Created by Bay 101 owner Marco Trapani 14 years ago, tournament director Matt Savage says the concept was based on the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am celebrity challenge, which draws some of the best golfers in the world, a host of celebrities and thousands spectators to the Northern California Coast about an hour from San Jose every year.

Trapani’s original plan, 14 years ago, was to try and draw the world’s best rounders to a fan and player friendly $1k buy-in event in the Bay Area.

When it first started, the bounties were a bunch of Trapani’s friends, but it slowly grew and when the World Poker Tour came along seven years later, Savage says they bumped up the buy-in and had a perfect fit.  

“It’s great for TV and the fans because it’s a really unique tournament,” he said. “With the $5k bounties, $10k for the chip leader at the end of the first day and six-handed play with 36 left, it’s unlike any other tournament in poker.”

Unique tournament structures also make for unique tournament strategies.

“Some people chase the bounties,” Savage said. “The local players sometimes are just out here to get the bounties. They think, ‘Hey, I won my way in through a $200 satellite, now I have the chance to pick up five thousand,’ so they might make a loose call.

“That’s why one or two of the shooting stars make the final table every year, because people are going after them and if they pick up chips, they’re tough to get.”

Team UB Pro Brandon Cantu loves the format and actually won the event in 2009, collecting a record six bounties on his way to the title.

“This is one of my favorite tournaments,” he said. “And I actually do hunt the bounties. It’s nice to try and get the buy-in back, so I’m really a fan of going after the bounties.”

Cantu went wire-to-wire in 2008, taking the chip lead on his Day 1 and the $10k prize it came with.

He says that’s the kind of thing that really makes the event fun to play and keeps the fans on the rail entertained throughout.

“I was actually going for it,” he said. “When I was 8,000 behind late in the day, I really went for it. I wanted it.”

What Cantu didn’t enjoy was being a bounty for the first time last year.

“People played really differently against me,” he said. “It seemed like they were up to no good all the time and it just changed my whole mindset.

“I didn’t know where I was in a hand as much as I usually do. I didn’t like it.”

Phil Laak has a bounty on his head and says it changes just about everything.

“I love it, but it really sucks as a bounty when your chip stack starts diminishing,” he said. “You are forced to get real hands, because people are going to call you down, often correctly.

“But it is nice when you have some chips, because people are going to take some incorrect lines to try and chase you.”

Like it or not, with a rail full of fans watching the biggest names in the game here in San Jose this week, Trapani’s plan has worked.

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