Ema Zajmović (born 7 April 1990) is a Bosnian-Canadian professional
poker player. In 2017, she became the first and only woman to win an open
World Poker Tour (WPT)
Main Event.
Zajmović, who took up poker at age 19, has primarily played
cash games instead of
live tournaments.[1][5] She won her first tournament prize money in August 2011 at a
European Poker Tour (EPT) side event in Barcelona.[6] In July 2016, she made her debut at the
World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas, finishing 929th for a cash prize of US$15,000.[6] In November 2016, at
WPT Montreal (held at the
Playground Poker Club in
Kahnawake), she reached her first WPT Main Tour
final table, but bluffed away her chip lead to finish in fifth place for just over CA$100,000.[7][8][9] Tournament winner
Mike Sexton spoke highly of Zajmović's aggressive play up to her exit, saying she "dominated that tournament like nobody I've ever seen".[8]
Returning to Kahnawake for
WPT Playground two months later, Zajmović made her second straight final table and this time came out on top, placing first out of 380 entrants for CA$241,500 and a
wrestling-style belt.[7][10][11] She entered the final day as the chip leader; she retook the lead multiple times as she knocked out the last four players, clinching the tournament when her K♠Q♠ hit two pair.[7][12][13] This victory, on 15 February 2017, marked the first time in WPT's 15-year history that a woman had won a Main Tour open buy-in event,[a] an achievement that was recognized with the Moment of the Year Award at the 2017
American Poker Awards.[1][14][b]
Zajmović narrowly lost two WPT Main Tour events the next year. She made her third Main Event final table in April 2018 in
Amsterdam, where she finished in second place for just over €100,000.[6][16] In November 2018, she returned to
WPT Montreal for her biggest payout to date: Though she got beat by a
heads-uphero call, she received CA$556,000 for second place.[6][17][18]
One of the most prominent female players on the professional poker tour, Zajmović has spoken of the difficulty early in her career of "being a girl in a man's world".[2][19] She has appeared on shows such as Live at the Bike and Poker After Dark.[20][21] With over US$1,230,000 in live tournament winnings as of 2023[update], she is the 38th-most successful female poker player of all time.[22] Additionally, she is the second-most successful Bosnian poker player of all time (after
Ali Imsirovic).[23]
See also
Barbara Enright, first woman to win an open World Series of Poker event
^"Équipe" [Our team] (in French). Observatoire des médias sociaux en relations publiques (
Université Laval).
Archived from the original on 26 April 2023. Retrieved 26 April 2023.