Usually when a story involves a New Zealander, a German, a Chick from Nevada, and Jesus it is the start of the sort of joke that one commonly finds written on the walls of the men's room of a high school or the DNC headquarters. In the historic first event of the World Series of Poker Europe, this situation described the final four players vying for the first bracelet to ever be awarded outside the Las Vegas borders.
The final four players were a bunch that was heavily decorated with WSOP trophies. Kirk Morrison has a WSOP bracelet from his 1998 victory, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson has a collection of five bracelets, Jennifer Harman has WSOP jewelry for each wrist, and Thomas Bihl... hmmm... well we are sure his mother loves him. Bihl, as the only person at the table who couldn't flash a piece of hardware that represented success at the sport's highest level, had a daunting task. He was facing down a total of eight bracelets. This was sort of like the first robin of spring facing down a hungry cat that hasn't seen a bird all winter.
Things don't always go according to the script though. Ferguson was the first of the four players to be ousted. Kirk Morrison didn't last too much longer after that. Kirk at one point had the tournament chip lead, and was now road kill on the path to victory. This left the German, Thomas Bihl, facing off against the lovely chick from Nevada.
After a competitive match, Bihl finally succeeded in winning his first WSOP bracelet during the Holdem part of the H.O.R.S.E event.
Not only did he beat some incredible odds as well as some incredible players, he insured the first World Series of Poker Europe bracelet would be awarded to a European. How appropriate.
The final standings are:
1 Thomas Bihl £70,875
2 Jennifer Harman £40,688
3 Kirk Morrison £26,250
4 Chris "Jesus" Ferguson £21,700
5 Alex Kravchenko £17,850
6 Yuval Bronshtein £14,438
7 Joe Beevers £11,812
8 Gary Jones £9,188
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