Sam Panzica Flies High in Bay 101, Winning 2nd Title

For months, Benjamin Zamani has been cruising through the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race with a seemingly insurmountable lead. Now this contest is a race, thanks to Sam Panzica.

Sam Panzica is used to dealing with the insurmountable. With two tables left in the $7,500 buy-in Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event, he was the low man in the counts, but he found a way to rally and make the final table. At a final table surrounded by players with millions and millions of poker earnings, Panzica found a way to win. The 24 year-old Michigan native now has two WPT titles, his first seven-figure score, and a legitimate shot at earning the title Season XV WPT Player of the Year.

“Now that I got a shot, it is kind of cool to think about,” Panzica said about his new position in the standings, which is jut one min-cash away from taking the lead. He will be heading straight to Sacramento for Thunder Valley tomorrow and playing the Seminole Hard Rock Showdown in Florida, so he will have as many chances as possible to come from behind and take the honor.

For now though, the fun thing for Panzica to think about is how he topped the biggest WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star field in history  with 806 entries to win $1,373,000 and join the elite group of two-time WPT title winners. He will have plenty of memories from the final table to share with a special guest cheering him on–his mom. The best part? Panzica had no idea she was coming until right before play began.

Panzica’s mother, Amelia, was sweating the action online at home in Michigan and had to make a leap of faith to arrange for a ticket in time to make the final table without knowing whether or not her son would be in the lineup. During the marathon Day 3 session, her son was near the bottom of the counts, but she was not going to miss a chance to see him in action after having to miss his WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble title in Jacksonville. So she went to the airport and got there right as the final table was set. She boarded a plane, flew to California, and even talked to Panzica on the phone, pretending she would not be able to be there. Then she snuck up behind him at the final table and surprised him.

WPT host Mike Sexton joked with Panzica he would need to bring his mom with him to tournaments everywhere.

“If we keep winning,” Panzica joked.

Panzica admitted this win is superior to his November win in Florida. “This one is definitely better. First place is four times as much as Jacksonville,” he matter-of-factly points out. “But Jacksonville was cool though since it was my first one.

The second time around was against some stiff competition, like mixed games master Paul Volpe, German high roller and Shooting Star Rainer Kempe, and three-time WPT winner Chino Rheem. What would be daunting to most was a pleasure for Panzica.

“It was definitely fun playing against really good players.”

When final table play began, it was the other WPT Champions Club member Rheem was the big chip leader with nearly half the chips in play and experience on his side as he tried to make it four-for-four on final tables and WPT titles.

Things started out according to plan when Rheem claimed the last bounty in play on the head of Shooting Star Rainer Kempe when Kempe took a stand with only to run into Rheem’s pocket kings. Kempe exited in sixth and Rheem had the entirety of the table covered. He lost a little steam doubling up some opponents, but got back on track when he eliminated recreational player Dennis Stevermer in fifth place. Stervermer got it all in with to Rheem’s and Rheem flopped a nine to trim the field to four.

With four players remaining, it was Spinella captaining the table and moving into the chip lead. Nonehteless it was once again Rheem who was responsible for the knockouts. Paul Volpe exited from his third career WPT final table in fourth place when he flopped overcards and a flush draw to Rheem’s pocket kings, got it all-in, and failed to improve.

If four-handed play was a tour de force for Spinella, three-handed play was when Panzica stole the show, taking his own turn atop the chip counts after beginning three-handed play as the extreme short stack. Panzica picked up aces at the perfect time, doubled thru Rheem, and took the chip lead on the very next hand. Just ten hands later, he had both of his opponents on the ropes with 75% of the chips and play and the other two sitting on ten-big blind stacks.

Those short stacks consolidated when Spinella doubled thru Rheem when his bested Rheem’s in an all-in preflop showdown, then he took Rheem’s final two big blinds to eliminate him in third place on the subsequent hand.

Going into heads-up, Panzica had a nearly 4:1 chip advantage, but Spinella doubled up on the second hand of heads-up action, winning a flip to the margin to 3:2. Even that couldn’t slow Panzica down though. Three hands later, he got it all-in again holding a superior ace to Spinella, held, and managed to lock down his second title, a career high payday, and a shot at Hublot WPT Player of the Year in a matter of minutes.

This year’s Bay 101 Shooting Star event was one for the record books thanks to a massive field of 806 entries and a more than $5.7 million prizepool. The top 81 finishers all collected paydays. Some of the notables who finished in the money include past sShooting Star winner Taylor Paur (76th), Tom Marchese (72nd), Season X WPT Player of the Year Joe Serock (68th), Noah Schwartz (61st), last year’s Bay 101 winner Stefan Schillihabel (47th), Garrett Greer (23rd), Mike Sexton (22nd), Ravi Raghavan (22nd), David Williams (16th), and POY contender Igor Yaroshevskyy (8th).

That concludes the action from Bay 101, but the WPT California Swing continues on Saturday at Thunder Valley Casino for WPT Rolling Thunder, the third and final leg of the trip before the season-ending trip to Seminole Hard Rock in Florida.

Here is a look at the complete final table results:

1st: Sam Panzica – $1,373,000*
2nd: Anthony Spinella – $786,610
3rd: Chino Rheem – $521,660
4th: Paul Volpe – $349,610
5th: Dennis Stevermer – $243,090
6th: Rainer Kempe – $188,460

*Because Panzica already won a seat into the Tournament of Champions, the $15,000 seat will instead be given to him as cash

Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive