As 50mph winds whipped through central London on the weekend, there was no denying the ‘Winter’ part of the PokerStars Women’s Winter Festival (WWF) felt appropriate. Stepping into the Hippodrome Casino, the rest of the name made sense too: if it felt like a festival, that was down to the women who made it happen.
Maria Lampropulos ultimately emerged victorious as the Main Event winner, but speaking to those among the 270 players who fell short in the hunt for the £20,000 first prize, few considered themselves losers. In taking part in the largest women’s poker event ever held outside the USA, the general feeling was one of mutual celebration: both of a community, and of poker itself.
‘I think we’ve created a brand’
“Women bring something else to the table: they bring the color, they bring the atmosphere, because women enjoy poker. They may not all know about VPIP and GTO, but they play it because they enjoy it.”
Few enjoy it more than KJ Craigie, who has been heading up poker at the Hippodrome for 12 years, joining PokerStars as an ambassador in June. Putting on an event such as the WWF has been a dream of hers for longer than that, but it was her new, closer relationship with the online operator that helped bring that dream to life.
“I've always been a champion for women in poker, and being given the opportunity and the support from PokerStars has been immense.” says an elated Craigie. “They gave me a blank piece of paper, so we literally sat in a room and thought ‘Okay, what should we do?’ And, after the first day, we were like, ‘Okay, so what do we do next?’”
At this point it’s something of a cliche to point out that the atmosphere in women’s events is different to what you’ll usually find - friendlier, more talkative and less confrontational - but experience shows there’s more than a nugget of truth at play. What may be more surprising to some, if not Craigie, is the appetite so many women have for poker. And this week’s Main Event was no casual $20 affair, but a £400 (approx. $500) multi-day event.
“The price point was something that we discussed considerably,” she explains, ”and I think we got it right, because we filled the room. We’ve had every seat filled, other than the flight A, but we still hit the number that we were looking for, so I think we got the price point right.
"I think we've created a brand, a sub-brand. We've created something special, and there’s still this massive mix of people and women that we haven't reached, like Central Europe because of the restrictions with online satellites. But we've got people from Canada, Brazil, America, they've come on their own buck, which is awesome and I can only see this growing.”
‘A strong sense of community’
Hippodrome Tournament Director Nick O’Hara has been in the game a long time, including working alongside Toby Stone on the European Poker Tour, but he puts the WWF in his top three most special events.
“There was a strong sense of community here that we don't see in every event,” says O’Hara. In his eyes, one of the best things the event has done for many less experienced players is to give them confidence in their own poker abilities. “There were definitely a lot of people here who had always played around the kitchen table. They've always had an interest in taking the next step, but just didn't have the confidence to do it… We've given them the confidence to go online, look up where the next women’s event is and walk in the door and play.”
In helping to foster this confidence, O’Hara and his staff have given careful consideration to how they treat the players at the WWF. After all, it’s not always others at the table who make new players feel uncomfortable; sometimes a lack of awareness of rules or etiquette can lead to penalties which end up turning new players away.
“For sure, we’ve got to uphold the rules, but if there's a law in which there is a line, here that line is a little bit further out, a little more player-friendly.
“We’re aware there are more recreational players, so we’re not being super strict. You know, you can't advise somebody on what to do next, but you can be helpful to somebody when it looks like they're not all that experienced and maybe a little bit unsure or a bit nervous, without giving them advice.”
‘She followed me to the bathroom and gave me a few hints’
Someone at the festival who understands the power of advice is Judy Whitlow, one of the players who made this the largest women’s poker tournament field outside her native USA.
Having retired from a role in the construction industry, Texan Whitlow had a casual interest in poker and picked up a couple of Harrington on Hold’em books and Poker For Dummies, but didn’t really have a strong desire to put her natural math skills to the test in a live tournament.
That changed when, in Las Vegas two years ago for her 75th birthday, she decided on a whim to play her first poker tournament. Sat at her table was PokerStars ambassador and two-time US Women’s Chess Champion Jen Shadade. In the spirit of women helping women, Shahade was happy to help Whitlow fix a leak in her nascent game.
“I'm playing the 2022 WSOP event, The Closer,” Whitlow tells us, “and all of a sudden, I'm at the table with this woman [Jen Shahade], so she follows me to the bathroom, and she gives me a few hints.”
“She was playing well,” says Shahade of her protégé, “she has good card sense, but since it was her first poker tournament, when she was in position some of the men at the table would stall, because they thought she would get confused and act out of turn.
“I saw them doing it multiple times and I was so annoyed, and then we had a break and I was like, ‘This is how you can use it against them!’.”
Whitlow went on to cash in the event, before being invited by Shahade to attend a poker bootcamp. Since taking up poker aged 75, Whitlow has played in two WSOP series, at EPT Prague, Barcelona, Monte Carlo twice and now London.
“I was in the construction business,” says Whitlow, “so men was who I worked with, who I dealt with, so it's kind of fun to watch them in a poker tournament when you're an old lady and they don't know what to think!”
A truly inclusive event
Another player flying the flag for the older generation is Valerie Morris, a UK player who qualified online at PokerStars, but who has spent some time away from the live game for more personal reasons.
With decades of live poker experience under her belt, Morris was not so much put off by poker’s gender imbalance as some of the logistical issues faced by those with hidden disabilities. Playing a multi-day tournament while undergoing treatment for cancer is a serious undertaking, and her presence in London this week is a testament to the work put in behind the scenes to make this a truly inclusive event.
After winning her WWF package online, Morris wasn’t sure she’d even be able to play but decided to make the most of the win. “I said to my husband, ‘At the worst we’ll have a few days in London, if I really won't be able to cope with the game’. But it was PokerStars who made it accessible for me, and that's what I want people to know - I feel quite emotional - that PokerStars will make it accessible for you, just talk to them."
“I can't get through the tables, I can’t risk knocking myself. So what they've done to make it easier, they’ve made sure I had outside seating for me. They’ve told the floor that I might need to leave to deal with medical things, so I'm near a toilet, for privacy and to deal with things. That makes the difference between being able to play and not.”
Morris wasn’t able to cash the Main Event, but relished making a return to live poker in a venue where she was comfortable and able to focus on her game.
“I’m the oldest qualifier here,” she tells us, “I hope there’s a clear message for older people. Poker’s one thing that age is no barrier to. I hope this encourages certain groups who might feel excluded, or older people who think they can’t.
“Women used to say to me that when you reach 50, they write you off. I say people only write you off if you allow them to.”
That the Women’s Winter Festival will return to London’s Hippodrome feels like a certainty at this point. That players turned out in the numbers they did is one - crucial - thing, but while KJ Craigie and the team are enjoying the result they stress that they see this more as a beginning than a happy ending. If a repeat in London is all but a done deal, why not take the show on the road?
“When we discovered we’d broken the record it was almost overwhelming,” says Craigie. “We had a room full of women that were just enjoying themselves, playing poker, talking. There were no phones out, no heads down, no hoodies, and it was joyous. There was so much laughter and that's continued through every day.
“It has been almost like ‘build it and they will come’, but I know that there's so many more players out there that haven't been able to make it for one reason or another.
“I need a bigger boat.”
Additional images courtesy of Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd/Danny Maxwell Photography
