WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star: Maria Ho Makes Final Table

On Day 3 of WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star and down to 25 players, it did not look too promising for Maria Ho. The popular pro was down to only around 10 big blinds, and she needed a double up soon. The opportunity arose when Dylan Linde raised from the cutoff, and Maria Ho moved all in with a pair of jacks in the hole. The flop gave Ho a set of jacks, and Linde was way behind with his A-9.

At that point Ho was one out of five Shooting Stars still alive in the tournament (the others being Connor Drinan, Dominik Nitsche, Noah Schwartz, and Matt Salsberg). With a total of 753 entries the remaining field was getting closer and closer to the huge first place prize of nearly $1,3 million. But 19 players had to be eliminated before the final table was set, and there were plenty of world-class players still in contention.

After losing a big pot to Connor Drinan, Ho got the better of Adam Geyer with a pair of queens, and she was now sitting more comfortable with 52 big blinds. With 14 players left Maria Ho took a huge chunk of Connor Drinan’s stack with a pair of kings versus Drinan’s AK, and she continued with a five-bet shove all in vs. Griffin Paul, that saw Paul fold his hand, and Maria Ho climb to 62 big blinds.

Down to nine players Connor Drinan and Maria Ho were the last two Shooting Stars in the field, but with the elimination of Drinnan in 8th place, Ho was the last player with a $2,500 bounty to her name. With the elimination of Anthony Gregg in 7th place the final table of six was set – and with the following chip counts:

Seat 1:  Griffin Paul, 5,205,000  (87 bb).
Seat 2:  Bryan Piccioli, 1,535,000  (26 bb).
Seat 3:  Adam Geyer, 2,030,000  (34 bb).
Seat 4:  Stefan Schillhabel, 8,720,000  (145 bb).
Seat 5:  Maria Ho, 3,115,000  (52 bb).
Seat 6:  Andjelko Andrejevic, 1,985,000  (33 bb).

With 52 big blinds and third in chips Ho is in good shape going into the final table. However, with the chip leader sitting on a huge stack of 145 big blinds, it’s definitely not going to be easy. If Maria Ho can pull this off, she will become the first woman to win a WPT Main Event title on the Main Tour.

The televised final table will begin at 4 pm local time.