blonde poker

Over the last 5 days and climaxing last night, the latest WPT saw its latest Event hit the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut.

This time around it was the 2006 World Poker Finals with a $10,000 Main Event which attracted over 600 players.

Familiar names that came close to reaching the very latter stages were WSOP 2006 H.O.R.S.E finalist David Singer, Full Tilt pro Clonie Gowan and High Stakes Poker star Daniel Negreanu, who finished 11th, 25th and 27th respectively.

But although these recognisable faces went deep into the competition, there were two more players who were stealing the limelight, but predominantly as a result of their gender.
Considering the overwhelmingly unbalanced male to female ratio at these big events, women have faired more than adequately with players such as Jennifer Harman and Annie Duke making their presence known on WPT final tables. This time, however, a new record was broken as not just one, but two female participants finaled, not bad considering the small amount of women who started the Event.

And, unsurprisingly, those two women were already stars in their own right. The first, Kathy Liebert, is a well-respected figure on the circuit and considered to be not just one of the best females in the game, but one of the strongest players period. The second, Mimi Tran, is renowned for not only being mentored by the Robin Hood of Poker, Barry Greenstein, but also for playing at the same level as her teacher by participating in the highly acclaimed High Stakes Poker show.

Unfortunately, although both players took home combined prize earnings of almost three quarters of a million dollars, neither player were able to lift the trophy come the final hand. Instead, that accolade went to a young online pro called Nenad Memic, who followed up his second WPT final table appearance (his last being the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2005) with a 1st spot finish and a fruity cheque for $1,717,194.

Heading into the Final 6 just 4th in chips, the 22 year old slipped under the radar as such, as he allowed eventual runner up and start of the day chip leader, EG Harvin, to take out player after player, including the first four casualties.

Incredibly, and predominantly due to a huge pot Memic had played with Harvin previously, the heads up confrontation between the two players started off with both men being relatively equal in chips, Harvin holding the slight lead with 6.6 million to his opponent’s 5.8.

But, even with near equal chip stacks, it wouldn’t be too long before the fat lady started singing and by hand 88 it was all over. On a Flop of 5d-5c-3d, Harvin checked, Medic bet 150k, Harvin made it 650k and Medic called. Harvin then moved all-in on the 9c Turn, only to be briskly called by Medic. With Nenad Medic having his opponent just about covered, his 5-7 was easily enough to fend off the Ace-Jack of Harvin, with the academic 9 on the River ending his tournament with a full house.

So a big blondepoker congratulations to Nenad Medic, but especially to Kathy Liebert and Mimi Tran, who have hopefully strengthened women’s position in poker and opened the way for even more female players to contest at the very height of their profession. I wonder how long it'll be before we see three women make it to a WPT final table...


[Ed Note: To view the results for this Event, please click here]