San Jose – Scott Diaz of Morgan Hill placed 44th in the 11th Annual Shooting Star Tournament playing this week at San Jose’s Bay 101 club.
The Championship No-Limit event is a part of the World Poker Tour. A field of 451 players began play in the five-day poker tournament. The winner of the Shooting Star earns $1.1 million and a $25,500 seat at the World Poker Tour Championship.
Diaz, 35, qualified for the $10,000 per entrant event by successfully winning a $125 satellite tournament earlier this year at Bay 101.
“That was the first time I tried (a satellite tournament),” said Diaz, a Live Oak High graduate, said.
Diaz was in a field of 209 players sent through a 10-hour series of play on Monday. Beginning with $20,000 in chips, Diaz finished the night with $45,200 in chips, 38th among the survivors.
The remainder of the field of 450 played Tuesday, again producing 70 survivors. Diaz was in 88th place entering Wednesday’s competition, which was to continue until only 36 players remained. Thursday’s play would lead to the six players for tonight’s Final Table.
The payout system for the tournament included cash prizes through 45 places. Once the field was slimmed down after six hours of play to 46 players, 20 hands was dealt before the final (46th) player was eliminated.
The players finishing between 37 and 45 earned $15,000 for the week’s effort.
“I was confident I could place in the money,” Diaz said of his expectation after Monday’s showing.
“I never ever thought that I’d get this far,” Diaz said of his feelings before the tournament began. “Yet now that I’m here (44th), I’m extremely disappointed I didn’t go further. My goal was to make it to (Thursday). I’ve never been more ticked in my life to win $15,000 because I know I could have done better. I played two bad hands and took myself out of the game.”
Once the ‘bubble’ player was out, Diaz played another nine hands before his all-in call of Ace-Nine lost to a pair of Fours.
“It was an experience of a lifetime,” said Diaz. “Meeting some of the top pros like Robert Williamson III and Allen Cunningham was unbelievable. I moved six times to different tables Monday and got to see different pros and the way stuff is played.”
Diaz was not able to knock out any of the 50 “bounties” playing in the tournament. A player eliminating a bounty would receive $5,000. The first two bounties knocked out of play Tuesday were actress Jennifer Tilly and her boyfriend Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak.
Four bounties survived into Thursday’s play, including David Williams, a Final Table participant in the 2006 Shooting Star, and two-bracelet 2006 World Series of Poker star Jeff Madsen, a 21-year-old.
When asked if he would watch the final two days of the event, Diaz explained that he would not.
“Back to work,” said Diaz, who works for a local air conditioning company.
