Day 1 of Event #53: $10,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold'em Championship will get under way shortly — the one event of the series where female players enjoy a 90% discount on the buy-in and can play a male-free tournament for the price of $1,000.
The players will start with 3,000 chips and try to make it through 10 60-minute levels of play before bagging up for the night.
Last year, Canadian Kristen Bicknell won this event and it was the largest cash of her live poker-playing career by far at $173,922. She mostly plays online where she maintains Supernova Elite on PokerStars. There were 954 players in the 2013 rendition of the ladies event and we'll be looking to match that this year.
The PokerNews live blog is your source for the latest updates on all the action, so keep checking in here to follow these ladies as they battle for a prestigious gold WSOP bracelet.
At the 2004 World Series, Cyndy Violette won a $2,000 Seven Card Stud High-Low 8/OB for $135,900. She is bracelet hunting again, this time looking for a ladies' championship title.
Violette has 35 career WSOP cashes totaling almost $1,000,000! She has cashed once this year already in Event #34: Seven Card Stud, busting 34th for $2,524.
Matt Salsberg joins the PokerNews Podcast to talk about his third-place finish at the 2014 World Series of Poker, being dangerous, a new show he's developing, and much more.
Kristy Arnett opened to 400 from the cutoff and both players in the blinds made the call. The flop was dealt and both of Arnett's opponents check-folded to a bet of 650.
The dealer was counting out the stack of Amanda Musumeci and found that she only had her opponent covered by 550 chips. She was holding to the other player's . Musumeci had paired her ace, but it was no good to the straight her opponent had completed on the board.
One of the best events of the series has completed its first day of play. The lovely ladies of Event #53: $10,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold'em Championship have bagged and tagged their chips for the night at the 45th annual World Series of Poker.
Day 1 saw 793 of poker’s best-looking bunch take to the felt, creating a prize pool of $713,700. The eventual champion will walk away with $153,470 and a shiny new WSOP gold bracelet.
Only 101 survived the opening day of play. Leading the way was Las Vegas native Patty Landis with 71,200. Other top stacks include Canadians, Randi Rusnell (55,600) and Xuan Liu (55,200).
Some notables moving on to Day 2 are Heidi Rhodes (49,000), Lyra Vance (45,500), Melanie Weisner (41,300), Lyra Dee Dozier (18,000), Christina Lindley (10,000), and Kristalina Steininger (7,800).
Some of the best female minds in poker entered the field on Day 1. Kathy Liebert, Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, Cyndy Violette, Gaelle Baumann, Liv Boeree, Amanda Musumeci, Kristy Arnett, Loni Harwood, Jackie Glazier, and Amanda Baker all took a seat with WSOP glory in their sights. Unfortunately, none of them would make it through to the end of the night.
Play will resume at 1 p.m. on Saturday in the purple section of the Amazon room. The ladies should be in the money fairly quickly as they will start only 20 eliminations away. Thank you for following along today and keep it locked on PokerNews for all of Day 2’s big pots and bust outs.