Nenad Medic wins first WSOP 2008 Bracelet

Canadian Nenad Medic claimed his first WSOP bracelet and the first to be awarded in 2008 as he saw off an incredibly tough final table to win the $10k Pot Limit Hold'em event and the first prize of $794,112.

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Medic has already got something of a reputation having won the WPT Championship event at Foxwoods in 2006 in which he took home $1.7million. But it would be true to say that although the prize money was less for this win the competition was tougher and the victory will be all the sweeter with the WSOP bracelet now round his wrist.

Medic went into the final table in 2nd place with American Andy Bloch having the dominant chip lead of 2.11 million, about 900k over Medic (1.2 million), who just barely had the edge on American Mike Sexton (1.13 million) in third. Those top three had more than half the chips in play as the chip counts dropped dramatically from there. But with American's Kathy Liebert and Phil Laak and Finland's Patrick Antonious also on the final table the standard of play was always going to be remarkably high.

It went down to a final three of Medic, Bloch and Liebert and a remarkable hand knocked out Liebert and left Medic with a 2 to 1 chip lead over Bloch. Liebert who was short stacked moved all in with pocket 6s only to be called by Bloch's pocket 9s, but when the action came to Medic he decided to go all in with pocket Queens. Bloch called and if he had hit a 9 would have won the event there and then, but Medic flopped a Queen to knock Liebert out and leave Bloch without the chip lead for the first time of the day.

Even with Bloch's heads-up prowess and it being his 39th birthday Medic managed to see him off to take the title.

"I'm coming back tomorrow. Hopefully, I will get gold bracelet number two," Said Medic.

Final standings
1st Nenad Medic, Canada, $794,112
2nd Andy Bloch, America, $488,048
3rd Kathy Liebert, America, $306,064
4th Mike Sexton, America, $248,160
5th Amit Makhija, America, $198,528
6th Christopher Bell, America, $157,168
7th Patrick Antonius, Finland, $124,080
8th Mike Sowers, America, $99,264
9th Phil Laak, America, $74,448

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