Many people know about the World Series of Poker from the television coverage on ESPN. Mostly they just show the “Main Event” on TV.
Hoa Nguyen from worldseriesofpoker.com.The main event has a $10,000 buy-in and lasts for two weeks. Leading up to the main event, there are dozens of other tournaments, some of which are going on right now.
Last year my wife Jeannette played in the ladies event at the World Series of Poker. As I wandered around the poker room, I noticed a few of the contestants sported very un-ladylike goatees. On closer inspection, they were definitely men.
I asked around, and it turns out that the casino technically cannot exclude men from participating in the ladies event if they want to. Every year a few men enter.
Unless there is a case of mistaken identity, it looks like a man is threatening to win the ladies event at this year’s World Series of Poker. After one day of play, the starting field of over 1,000 has been whittled down to just 61 remaining players. Here are the chip leaders so far:
Shavonne Mitchell, 94,000
Alice Talbot, 92,700
Roslyn Quarto, 86,100
Olga Varkonyi, 83,800
Christine Priday, 82,900
Lisa Ahumada, 74,100
Hoa Nguyen, 71,800
When I click on Hoa Nguyen’s link, he doesn’t look much like a lady.
If you want to follow Hoa’s progress, live updates of chip counts are available online.
So here is my question. Which is more embarrassing, (a) the World Series of Poker running a ladies tournament and having a man win it, or (b) actually being the man who wins the event?
[Addendum: Reliable sources have confirmed that the Hoa Nguyen playing in the ladies event is a woman, so it is indeed a case of mistaken identity. I don't think you can say the same for this lady, or our friends Rafe Furst and Phil Gordon.]
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I checked and last years winner took home $265,000. That is obviously enough incentive for some guys to risk what ever embarrassment they might encounter. But I wouldn’t do it. B.
If they are going to have different competitions for the different genders WHY then do they allow Men into the ladies competition? Do they allow Women into the Men’s? Just curious…
That being said…. B. He can’t win against men, so thought his odds might be better against women? huh? Ridiculous to even start with.
Maybe they should have weight classes next.
The women’s tournament was created to get more women to play poker since poker was and is heavily male dominated. Theory was that it is less intimidating for women to play if they werent surrounded by guys for a whole tournament. If you’ve ever met most the guys at a poker tournament, you can probably see the appeal of an all woman tournament for women, especially those who don’t have much experience playing in tournaments. If you get more women playing, then more people are playing in the world series, then the casino makes more money.
Would you similarly imply to your readers that it would be embarrassing for a woman to win a men’s tournament?
You might imply that it would be embarrassing to the men in that case. Odd the way that works. How embarrassing for men to have to participate with women.
I’ve got a better reason for a man to enter the ladies tournament: The buy-in for the Ladies tournament is $1000 – the smallest at the WSOP.
I’d love to play in the greatest poker tournament in the world one day. Unfortunately $1500 for the NL Hold Em games is a lot, but $1000 is much more reasonable.
Maybe I should swallow some pride, save $500, and join Hoa next year.
I don’t see a problem with the way it’s structured now. The “women’s” tournament obviously encourages mostly women, which might be good for encouraging them to play poker, but it also allows anyone, which means it is fair.
He’s a genius. The overlay on that tournament for any good player is ridiculous.
-d