World Championship series.

The day's most-watched moment came earlier. Phil Hellmuth was all in and at risk, and the WPT's clip of the hand was the most-viewed poker post we found from the last day, with about 37,000 views on X by Tuesday morning (Oct 27), by X's count. He lost the hand and went out in 48th place.

The numbers

• Entries: 584, for a prize pool of $2,613,200, per WPT.com. Play started on Oct 23.
• Paid places: 73. The WPT's event rules pay one in eight entries, and the payout list runs to 73rd place, worth $9,600.
• First prize: $470,500. That includes a $10,400 entry into the season-ending WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
• Every final table player is guaranteed $94,000.
• Bounties: a $2,500 bounty went to whoever knocked out one of the event's designated "Shooting Stars," per the event rules. The chip leader at the end of each Day 1 flight also got a $5,000 bonus.

The final table

Shawn Daniels is the only one of the six who has won a WPT title before. The WPT lists him as a member of its Champions Club.

Hellmuth's exit

Phil Hellmuth was one of the Shooting Stars. The WPT posted the hand on X. He moved all in from the button for about 290,000 with ace-jack, and Michael Wang called from the big blind with pocket nines, per WPT.com. The jack-seven-six flop put Hellmuth ahead, and he was still ahead after the ten on the turn. Then the river was the nine of hearts, which gave Wang a set. Wang collected Hellmuth's $2,500 bounty. Hellmuth's son Nicholas went out in 51st place, and both men were paid $11,400. Chris Moorman, another Shooting Star, finished 50th. Wang went on to finish 28th for $18,200.

Two double knockouts to end the night

The last four players to go out lost in just two hands, per WPT.com:

• Chahn Jung raised on the button with pocket kings. Aaron Massey moved all in from the small blind with pocket threes, and Adam Hendrix moved all in over the top from the big blind with ace-jack. Jung called, and the board ran out ten, seven, five, two, five. Both Massey and Hendrix were Shooting Stars, so Jung picked up two $2,500 bounties. The WPT says it was the event's first double bounty knockout. Hendrix finished ninth ($48,500) and Massey tenth ($41,500).
• About half an hour later, Quoc Mai raised from the cutoff and Joe Nguyen, another Shooting Star, three-bet all in from the small blind with pocket threes. Jeremy Menard four-bet all in from the big blind with ace-queen. Mai moved all in over the top with pocket kings, and the board ran out nine, two, two, four, nine. Mai took Nguyen's bounty and the chip lead. Menard finished seventh ($72,000) and Nguyen eighth ($56,500). PokerExclusive says Nguyen was the last Shooting Star left in the field.

Earlier, Jung had knocked out Vishtasb Mazdeh in 11th. Jung's king-nine turned two pair against Mazdeh's pocket jacks, per WPT.com.

A note on the buy-in

The buy-in is $5,300, and that is the full price of an entry. The WPT's event details split it into $4,800 for the prize pool and a $500 registration fee. We haven't worked out a per-entry prize pool figure, because WPT.com doesn't say how the Shooting Star bounties and Day 1 bonuses were funded.