Poker stars are nearly as popular as baseball and basketball pros, and it’s hard to turn on television in America without seeing the game somewhere on the dial.

In Jamie Gold took home $12 million at the World Series of Poker finals in 2006 at the $10,000 No-Limit Texas Hold‘Em tournament. It broke all poker prizes and busted television ratings. Shortly thereafter plans were put into place to launch a European version of the ultra-successful competition.

Recently legendary pros like Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan descended on London for this historic event.

Incredibly, the 10,000 pounds buy-in No-Limit Texas Hold'Em Championship was not one by one of these grizzled veterans, rather the 1 million pounds, or $2,013,102 top prize was won by an 18-year-old girl. Norwegian Annette Obrestad became the youngest bracelet winner ever in World Series of Poker history when she won the Main Event at the first annual WSOP Europe Presented by Betfair.com.

"I never expected to win," said Obrestad. "I'm speechless. I really don't know what to say."

"In the end, the Europeans dominated here," said WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. "But this is the start of a new tradition for the World Series of Poker and the European and global poker communities. WSOP Europe will provide more exciting action in the years to come and we're confident poker greats from all over the world - and across the generations - will shine here, just as they have in Las Vegas."

In addition to the 1 million pounds, Obrestad took home the most coveted prize in all of gaming, a World Series of Poker 18-karat gold and jewel-encrusted bracelet created by luxury Swiss watchmaker CORUM, the official timepiece of the WSOP. Tabatabai earned £570,150, or $1,147,770, for second place.

Obrestad also crushed two records held by champion Annie Duke in the women’s category.  The first was Duke's one-day-old record as the first woman to exceed $1 million in official WSOP winnings, thanks to her 21st place finish in the WSOP Europe Main Event. Duke's 30,770 pounds, or $61,943, payday saw her edge just over the $1 million earnings mark. Duke also held the single- event record win for a woman with her $2 million winner-take-all victory in the 2004 Tournament of Champions staged by Harrah's Entertainment.

Matthew McCullough, the last remaining American in the Main Event, finished third after going all in with top pair on the flop. The 26-year-old New Jersey resident locst out when he was beat by Tabatabai, who called with middle pair, matched his ace kicker for two pair that eliminated the full-time anesthetist. McCullough collected 381,910 pounds for third place.
Norwegian Oyvind Riisen, 22, won 257,020 pounds for finishing fourth, and Johannes Korsar, 20, of Uppsala, Sweden, got 191,860 pounds for fifth place. Dominic Kay, 30, a professional sports trader from London, finished sixth to earn 152,040 pounds, while 24-year-old Magnus Persson of Gothenburg, Sweden, received 114,030 pounds for seventh place. Copenhagen's Theo Jorgensen, at age 35 the oldest player at the final table, won 85,070 pounds for his eighth-place finish.

The 10th through 36th place finishers received from 41,630 pounds to 27,150 pounds, depending on their final position. The total prize pool for the Main Event was 3,676,990 pounds.

Obrestad's win capped a series that saw European players shut out veteran American professionals by winning all three WSOP bracelets up for grabs. Her victory over 22-year-old John Tabatabai of London came when her three sevens beat his two pair.

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