Ema Zajmovic becomes first woman to win an open WPT event ever

It took all this time for the first female poker player to be crowned a open event World Poker Tour champion! Canadian Ema Zajmovic won the C$3,500 buy-in WPT Playground Main Event in Montreal and will earn this honor.

Zajmovic held around $100,000 in total live tournament winnings before the event, and she already once before was close to taking this honor when she busted 5th in November. That event it was Mike Sexton who took the event, and Zajmovic walked away with US$76,000 at that time, which was also her biggest ever live cash.

This time she finished Day 3 of the partypoker.net WPT Playground Main Event as a chip leader and from that point - orchestrated the field as she liked.
In the final hand of the tournament, Jean-Francois Bouchard moved all-in out of his turn and Zajmovic called him with . Her opponent tabled , but board came -- and Zajmovic took the title.

Zajmovic earned just over US$200,000 (+US$15,000 entry into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions) for her win.

“Honestly, I am really happy that I proved women can do it. The funniest and nicest part of this experience was all the women who came and were so supportive of me. It was amazing. When I started playing poker, there was so much competition between girls. It was hard to be good and be supportive of each other. Now it evolved so much and it is nice to see I had support from older women, younger women," Zajmovic said after her win.

Mike Sexton also commented the win by saying he has "the greatest respect" for Zajmovic adding that "she is a combo of Phil Ivey and Vanessa Selbst."

WPT Playground Main Event Final Results (380 entries)
1st: Ema Zajmovic – CAD $261,000 (US $200,769)
2nd: Jean-Francois Bouchard – CAD $169,270 (US $130,208)
3rd: Eric Afriat – CAD $108,690 (US $83,608)
4th: Tam Ho – CAD $71,670 (US $55,131)
5th: Mekhail Mekhail – CAD $55,200 (US $42,462)
6th: Jean-Pascal Savard – CAD $45,690 (US $35,146)

great to hear

I hope more women win events