If there was one thing the poker world lacked in, that was a female WPT Champion. This is no more the case, after Ema Zajmovic, a Montreal-based cash game player, topped the field of the WPT Playground C$3,500 Main Event last night. The player received the first-place prize of C$261,000, including a seat into the season-ending Tournament of Champions, as well as the Playground champions belt, a trophy she has long been particularly keen on winning.
Zajmovic made history last night at Playground Poker Club becoming the first female player to have ever won an open WPT Main Event in the tour’s fourteen year record. She was very close to achieving the noteworthy feat late last year and at that same gambling venue. The player finished 5th in the partypoker.net WPT Montreal C$3,850 Main Event, a tournament that was won by WPT’s very own Mike Sexton.
Sexton, a person who has been in the industry for decades now and has seen its ups and downs and everythings, praised Zajmovic’s aggressive style, describing her as a good combo of prominent poker pros Phil Ivey and Vanessa Selbst.
Averting the attention back to the player’s performance at the most recent partypoker.net WPT Playground Main Event, she entered the tournament’s final day with the biggest stack among the ten remaining survivors. It took 74 hands of play for four players to be eliminated and thus the official final table to be set.
Zajmovic was among the main drivers of action over the course of play. At the time six-handed play started, she was second in chips with Tam Ho being the sole player ahead of her in the final pack of six. And it was an action-packed final table, during which the chip lead changed hands several times.
Eventually, Zajmovic found herself heads-up against Jean-Francois Bouchard and at a chip deficit. However, the slight impediment did not seem to have discouraged her. Talking to interviewers after the tournament, the player said that everyone at the final table could have emerged as the winner, but she was determined that one to be her. The player had long ago set eyes on the Playground champions belt. It is good that it is hers now.
However, the road to victory was a hard and long one. Zajmovic took 61 hands to fight off the deficit and to slowly, steadily, and methodically rob her final opponent off his chips. Hand #256 of the final table was the last one to be played last night.
It unfolded with Bouchard moving all in and Zajmovic calling. The female player tabled [Ks][Qs] against her opponent’s [As][9s]. The board ran out [Kc][10h][7c][Qh][5s], securing Zajmovic with a perfect two pair for the pot, the title, and the belt long-longed-for. Bouchard scooped a C$261,000 payday for his runner-up finish in the major event.
An original field of 380 entrants contended for the WPT Playground Main Event title. The prize pool of C$1,179,520 was split in uneven portions among the top 48 finishers.
