Canadian poker professional and former WPT winner wins Event #1: $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em
Monday 2nd June 2008
The sun is out (well, sort of), the birds are singing, and all is right in the world again as the 2008 edition of the WSOP awarded it’s first bracelet this morning. The $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event saw a swarm of the game’s luminaries take to the felt, but it was Nenad Medic who took the spoils, earning $794,112 in the process.
The final table began with nine players who had beaten 341 others to reach the last elite group of players: Professional online player Mike Sowers, who has a string of online victories to his name including the FTP $1k Monday and the $1,050 Limit Hold’em World Championship of Online Poker event; poker professional and WPT final-tabler Chris Bell at his second WSOP final table; high-stakes Sit ‘n’ Go player Amit Makhija; poker professional and Big Game regular Patrik Antonius; 2006 HORSE runner-up and birthday boy Andy Bloch; WSOP bracelet-winner Mike Sexton; Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak, High Stakes Poker regular; ex-basketball star, online player and WPT Foxwoods winner Nenad Medic and #1 female money-earner Kathy Liebert.
The last four were Medic, Bloch, Liebert and Sexton, with Bloch as massive chip leader holding almost three-quarters of the chips in play. Interestingly, it was the first final four in WSOP history with all the players having earned over $1m in poker tournaments. However, Bloch stumbled as the play went short handed, and after a massive three-way pot which saw Medic’s queens hold up against the sixes of Liebert and the nines of Bloch, the Canadian pro was seemingly destined to overcome the former MIT student. It indeed proved to be the case, when his flopped pair and flush draw beat the overpair of Andy Bloch.
