Katja Thater Profile

They call her Miss Slick; not a bad nickname. They also call her Lady Horror, a nickname she hates. Whatever they call her, they have to respect her, as Katja Thater, the top woman poker player from Germany, has the skills to back her play. Bursting on to the scene as a force to be reckoned with, this Wedermark horse trainer got started playing poker when her husband had to take a potty break.

Katja is playing in the 2008 EPT German Open. Check our 2008 EPT Offers here!

There wasn't a lot of Texas Hold'em being played in the casinos in Germany a few years back when Katja would accompany her husband, pro poker player Jon van Halle to the poker rooms; as a result Hold'em wasn't the game she learned to play first, or best, which is different from many poker players today.

When she sat in a few hands as Jan ran to the bathroom during a game she realized she had been learning by sweating her husband at the tables.

From there the future Miss Slick began playing alongside Jan and independently, building up her skills and her back of tricks. She got attention in Germany when appearing on a number of televised poker events, and was snapped up by PokerStars as they looked to expand their pro team internationally.

She was determined to win a World Series of Poker bracelet, and made her intentions know in a number of interviews. In the 2007 WSOP Ladies event she almost hit her mark as the only pro player at the final table. She missed, which must have felt like a big disappointment, but it worked out in the end.

The very next event she played, the $1,500 Razz, was hers to win, and win she did. As an open event victory it means more to those keeping track than if she had won the ladies event instead.

Katja Thater is new to the world of poker pros; but then again, so is Germany. As a German woman she is looked at as one image of the future of poker. If you want to play her online you'll have to do so at PokerStars.