Action folded to Andrew Pantling on the button and he raised to 525. Amit Makhija was is the small blind and made it 2,000 to go. Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin, who won the Bounty Shootout back in November at the NAPT-L.A., was in the big blind and cold four-bet to 5,525. Both Pantling and Makhija quickly folded and Baldwin added a few thousand to his stack.
Rounding out that particular table are Tim Begley, Matt Waxman, and Eric Wasserson.
Since we don't have a table draw as of yet, we took a walk around the tournament floor and took note of some of the more notable table matchups.
Jason Mercier
Adam Levy
David "Doc" Sands
Joseph Cheong
Brandon Adams
Andrew Lichtenberger
Tom Marchese
Lee Markholt
David "ODB" Baker
Allen Kessler
Jason Somerville
Isaac Haxton
Amnon Filippi
Justin Bonomo
Pat Pezzin
Greg Raymer
Nick Binger
Daniel Negreanu
Al Grimes
Daniel Alaei
Peter Gould
Matt Affleck
Chad Brown
James Mackey
Anh Van Nguyen
Victor Ramdin
Darren Kennedy
Heather Sue Mercier
Michael Binger
Barry Greenstein
Scott Seiver
Randy Lew
Nikta Nikolatv
Thomas Fuller
Ronnie Bardah
Eric Froehlich
Darren Elias
There are still quite a few empty seats as players are still filtering in to the tournament area, so it wouldn't be surprising to see some of these table get even more stacked.
The Bounty Shootout tournament proved a popular format at the North American Poker Tour during Season One; as such, NAPT officials have decided to carry it over to Season Two by hosting a $5,000 + $250 buy-in event here at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. The tournament will see 216 players seated at 36 tables, meaning they'll be playing six-handed, and each table will play down to a single winner. These winners will advance to Round Two tomorrow and repeat the process in order to reach a final table.
The Bounty Shootout will be the first of 2011 and follows on the heels of Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin's victory at the NAPT-L.A. shootout back in November.
Baldwin cleared a field of 81 players and a final table that included Tom Marchese, Pat Pezzin, Mohsin Charania, Michael Mizrachi, Kevin MaPhee, Justin Young, David Williams, and Clint Coffee to claim the first-place prize of $134,280.
Other Season One Bounty Shootout winners included Jason Mercier in the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Shootout at the NAPT Mohegan Sun and Ashton Griffin in the same event at the NAPT Venetian. A stacked field of professionals are expected to play in today's tournament in hopes of adding their name to the winner's list. Just a few of the pros who've been wandering around the Bounty Shootout area are Daniel Alaei, Peter Jetten, Chad Brown, Daniel Negreanu, Chino Rheem, Jeff Madsen, Amnon Filippi, Ronnie Bardah, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Jason Senti, and Adam Levy.
The cards will be in the air at 12:00 P.M. EST. Unfortunately we won't have a seat draw until after action begins, but we'll post it just as soon as we receive it from tournament officials.