For one night, Mike Sexton was not in the broadcast booth during a World Poker Tour final table. Instead, he was fending for the $1 million top prize at the Bay 101 Shooting Star final table and making the WPT debut he was waiting years for. Tony Dunst picked up the commentating duties Sexton did his best and got his money in good. The cards did not cooperate for Sexton and instead, Alan Sternberg, playing in his fourth WPT event, turned a satellite entry into a seven-figure score and major title.

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Bay101/WorldPokerTourAlan Sternberg battled back from a short stack with four players to go to win Bay 101.

Sexton, sitting on the very short stack to enter the final table, was the first player eliminated at the 27th hand of play by Mike Matusow. Sexton looked to be in great shape with K-Q against Matusow's K-J, but Matusow hit a J on the river to knock out poker's ambassador and not only shrink the final table to five players, but also collected the $5,000 bounty on Sexton's head as he was a Shooting Star during the event.

Just three hands later, Steven Kelly knocked out Casey McCarrel (J-10 over A-Q) and it was a four way race with Kelly at the top and Vivek Rajkumar at the bottom. Rajkumar, hoping to improve on his runner-up finish at the LAPC last month, then was involved with Sternberg in one of the craziest hands of the night. Sternberg opened, Rajkumar three-bet and Sternberg called. After a flop of A-6-5, Sternberg checked, Rajkumar bet, Sternberg raised and Rajkumar called. A turn Q sparked a bet from Sternberg and a cal from Rajkumar and another Q on the river enticed Sternberg to move all-in. Rajkumar called quickly and showed quads while Sternberg dejectedly had a full house with 6-6.

"I was feeling really frustrated," Sternberg said of his emotions after the hand to the World Poker Tour. "I could've very easily lost all my chips, but I got a couple hands after that and I was able to build some chips back up and I was able to make a couple plays …"

Despite being the short stack at that point, Sternberg wasn't fazed and continued to battle. He took a nice pot off of Matusow to jump back into the chip lead then solidified that chip lead after a hand with Kelly. From that point on, Sternberg was in control.

Nearly 100 hands took placed between the elimination of McCarrel and the fourth-place elimination of Rajkumar. Kelly's K-Q held against Rajkumar's K-J and earning $295,800, Rajkumar has a two-month WPT earnings total of $1.2 million. He also collected bounties during the tournament by elimination Jennifer Harman and Phil Hellmuth.

Three-handed, Sternberg's lead over Kelly and Matusow dwindled and eventually, gave up the lead to Kelly. He was able to start heads-up play at basically even stacks after he eliminated Mike Matusow who three-bet all-in with 9-2 after a button raise by Sternberg with K-Q. Sternberg eliminated Matusow, picked up his $5,000 bounty and once again, made Matusow come up short at a WPT final table. This was his fifth WPT final table and he has no wins, but two thirds, two sixths and a second. He earned $369,800.

Stenberg extended his lead to over 7 million chips after the first few hands of heads-up play. The two played few flops with the opening raiser taking the pot, but one final confrontation ended the tournament and gave the New Yorker the title. Kelly opened the pot, putting in about a 10th of his stack. Sternberg three-bet all-in and Kelly called with A-Q, ahead over Sternberg's 10-8. The flop came Q-8-7 and Kelly had a stranglehold on the hand. Another 7 on the turn left Sternberg with only two outs and he'd hit one of them, the 8c, on the river to win the title.

Here are the final table results from Bay 101:

1. Alan Sternberg ($1,039,000)
2. Steven Kelly ($595,300)
3. Mike Matusow ($369,800)
4. Vivek Rajkumar ($295,800)
5. Casey McCarrel ($221,800)
6. Mike Sexton ($148,000)

Poker contributing to charity:

It's unfortunate that I remember writing a paragraph similar to this one not too long ago, but it is fortunate that I can write it again. With the devastation in Japan after the latest earthquake and tsunami, relief efforts and underway and money is being raised to support those efforts. Both PokerStars and Full Tilt have joined the efforts and are encouraging their players to donate.

PokerStars has implemented "dummy tournaments" which have buy-ins ranging from $1 to $1,000. Based on what they would like to donate, players can enter into these tournaments and the money will be deducted from their accounts.

Full Tilt has offered "Aid for Japan" tournaments which are ongoing. They are all multi-entry, turbo tournaments of different denominations where the buy-in is equal to the fee. Additionally, they also have donation tournaments, like PokerStars, where players can "enter" to donate money.

Both sites have generously stepped up and will match all donations made through these efforts.

On an individual note, Justin "BoostedJ" Smith said he would donate $1 for every person who retweeted the Red Cross text number and Maria Ho donated a seat into a major event on UB to the first person who sent her a picture of them donating to the Red Cross. It's great to see the industry step up and help in critical times and hopefully more entities will come forward and support these efforts.

Small blinds: Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, defeated Daniel Negreanu in Round 1 of the latest SuperStar Showdown. Blom defeated Negreanu in 1,439 hands and earned $150,000. The two will face off once again on Sunday, March 27th for Round 2. … EPT Snowfest is underway with Day 1A on Sunday and Day 1B on Monday. Some Day 1A survivors include Alex Kravchenko and Casey Kastle. … "KOMIJENDO" won the Mini-FTOPS XIX main event and $396,578 after a chop with "Demon1531". … Congressmen Barney Frank and John Campbell have introduced poker legislation that would legalize online gaming called H.R. 1174, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act. It is very similar to HR 2267, but without Frank as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, it will be interesting to see if the bill is ever addressed. … PokerNews is reporting that the World Poker Tour is going to be offering a $100,000 event in the coming months. … It's not poker, but Randy Couture is putting together a poker run for charity.