Kitai, who hails from Belgium, is now the only European to hold three WSOP bracelets.
The $3k Six-Max was scheduled to finish yesterday but the final two players got embroiled in a relentless heads-up match last night and hit the hard stop.
The break however, Kitai said, helped him adapt to his opponent and get back on track to victory.
Kitai Revisits Live Stream, Regains Edge
“He completely changed, he became more aggressive in heads-up and [I didn’t know] his range.
"So with the live streaming I could see his hands and could adapt easier to his style,” Kitai told PokerListings after his win. “I had all night to try to adjust my strategy against him.”
It was only one of two speedbumps Kitai had in an otherwise smooth road to victory.
“In level two I was all-in with 17 outs on the turn and I hit the river, so I almost busted,” Kitai said.
After that, everything was “really easy. Every level I had a better stack than the level before until the end of the tournament. So that was quite comfortable.”
Despite everything going well for Kitai the Belgium was still overwhelmed by the victory.
“I feel, the feeling is amazing. It might take some time to realize what happened.”
Kitai Joins Exclusive Group of Three-Timers
One thing that Kitai quickly realized and is proud of is that he now belongs to an exclusive group of poker players.
“I mean, the first one was special because it was the first one, so it was a particular feeling and now, [this bracelet is] confirmation.
"When you have two bracelets you enter to a close group of [people],” Kitai said. “Now three bracelets, it’s even closer."
Kitai is indeed in a tight-knit group. Including him just 31 players have won three WSOP bracelets.
Among those players are Vanessa Selbst, Michael Mizrachi, Jeff Madsen and Antonio Esfandiari
Kitai, Party of One
Shrink the geography a bit and the group becomes even smaller. In fact, it becomes just a person. Kitai is now only one of three non-Americans to win three or more WSOP bracelets.
The other two are Daniel Negreanu and Jeff Lisandro.
This makes Kitai the only Belgian -- and in fact, only European -- to own more WSOP bracelets than wrists. This, naturally, also makes Kitai popular back in his homeland.
“I have many followers in Belgium. The support for today was amazing, I received thousands of messages,” Kitai said.
“Poker [is becoming] more and more popular in Belgium so I guess I helped the poker industry to develop in Belgium and I’m proud about it.”
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