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Ema Zajmovic Makes History, Wins partypoker.net WPT Playground Main Event

Ema Zajmovic came close in November, finishing fifth in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Montreal Main Event, but now she got over the hump at the same venue, Montreal’s Playground Poker Club , as she won the WPT Playground Main Event Tuesday night. Her first major live tournament title was worth CAD $241,500 (USD $183,789).

While the victory was a milestone in Zajmovic’s poker career and her greatest accomplishment to date, it is arguably a more significant moment for the history of poker in general. By winning the WPT Playground Main Event, Ema Zajmovic became the first woman – the first – to win an open Main Event on the World Poker Tour . Only one other woman, Van Nguyen, has ever won a WPT title, but that was in the 2008 WPT Celebrity Invitational. As the word “invitational” should indicate, that was not an open event; only those invited to participate could buy-in.

“Honestly, I am really happy that I proved women can do it,” Zajmovic told WPT.com afterward. “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 has evolved so much and it is nice to see I had support from older women, younger women.”

Poker Hall of Famer, “Ambassador of Poker,” and WPT television analyst Mike Sexton , who won WPT Montreal at the Playground Poker Club, said of Zajmovic, “I have the greatest respect for her. This is no fluke, in my opinion. We’re going to be seeing a lot more of her in the future. She’s that good.”

He added that she is a “combo of Phil Ivey and Vanessa Selbst.” That is some serious praise.

When Tuesday’s action began, our champ was the chip leader of the remaining ten players with nearly 3 million. Of her opponents, just Jean-Pascal Savard had over 2 million, 900,000 chips behind. She didn’t add many chips by the time the six-handed final table began, having climbed to barely over 3 million, but that still left her in good shape. Tam Ho was the chip leader at that point with 3.570 million and nobody else was over the 2 million mark.

Zajmovic dropped a chunk early at the official final table as she doubled-up Mekhail Mekhail , but that still left her in the second spot.

Savard was the first one to be eliminated when it was down to six players, knocked out by Jean-Francois Bouchard . With A-4 suited, Bouchard had hit top pair (Fours) on the flop with the nut flush draw and ended up all-in. Savard called, putting himself all-in, with Jacks. The flush came on the turn and Savard was out.

It was the 100th hand of the final table that Zajmovic began her run. She doubled through Eric Afriat on that hand and then ten hands later knocked out Mekhail in fifth place to grow her stack to 5.160 million chips. Mekhail had raised pre-flop to 225,000 with A-J suited, Zajmovic raised over the top with Kings and, pot committed, Mekhail made the reluctant call. No surprises from there and Zajmovic had the chip lead.

The long slog of the final table continued from there, with players often trading large pots. Zajmovic fell back, seeing her stack chopped in half, but on Hand 175, she eliminated Tam Ho in fourth place. Zajmovic flopped the nut flush and that was that.

To get to heads-up on Hand 194, a crippled Eric Afriat was all-in pre-flop for just a few chips. Both Zajmovic and Bouchard checked it down from there with Zajmovic winning the hand.

To start heads-up play, Bouchard had a 6.850 million to 4.525 million chip lead.

The two players traded the lead once or twice before Zajmovic took over, grabbing a 3.5 million chip lead on Hand 227 (this was a REALLY long six-handed final table). From there, she didn’t look back. On the final hand, Bouchard made an unusual move, going all-in out of turn before the flop for 5.125 million chips. Bouchard had A-9 and Zajmovic had K-Q, spades all around. Zajmovic flopped a King and turned a Queen to win the hand and her first-ever WPT title.

partypoker.net World Poker Tour Playground Main Event – Final Table Results

1.    Ema Zajmovic  –  CAD $261,000 (USD $200,769*) 2.    Jean-Francois Bouchard  –  CAD $169,270 (USD $130,208) 3.    Eric Afriat  –  CAD $108,690 (USD $83,608) 4.    Tam Ho  –  CAD $71,670 (USD $55,131) 5.    Mekhail Mekhail  –  CAD $55,200 (USD $42,462) 6.    Jean-Pascal Savard  –  CAD $45,690 (USD $35,146)

*Lead photo credit WPT.com

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Ema Zajmovic: Grateful and Prepared in WPT Spotlight

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Ema Zajmovic made World Poker Tour history at the Playground Poker Club becoming the first female champion in an open event. The numbers are staggering – there were 265 open-field WPT Main Tour main events, a total of 117,683 entrants in those events and $832,285,025 in prize money awarded before Zajmovic broke through.

While the journey for the WPT to celebrate a female champion without asterisks was rocky, Zajmovic’s journey to the winner’s seat wasn’t smooth sailing either. “I started playing when I was 19 just because I was traveling with my ex-boyfriend. I preferred playing rather than shopping or waiting for him while he was playing,” she said.

“For sure it was a rough road – all the money and emotional swings all poker players know about,” she continued. “There was also the challenge of being a girl in that men’s world. I’ve learned a lot through that journey and I keep learning adjust to the variables.”

Zajmovic earned CAD$241,500 for her win – more than half of her career earnings – but it wasn’t her first time in the spotlight. She final tabled the same event at Playground in November when Mike Sexton won his first title.

“The first final table was pretty exciting for me. (I) never got that deep in a live tournament,” she said. “I was really focusing on first place, I was second in chips and was feeling pretty confident. Unfortunately, I made a bad fold and got unlucky a few times and the experience ended quickly.”

A quirky WPT schedule meant it would be a matter of weeks before Zajmovic could build on her experience. She knew she’d have to get really lucky to make the final table at her home casino. “The deeper I got in the tournament, I just felt that it was unreal,” she said. “I was enjoying a second deep run as much as I could.”

“This time, I had a tougher table draw during my run. Players such as (Pascal) Lefrançois, (Jean-Pascal) Savard and (Marc-Andre) Ladouceur were on my tables pretty late in the tournament,” said Zajmovic. “I had to play a more solid game and choose my spots carefully.”

“Then the final table arrived, I was just so grateful to have that shot again,” she added. “I realized when we were three-handed when the other two players where in a pot against each other that I had a shot of winning it for real. I’m beyond grateful to have had that opportunity twice and to be prepared for it.”

“Less than three years ago I was only dreaming about playing the tour like my friends,” she said. “Now I won a title, that’s amazing and I’m really grateful for everything.”

Zajmovic still thinks of herself as a live cash game player, but she’s not going to ignore her results in two large fields. “I’m playing the heater,” she said. “I’m gonna keep playing live events, and cash games, but I want to enjoy these trips as much as I can.”

Zajmovic fielded a lot of questions about women in poker after her win and said, “As a community, men and women need to understand that there are decades of a mentality that discourage women to play poker. We all need to be open-minded, conscious and patient about that. Women can’t jump in with aggression and frustration and hope to change those behaviors.”

“I’ve seen a lot of women being rude, vulgar – trying to be equal as men. From my experience, the best way to change all those stereotypes is to be yourself, to embrace your essence and see how men and women can compete with each other in the game,” she said. “We all have something to learn from each other, and being close-minded will help no one.”

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Ema Zajmovic

Born in 1990, ema zajmovic found herself whisked away by her parents from yugoslavia to canada at the age of six..

Born in 1990, Ema Zajmovic found herself whisked away by her parents from Yugoslavia to Canada at the age of six. They left, fleeing the conflict which led to the creation of Bosnia and Croatia in the aftermath of the Iron Curtain’s final fall. 

In Canada Zajmovic learned French and English putting real effort into her studies. Claiming she was “not a cool kid at all,” she loved school and went on to study public relations at university with the intention of becoming a lawyer. Instead she put her qualification in public relations into a career in political communications, which culminated in her helping to run Justin Trudeau’s winning campaign for Canadian Prime Minister in 2015.

Along the way she also picked up a deck of cards and a couple of CA$ over the baize, learning to play poker and making a splash. In 2012 she had her first cash in a large event taking home 8th in an EPT €2,000 bounty event. Her real breakthrough though came in November 2016 when she took 5th at the WPT event in Montreal.

The event was finally won by Mike Sexton, who describes himself as “probably Ema's biggest fan.”

“She can really play,” Sexton said. “When I won in Montreal, she dominated play from four tables down to the final table. She's aggressive and not afraid to play pots.”

A few months later she became the first female winner of an open WPT main event, beating out 380 players to win first prize in the CA$3,200 Main Event at the WPT Playground, Kahnawake in February 2017. An achievement she is justly proud of.

“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,” she said. 

After she followed that up in April 2016 with a 4th place finish in the £2,500 6-max event at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham demonstrating that she is no fluke on the scene. These three final tables, along with her seven other cashes (as at June 2017) put her over $337,611 in live tournament winnings.

She hopes to use her raised profile in the game to help women, particularly with the pressures caused by living lives under the scrutiny of social media. She also hasn’t sworn off politics, so who knows what’s next for her?

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