Yorky Pud

Twenty players returned to their seats inside the Bay 101 Casino in San Jose, California yesterday each of them hoping to at least make it through the day with their chip stacks intact and earn their place on the televised six-handed final table. For 14 of those players the dream ended but for the six who have made it through the dream of becoming a World Poker Tour champion is still very much alive.

The best placed of the final six is the Canadian man-mountain Erik Cajelais who will unbag and re-stack chips worth 3,648,000 when play resumes later today. Cajelais' stack contains almost an extra 1,500,000 than anyone else on the final table and he will be a firm favourite to walk away victorious in this tournament.

Cajelais has been a professional poker player since 2005 and he did not have to wait long for his first six-figure score as that came in December 2006 when he won the $5,000 buy-in Fifth Annual Five Diamond World Poker Classic for a cool $430,730 but he bested that score at the 2007 WSOP when he came second in the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event ($483,755) then in September of 2009 when he finished second to Matthew Glatz in the £20,000 buy-in High Roller event at the European Poker Tour London stop, a result that netted him £326,000 or $518,976. That particular score came just a couple of weeks after he won his first and only World Series of Poker bracelet that was awarded to him for winning the £2,500 Pot Limit Hold'em/Omaha event at the WSOPE.

The overnight chipleader will need to finish second or better if he is to break his best live tournament score and standing between him and doing that are Ubaid Habib (2,274,000 chips), Moon Kim (2,098,000), Andrew Badecker (1,040,000), Joe Serock (952,000) and Joseph Elpayaa (908,000). Arguably Cajelais' biggest threats come from WSOP bracelet winner Badecker and Serock. Don't let their shorter stacks fool you because event Badecker has 52 big blinds in his stack and he will certainly have a say on who wins the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Main Event.

Each of the six survivors have now locked up $128,200 for their efforts and this increases to $192,300, then $256,300, $320,400, $570,200 with the eventual winner walking away with $960,900!

WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Final Table

Seat 1: Joe Elpayaa - 908,000 (45bb)
Seat 2: Joe Serock - 952,000 (47bb)
Seat 3: Moon Kim - 2,098,000 (105bb)
Seat 4: Ubaid Habib - 2,274,000 (114bb)
Seat 5: Erik Cajelais - 3,640,000 (182bb)
Seat 6: Andrew Badecker - 1,040,000 (52bb)