Over the past few years the World Series of Poker has attempted a number of different measures to try to curb men from participating in the Ladies Tournament, from veiled threats to ridicule, but nothing seemed to work, as a handful of male players would enter the tournament each year, and in 2011 we even had a male at the final table of the tournament.

With no real way to stop men from entering other than chidings, this time around the WSOP decided to fight the loophole (men have been entering citing discrimination) by creating their own loophole in Nevada law which allows them to offer a discount to female players. So for the first time ever the 2013 WSOP Ladies Tournament featured a $10,000 buy-in, unless you are a woman, in which case you were offered a 90% reduction in the buy-in.

The new rule seems to have worked to perfection as 954 women registered for the Ladies Tournament on Friday, and not a single male put-up the $10,000 buy-in to play in the event – apparently the so-called self-righteous arguments all along about discrimination and equal footing were nothing more than smoke and mirrors and the real reason men were crashing the tournament was (as everyone already knew to be the case) to take advantage of the perceived soft field.

The 954 entries for the 2013 Ladies Tournament was a slight increase over last year’s 936 runners, but it should be pointed out that the 936 entries in 2012 was the lowest turnout for the event since Jennifer Tilly won the event back in 2005, defeating a field of 601 players as the poker boom was just getting started.

Here is a look at the recent history of the WSOP Ladies Tournament:

* 2012: 936 entrants

* 2011: 1,055 entrants

* 2010: 1,054 entrants

* 2009: 1,060 entrants

* 2008: 1,190 entrants

* 2007: 1,286 entrants

* 2006: 1,128 entrants

* 2005: 601 entrants

After 10 levels of action the field for the 2013 WSOP Ladies Tournament was reduced to just 122 players, with a few big names sitting high-up on the leader-board, including Danielle Anderson, who is one of the main protagonists in the recently released Bet Raise Fold documentary film:

1. Chris Priday — 96,200

2. Sari F Utchen — 80,500

3. Lauren Billings — 74,600

4. Vanessa Kade — 71,300

5. Kristen Bicknell — 69,400

6. Vanessa Ames — 57,100

7. Shana Matthews — 56,800

8. Amanda Baker — 56,200

9. Annie Liu — 55,800

10. Danielle Andersen — 55,700

12. Jackie Glazier — 44,800

13. Liv Boeree — 44,600

*Resources: www.wsop.com, www.wikipedia.org

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 29th, 2013 at 11:30 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.