A woman is guaranteed to win a bracelet every year. Last year Clare Miller took down the seniors event. This year Sally Boyer won the ladies event. But not since Annie Duke's win in the 2004 $2,000 Omaha eight-or-better event has a woman won an open buy-in World Series of Poker tournament. Now, Katja Thater can add her name to a very short list of women.
Thater took out Larry St. Jean to win event No. 29, $1,500 seven-card razz. On the final hand, the board read (8
2
) 9
3 5
3 (4) for Thater and (2 5) 10 5 7 8 (4) for St. Jean. Thater's 8-5-4-3-2 low beat St. Jean's 8-7-5-4-2 for the title.
Players were up until 4 a.m. on day one, and 3 a.m. on day two during one of the longest tournaments of the Series. The final eight players voted to come back on day three to finish the tournament, which was originally scheduled as a two-day event.
The chip counts coming into the final table were as follows: O'Neil Longson ($385,500), St. Jean ($171,000), Denny Axel ($123,000), Thater ($117,500), Paul "Eskimo" Clark ($88,500), Mark Vos ($84,500), Thomas Daubert ($54,500), and Men "The Master" Nguyen ($35,000).
The two short stacks, Daubert and Nguyen, traded places in the chip counts and were both knocked out on the same hand by Thater. Daubert finished in eighth place, while Nguyen moved up one spot based on starting chip count to finish in seventh place.
Vos was the next to go, in sixth place, when his 9 low was bested by Clark's 8 low. Nguyen and Vos were the life of the table, so after their departure the feel of the table changed from light-hearted to a bit more serious.
Axel went out in fifth place when sixth and seventh street paired him up and he was unable to beat Thater's hand.
"Eskimo" overcame tremendous odds to make this final table. Just days after falling victim to a stroke, Clark battled a field of 341 to finish in fourth place. In a scary situation for the poker world, it was great to see Eskimo bounce back so quickly.
Longson came in as the chip leader but could not capture another bracelet. After Longson was eliminated in third place, Thater and St. Jean were set up for heads-up play.
Here are the final table results for the $1,500 razz event:
- Katja Thater - $132,653
- Larry St. Jean - $73,311
- O'Neil Longson - $46,547
- Paul "Eskimo" Clark - $31,186
- Denny Axel - $24,204
- Mark Vos - $18,386
- Men "The Master" Nguyen - $14,197
- Thomas Daubert - $10,473
