Eric “Baldy” Baldwin took down the first place price of $134,280 by winning the $5,250 PokerStars North American Poker Tour Bounty Shootout last Thursday in Los Angeles. Baldwin is a former college baseball player and that is how he got his nickname, no it is not an issue with a receding hair line, and a of Team UB. A shootout tournament is when each table plays down to one final winner and the winners from each table move on to the next table. This tournament saw eighty one players seated at nine tables, so to win this tournament, Baldwin had to come in first at two consecutive tables. Every player that made it to the final table won twenty thousand dollars, so that increased Baldwin’s winning’s to $154,280. Being a bounty tournament, every one of the eighty one players had a one thousand dollar bounty on them and Baldwin picked up and additional three thousand dollars in bounties.

Other notable players to make it to the final table of this event included David Williams finishing third to earn the twenty thousand and four thousand in bounties. Williams is probably best known for his second place finish to Greg Raymer in the 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event. Williams has one WSOP Bracelet and one WPT Title. He boasts lifetime tournament winnings of almost eight million dollars. Earlier this year, Williams defeated Baldwin in heads up play to win his first WPT Title.

Finishing in seventh place for twenty thousand dollars and two thousand in bounties was Pat Pezzin, a Canadian poker professional. Pat has one career title and seventy eight career tournament cashes for lifetime winnings of $1,389,434. Pezzin’s one career title came from a PokerStars Super Tuesday tournament on February 3^rd, 2009, where he won a prize of a little over eighty thousand dollars.

The first player to bust out at the final table was Kevin MacPhee, an American from Idaho. MacPhee has ten career titles and one hundred and forty eight career cashes for lifetime winnings of over three million dollars. For finishing in ninth place MacPhee won twenty thousand dollars and three thousand dollars in bounties.

The second place finisher was Justin Young from Moorehead City, NC. Young holds six career titles and has had one hundred and twenty one career cashes for a little over two and a half million dollars. He has seven hundred and seventy six Player of the Year points so far this year and is ranked 559^th. For his second place finish he won twenty thousand dollars and six thousand dollars in bounties.

And finishing in eighth place was Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi. Mizrachi just took home a very large payday from his fifth place finish in the World Series of Poker Main Event. The Grinder has one WSOP Bracelet and two WPT Titles. Mizrachi has an amazing poker performance record with nineteen career titles and one hundred and ten career cashes for lifetime total winnings of over eleven million dollars. With 2,834 Player of the Year points this year he is ranked 29^th.