Poker fans traveled miles to San Jose, in order to attend the biggest poker tournament in the history of Northern California, the five-day World Poker Tour’s Shooting Stars event. The more than 500 competitors paid $10.000 dollars to have the chance to compete for $4.5 million in prizes.

The event will be shown on TV next June, and about 1 million viewers a week will watch it, mostly No-Limit Hold’Em, the most popular variation of the game.

Many fans were already waiting outside more than a half hour before the tournament to get autographs and photograph their favorite players. Scotty Nguyen probed to be among the most popular. People came from all over the U.S.A. just to share those tiny moments with them.

The tournament has grown so much that it had to be split in half. There were about 250 people playing for 10 hours on Monday, another 250 on Tuesday, and those remaining from both days continued on Wednesday, gradually narrowing the field to a six-person table for the final, to be held on Friday.

One reason for the event’s popularity is it’s unique format: one player at each of the 50 ten-person starting tables is labeled as a “star”. By eliminating one of them, you get a $5.000 dollars bounty, plus a t-shirt. Some of the stars present were not only poker pros, but also movie stars, such as James Woods, Shannon Elizabeth and Jennifer Tilly.