First Flight Complete; Schleger, Keating, Duhamel and Walsh Advance
The first flight of tables for the $10,000 ESPN Bounty Shootout at The Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California has concluded with the first four spots at the final table being secured. Those players that won their table and will be returning on Saturday for the final table are Pat Walsh, Jonathan Duhamel, Alex Keating and Shane Schleger.
Duhamel was seated at the feature table all day long with fellow World Series of Poker Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker. The two battled all the way until they got heads up, which was a rematch from the NBC National Heads-Up Championship semifinals that took place a few days ago. This time around, Duhamel won the match to put himself at the final table. He’ll be heading there with four bounties notched in his belt.
Keating was the third player to advance to the final table after defeating Shawn Buchanan heads up. The two got all the money in preflop with Keating holding the 
and edging out the 
of Buchanan. The board ran out 
to eliminate Buchanan.
All is not lost for Buchanan though as a miracle could happen and he could still win the $20,000 prize for claiming the most bounties. As it stands going to the final table, Buchanan is the leader in that category with five.
The last player to make it through to the final table was Schleger. He did so after defeating a table that included Shaun Deeb, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Kathy Liebert and Marcello Del Grosso. In order to advance, Schleger beat Pat Pezzin in heads-up play.
The first four final table players are set, but the action isn’t over as the second flight takes place tomorrow with another 45 players in contention for the remaining five spots at the final table. Play will begin at noon local time for that flight and you can be sure to find all the updates on PokerNews.