Katja Thater 2nd Woman Ever to win WSOP Non Exclusive Bracelet!

Katja Thater left the WSOP Razz Event with a new title - Second Woman ever to win a Non-Exclusive Bracelet Event. A woman is guaranteed to win at least one bracelet every year. Some one has to win the ladies event. This year Katja Thater has established another notch for women in the world of poker, by taking the bracelet in this non-exclusive event. The only woman to accomplish this before her was Annie Duke in 2004..

Players were in game 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 voted to return on day three to finish the tournament, originally scheduled as a two-day event.

The chip counts stood as follow when the final table opened:

1- O'Neil Longson with $385,500
2- St. Jean with $171,000
3- Denny Axel with $123,000
4- Katja Thater with $117,500
5- Paul "Eskimo" Clark with $88,500
6- Mark Vos with $84,500
7- Thomas Daubert with $54,500
8- Men "The Master" Nguyen with $35,000

The two short stacks, Daubert and Nguyen, traded places in the chip counts until Thater knocked both out on the same hand. Daubert finished in eighth place, and Nguyen moved up, based on starting chip count, to finish in seventh place. The next busted player was Vos, in sixth place, when his 9 low was undercut by Clark's 8 low. Nguyen and Vos were keeping the table light and laid back, so when they were both out, the game became more serious. Thater also knocked out the fifth place Axel when the sixth and seventh streets were paired against his hand.

Paul Clark overcame tremendous obstacles to make this final table. It was only days earlier that he had a stroke, and still entered the poker game with 340 other players to finish in the top 4. To see ‘Eskimo' return so quickly was a relief for the poker world as a whole.

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. After many hands back and forth Katja Thater finally overcame Larry St. Jean with 8-5-4-3-2. This made WSOP history, and ripples across the whole event.

Here are the final table results for the $1,500 razz event:

1- Katja Thater - $132,653
2- Larry St. Jean - $73,311
3- O'Neil Longson - $46,547
4- Paul "Eskimo" Clark - $31,186
5- Denny Axel - $24,204
6- Mark Vos - $18,386
7- Men "The Master" Nguyen - $14,197
8- Thomas Daubert - $10,473