The World Series of Poker has long been an innovator when it comes to tournament poker. The home of the most coveted title on the planet – the WSOP main event – as well as the event most consider to be the truest test of a player’s all-round poker skills (the $50k Players’ Championship), the sheer breadth and scope of the WSOP allows organizers to throw in some interesting experiments as part of their 60-odd annual tournament schedule.
Last year, they debuted the Big One for One Drop – a $1 million buy-in tournament which was either a wonderful breakthrough for the game of poker or an unnecessary indulgence depending upon who you ask (and we will revisit this topic in a future column).
Either way, the WSOP made another bold move this past week when it unveiled a new take on its annual Ladies Event. Because tournament organizers aren’t legally allowed to prevent men from excluding anyone from entering an event based on gender, they have often faced the problem of having men enter the Ladies Event, which pretty much defeats the purpose of holding it in the first place.
To combat this, the WSOP turned the usual $1,000 buy-in Ladies Event into a $10,000 buy-in event this year … but with a $9,000 discount for the ladies! In other words, they have taken all the value away from any man that decides to enter.
WGM applauds the WSOP for this move. For all its efforts over the years, poker remains a game largely dominated by men and all attempts to increase the female presence should be encouraged. For any number of reasons, women new to poker can often feel intimidated by the more experienced players around them and particularly by the often ludicrous macho exterior exuded by so many male players. That’s the whole point of a Ladies Event – to remove the male intimidation and allow the girls to enjoy a more relaxed atmosphere among their peers.
No doubt there will be the occasional guy in the future that loses a bet or decides to enter for some other idiotic reason but given the fact that of the 954 players who entered this year none were men, the WSOP might just have found the perfect solution.
* As a sidenote, 117 women made the money – and therefore a profit – in this year’s event while any man that stumped up $10,000 to enter would have needed to finish eighth or better to turn a profit.
