2007 WSOP Year in Review by Bluff Staff

Making a name for oneself in poker isn’t the easiest thing to do. And if you are a female, and your name isn’t Annie or Jennifer, it can be even tougher. However, after the World Series of 2007, we feel that the name Katja will soon be added to the list of the game’s elite players… regardless of gender.

Katja Thater began playing poker in 1999 and became a full-time pro only two years ago. Starting out as mainly a cash game player, Thater then burst onto the tournament scene after finishing second in the 2005 Poker Nations Cup in Cardiff, Wales. She followed this up with two cashes at the 2006 World Series, placing in the money in a Pot Limit Hold’em event as well as a 7-card Stud event.

Katja’s real coming out party has been in 2007. In March, she finished 5th in the EPT Warsaw event for about $85,000. Fast forward to June 2007. After already cashing in Event 4, Thater, a member of Team PokerStars since 2006, final-tabled the $1000 Ladies No Limit Hold’em event. She finished 5th for just under $50,000 after her AhTd did not improve versus her opponent’s A♠Q♥.

Two cashes and over $50,000 in winnings would be a good Series for most… but not for this German. In “the sickest game ever,” according to Katja, she took down the $1500 Razz, winning $132,653 and a WSOP bracelet in the process… weaving through a final table that included Eskimo Clark, Mark Vos, and Men “The Master” Nguyen!

Further adding to her accolades of two final tables and her bracelet win, Katja was the only woman to win an open event in this year’s World Series. Judging by her recent success and dedication to the game, this latest win isn’t likely to be her last.

While the cameras at the World Series of Poker scan the room for the likes of Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu, they often pass right by Erik Seidel as he sits quietly at a table, often behind a big chip stack, deep into a tournament.

While his unsuspecting and more conservative table demeanor might not put him on many highlight reels, Seidel’s performances year in and year out at the WSOP are challenged by no one.

This summer, Erik had five cashes, including one bracelet win in the Deuce - Seven rebuy event for over $500,000. While this sort of performance would be a career high for almost any poker player, it seems to be just another summer for Erik Seidel.

With the exception of 2004, Seidel has made at least one final table at the WSOP for the last sixteen years. He has eight WSOP bracelets, which is the third best among all poker players in history, and his bracelets have been won in all forms of poker games.

Ask his peers and they will tell you he is one of the greatest in the world. The numbers just don’t lie. In 2008, expect more of the same.

In recent years, tournament field sizes have grown so big that it is a long shot for any one great player to win a bracelet in any given year. The tournaments take three days, and players must often wade through thousands of entrants just to make the final table and put themselves in position for the bracelet.

For the past three years, Allen has done exactly that. And for the past three years, Allen has won. To really appreciate his accomplishments, you must look at the numbers for his three-bracelet wins:

2006 - $1,000 No Limit Hold’em w/Rebuys
752 entries, 1670 rebuys

These are only his first-place finishes; they don’t include the eleven other times he cashed and his five other final tables. In the past three years, Allen has won over $5,000,000.

To say that in the past few years Allen Cunningham has dominated the WSOP would be a huge understatement.

Well-known pros go deep in Main Event

Each year, the $10,000 No Limit Championship of the Main Event is packed full with amateur players. When you walk the room, it could take a while to see any players you recognize, and very rarely will you see more than one of them seated at the same table.

As the field thins, we all like to consider which of the professionals have a real shot at taking one home for the pros, something that has not been done since Carlos Mortenson took the title in 2001.

This summer, there were a few big-name professionals who put themselves in excellent contention to do exactly that.

Scotty had a mountain of chips and it looked like he would sail into the final table as one of the chip leaders, becoming a clear favorite to win it all. A few big pots later, Scotty was on the rail, and we could only wonder “What if?”

Lee Watkinson was the most renowned of those who did make the final table, finishing in 8th place after losing a monster pot to eventual winner Jerry Yang early during the final table.

Other notables who had strong finishes: Kenny Tran (16th), Bill Edler (23rd), Daniel Alaei (25th), Kirk Morrison (56th), Gus Hansen (61st), Huck Seed (73rd), Humberto Brenes (83rd), Jared ‘WacoKidd’ Hamby (88th), Cory Carroll (91st), Isaac Haxton (94th), Billy Baxter (136th), Sorel Mizzi (208th), and Carlos Mortenson (217th).

This year’s Milwaukee’s Best Player of the Year was a hotly contested title for the entire duration of the World Series of Poker. Tom Schneider and Jeffrey Lisandro took an early lead, and they just kept one-upping each other. Eventually, it was Tom Schneider’s second bracelet win that gave him the edge. Schneider, the only player in 2007 to win two bracelets, also had one other final table; and that was enough to give him the edge on

Lisandro. Lisandro had an incredible WSOP himself, winning his first bracelet and having a second place finish on top of that. He ended up with six total cashes for nearly $500,000 in total winnings for the summer.

Other impressive feats at this year’s WSOP included both Michael Binger and Chad Brown cashing an incredible eight times each, although neither of them could gather the momentum in one of those tournaments to capture a bracelet.

One relatively unknown player had perhaps the most incredible WSOP of all. Russian Alex Kravchenko cashed six times, including one bracelet win and fourth place in the Main Event for nearly $2 million. This year’s Player of the Year race did not include the Main Event, but if it had, Kravchenko surely would have been in position to take that title.

If any tournament can challenge the prestige and excitement that surrounds the Main Event, it is the newly introduced $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship. In its inaugural year, Chip Reese took down the title, validating that this tournament caters to the most elite cash game players the world has to offer.

This year, the tournament exceeded last year’s number of entrants, and was filled with premier poker players from all over the globe: 148 players ponied up the $50,000 to contribute to a prize pool of $7,104,000. The structure allows for a ton of play in the early levels and Eli Elezra would make the most of it, amassing a monster stack to take into Day 2.

However, Elezra couldn’t carry that momentum to cash in the tournament. Kenny Tran took over the title of chip leader, often holding the most chips on his way to the final table.

Once they got there, it was Freddy Deeb who started making moves. In the end, the only man left standing in his way was Bruno Fitoussi, who had been a force in this event since Day 1. Shortly after five in the morning, Freddy finally did away with Bruno, and long-time pro Deeb was crowned as the 2007 H.O.R.S.E. champion, sending him home with the first-place prize of $2,276,832.

He walks into a poker room and he looks more like a NASCAR driver than a poker player. Covered in logos, Hellmuth has undoubtedly become the most marketable poker player on the planet. No player draws more eyes and ears than he does when he walks into a room. No player brings more people to the rail than he does when he sits in his chair. No player brings bigger ratings to the television broadcasts on which he is playing. His antics and personality have put him at the very top of the poker totem pole.

His name has become synonymous with World Series of Poker success. Rightfully so, if you take one look at his lifetime WSOP stats:

This summer, when Hellmuth won bracelet #11, he silenced all his critics. Sure, his table antics rub some the wrong way and there will still be those who say he can’t win in the biggest cash games. But while his opposition continues to come up with new arguments against The Poker Brat, he keeps extending his records in the WSOP record books.