There always seems to be something magical happening when the World Poker Tour visits Montreal. Montreal is where Mike Sexton won his first WPT title, and consequently the first time Tony Dunst stepped into the commentary booth to call the action with Vince Van Patten.
Earlier this year, in the WPT returned to Montreal after more than four years away and Dan Stavila became the first player ever to make both a WPT Prime and a Main Tour final table during the same WPT festival.
And perhaps most notably of all, Playground was the site of Ema Zajmovic’s grand triumph, as she became the first and only woman in WPT history win an open field event back in Season XV, during the WPT Playground festival.
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For just the second time in World Poker Tour history, an event with the WPT Playground name is back on the Championship schedule as the tour makes its second stop this season at Playground. If it’s anything like the first instance of WPT Playground, there may be even more magic in store.
Back in 2017, the then-27-year-old Zajmovic, who was born in Yugoslavia and emigrated to Canada in her childhood, won the first WPT Playground back in Season XV in her adopted home country. Zajmovic outlasted a field of 380 to win CAD$261,000, the championship belt, and a permanent spot on what is now known as the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.
Zajmovic’s connection to Sexton runs deeper, too, as she had the ultimate front-row seat to Sexton’s own WPT Montreal title – in the same building, during the same WPT season, three months prior. Zajmovic had a good shot at winning that tournament, too, as she and Sexton were first and second in chips when that WPT Montreal final table began.
“Ema Zajmovic from Canada, who dominated that tournament like nobody I’ve ever seen, was a big chip leader,” Sexton recalled in 2019. “Ema raised it up, like she did most pots and I looked down at king-queen and moved all-in. She called me with ace-queen and I spiked a king to stay alive.
“Luckily for me, she didn’t have a very good final table. She bluffed at the wrong time, she lost a lot of chips and ended up going out in fifth.”
Zajmovic’s victory in February 2017, in her second final table in Montreal in three months, earned her a status that has yet to be matched. It also earned her an Global Poker Index American Poker Award for Moment of the Year for 2017.
Zajmovic is just the second woman ever to put her name on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup (The first took place back in Season VI when the WPT Celebrity Invitational at Commerce Casino was still on the schedule where Van Nguyen was victorious.)
The closest a woman has come to replicating Zajmovic’s WPT title feat over the ensuing years is Zajmovic herself. If her pair of Season XV results were the sum total of Zajmovic’s highlight reel on the World Poker Tour, it would stand out for obvious reasons. But it was merely a jumping off point for even more success that followed.
In April 2018, Zajmovic crossed the Atlantic to play WPT Amsterdam at Holland Casino. She had the chip lead heads-up against local Dutch pro Rens Feenstra. In the last crucial swing of the tournament, both Zajmovic and Feenstra turned straights, with Zajmovic’s coming up short, ultimately leaving her to settle for second place.
Seven months later, Zajmovic returned to the friendly confines of Playground for WPT Montreal. In the Season XVII edition of this tournament, which drew 792 entries, Zajmovic made her fourth career WPT final table. She once again began six-handed play with a healthy stack, though Zajmovic faced arguably her toughest final lineup in this instance, which included both Sorel Mizzi and Upeshka De Silva.
Zajmovic got heads-up for a WPT title for a third time, holding a slight lead over Patrick Serda, and flopped a gutshot straight flush draw. When none of her outs came in by the river, Zajmovic tried to run one of the biggest and most memorable bluffs in WPT history.
Serda eventually called with fourth pair despite an ace, multiple straights and flushes on board and beat Zajmovic’s king-high. Though she finished in second once more, Zajmovic earned $424,893 for her efforts – her best result to date. Zajmovic has earned more than half of her career live earnings at Playground, and with over $750,000 at the venue she sits fifth all-time among all players there.
Whether or not Zajmovic returns to chase yet another WPT final table in Montreal in this second WPT Playground event, the magic she captured rests in the annals of WPT history forever. But if history is any indicator, someone else could very well capture some Montreal magic for themselves by the time this festival is over.