The latest event of the World Poker Tour 2025 was the Bay 101 Shooting Star; this huge tournament attracted over 640 players and built an enormous prizepool where the winner could go home $1,138.000 richer. Making his way to the top spot of a very difficult poker ranking, Kai Chang saw his last winner hand of the event on Friday and received the biggest reward surrounded by the models of the poker sponsors, a very nice amount of cash wads and of course a shiny trophy that credited him as the new WPT Champion.
During this event there were other remarkable participants like the high roller grinder Erik Seidel, who finished 4th and won $295.000 despite being a clear favorite; the lady luck didn’t feel like helping him and he touched the ground after his chip stack received fatal blows during the four-handed play. Paul Volpe, a North American who has been achieving incredible results lately finishing runner up in the WPT L.A Poker Classic was another big name at the final table of this event, he finished third and pocketed a very nice $435.000 prize. The final standings were as follows: 5th Chris Johnson $208K, 4th Erik Seidel $295K, 3rd Paul Volpe $435K, 2nd Joe Nguyen $666K and 1st Kai Chang $1.1M.
The last hand for Chris Johnson began with himself betting pre-flop and being called by two players: Kai Chang and Erik Seidel who was in the big blind; the flop came T85 rainbow and Johnson fired another bet that was re-raised to 3.5x by Chang. Seidel thought there was nothing he could do and folded but Chris was ready to play and made a final move for the rest of his chips (1.9 M) Chang paid the price and showed TT while Johnson, a bit disappointed brought his KT to the light. The turn and the river were not good news for Johnson and he left the table with his 5th final position.
Seidel was sent home by Volpe who won the bounty prize put on Erik’s head for the tournament. Seidel shoved JTo and was called by Paul’s Ad4d; the flop brought Jh Jd 7d giving the aggressor some advantage which was still vulnerable by the diamonds on the board. The turn was critical when a king of diamonds appeared… only one jack, a seven, king or a ten were going to give Seidel a better hand to survive, but the river came 8h and Erik met the end of his participation in the tournament.
After Chang smashed Volpe’s QTs with his A9s and sent the North American home; he reached a healthy 2 to 1 chip advantage over the runner up Joe Nguyen and just needed 6 rounds more to get rid of his rival and make himself with the crown of the poker championship holding 86off against his opponent’s T2 on a board T75 9 6 that gave his a turned straight. Chang joins the list of Bay 101 champions as the one with the biggest cash prize just above players like Phil Gordon, Nam Le, Danny Nguyen and Ted Forrest.
