Brandon Cantu Leads Final Table of WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars

Poker pro Brandon Cantu amassed a mountain of chips during Day 3 of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars event. (Image Courtesy of hollywoodpoker.com)

There is only one woman and one "Shooting Star" $5,000 bounty left to collect after Day 3 of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars event and they are both one person, Jennifer Harman. However, she has an uphill climb ahead of her if she wants to catch up with dominant final table chip leader Brandon Cantu.

Cantu is having one of "those" tournaments, when everything seems to go your way and the poker gods are smiling down. He has already earned $35,000 from this tournament; $10,000 for finishing Day 1 as the chip leader and another $25,000 for eliminating five "Stars" (Bill Edler, John Juanda, Phil Laak, Joe Hachem and JC Tran).

In fact, Cantu ended the day by dragging 17 straight pots, a streak that was broken only by the pocket aces of Steve Sung. However, Cantu came back with pocket rokets of his own a few hands later to send Tran home in seventh place and seal the final table. Actually, the hand with Tran is proof of just how well things are going for Cantu. On a board showing both an ace and a king, Tran turned over pocket kings for a rivered set, but Cantu revealed his aces and his turned top set. Sickening.

Here are the final table chip counts:

1. Brandon Cantu - 3,323,000
2. Mike Baker - 1,964,000
3. Noah Jefferson - 842,000
4. Jennifer Harman - 541,000
5. Steve Sung - 474,000
6. John Phan - 374,000

Play will begin at 4pm local time, which is 7pm ET, and you can go somewhere else for live updates (we suggest PokerListings.com) becuase it's Friday and we plan on being many sheets to many winds by that time. If you think you've got what it takes and the poker gods will shine on you at a major poker tournament, then head over to the Bodog Poker room and qualify online for a WPT event.