German player captures first-ever WSOP bracelet won outside US

Bihl, a native of Frankfurt, Germany, who started playing poker just four years ago, won us$ 143,818 and the first-ever WSOP bracelet awarded outside the US. He outlasted a field of the world’s top poker pros in one of the most challenging of all poker games, the us$ 5,072 HORSE championship that kicked off the inaugural WSOP Europe.

"Thomas Bihl has earned a place in poker history with this incredible win," said WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. "The fact that he is a Betfair player, when Betfair is our presenting sponsor, makes this even sweeter."

Two-time World Series of Poker winner and Nevada native Jennifer Harman finished a disappointing second after relinquishing a two-to-one chip lead to Bihl, who played a quiet waiting game for most of the 13-hour final table. Harman had hoped to add a third WSOP bracelet to her total today at the 2007 WSOP Europe.

Bihl emerged victorious in the three-day HORSE event - a tournament featuring five variations of poker. GMT at The Casino at The Empire in London, capturing the us$ 143,818 first-place prize and a coveted WSOP gold bracelet made by luxury Swiss watchmaker CORUM.

Up to this event, Bihl had won us$ 132,226 in official prize money in his four-year career. The event was the eighth major-tournament final table for Harman, whose official career winnings totaled us$ 1,557,372 leading up to this competition. She has won millions more in the world’s biggest cash games in the course of a professional poker career that began two decades ago in her hometown of Reno, Nevada.

WSOP bracelet winner Kirk Morrison finished third, winning us$ 57,324. Five-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Chris Ferguson finished fourth, adding more than us$ 42,000, to his career earnings of us$ 5,551,650. Russian phenom Alex Kravchenko collected us$ 35,944 for fifth place, while Yuval Bronshtein won us$ 29,297 for sixth, Joe Beevers us$ 23,968 for seventh and Gary Jones 18,502 for eighth. In all, the top 16 of the 105 entrants won us$ 532,660 in prize money.

An hour before the HORSE final table began, 156 of the world’s top players anted up us$ 10,145 to play in the WSOP Europe Pot-Limit Omaha championship. The WSOP Europe HORSE and Pot-Limit Omaha tournaments established record prize pools.

The World Series of Poker Europe presented by Betfair.com debuted in London September 6 and runs through September 16. The tournament is hosted at three casinos operated by London Clubs International - Fifty on St. James Street, The Casino at the Empire on Leicester Square and The Sportsman at Marble Arch.

The World Series of Poker Europe consists of three events. The largest of these is the Main Event, a us$ 20,291 buy-in, 750-player, six-day tournament spread over three casinos with an expected prize pool of roughly us$ 15.2 million. The winner could take home more than us$ 3 million in cash, depending on the number of entrants, as well as a WSOP gold-bracelet, the most coveted prize in poker.