The remaining combatants in the $1,000 Ladies Championship reconvened Saturday, June 28 for the penultimate day of play in the tournament. With 50 players in the hunt to start proceedings, there were a number of notable names still in contention – including defending champion and 2023 runner-up Shiina Okamoto.
Okamoto held the largest stack to start the day, but had to contend with the likes of Farah Galfond (42nd), Angela Jordison (35th), Barbara Enright (34th), and her heads-up opponent in 2023 Tamar Abraham (20th) in order to defend her title. Throughout the day, Okamoto further extended her chip lead as her competitors fell by the wayside – inching closer and closer to a successful title defense with each elimination.
It didn't take long for the field to whittle its way down to a final table of nine. While each of the final nine had $15,471 already in the bank, all eyes were on the $184,094 first-place prize and the coveted bracelet.
Okamoto entered with the chip lead, trailed closely by Juliet Hegedus. Heather Alcorn, Sonia Shashikhina, Stephani Hagberg, Julie Huynh, Sumire Uenomachi, Elisa Nakagawa, and Tanith Rothman filled out the remainder of the seats.
After returning from the dinner break, nine became seven in short order as Nakagawa and Rothman exited in ninth and eighth, respectively. With that, the players bagged up their chips to end the night – learn more about each of the final seven below.
1. Shiina Okamoto - 7.5M (94 big blinds)
As mentioned, Okamoto will return tomorrow to defend her Ladies Championship title. With a runner-up finish in 2023 to boot, she has all of the necessary experience to ride her chip lead to a back-to-back Ladies Championship win.
If Okamoto achieves back-to-back wins in the same event, she will ascend to rarefied air as one of only a handful of players in WSOP history to accomplish the feat.
Prior to the 2025 Ladies Championship, Okamoto's career tournament earnings totaled $809,704, with a high score of $171,732. If she pulls off the title defense, she'll earn herself a new personal best cash.
2. Juliet Hegedus - 4.6M (70 big blinds)
With $177,469 in career earnings, Hegedus enters the final frame of play as the second largest stack at the table. In 2023, Hegedus earned a career-best $46,800 score when she finished 246th in the WSOP Main Event.
As she's guaranteed, at the very least, a seventh-place finish, Hegedus will improve on her twelfth-place finish in the 2024 Ladies Championship.
When asked how she felt heading into the final day of play, Hegedus told PokerOrg, "I feel like I just gave birth to my third child – it's a really good feeling. It's awesome."
"I'm going to win. I'm going for the kill. I don't even know what second place pays," Hegedus continued.
3. Stephani Hagberg - 4.5M (57 big blinds)
Hagberg will enter the final day of play just a few chips shy of Hegedus. With a career-high score already locked up, Hagberg has the opportunity to add greatly to her tournament earnings of $24,845.
Compared to the rest of the field, Hagberg is a relative newcomer to the tournament streets – with her first recorded tournament results arriving in 2023.
4. Sonia Shashikhina - 4.3M (54 big blinds)
Shashikhina rounds out the trio of tightly-clustered stacks and will look to add further to her $216,102 in earnings. The Ladies Championship run represents Shashikhina's second cash of the summer – a considerable improvement on her 344th place finish in the $1,500 Millionaire Maker.
After hearing Hegedus' reply to the same question, Shashikhina countered with, "I gave birth only to a dog so I can't say the same."
"Only now I understand that it's really the final table, it's really the WSOP," she continued. "And I think I'm not sleeping right now, so it's not a dream."
When asked about her plan for tomorrow, Shashikhina wisely told us, "I'm not telling you this information because you can share it."
5. Heather Alcorn - 2.1M (26 big blinds)
Alcorn, a longtime poker dealer and owner of Poker Life Dealer Academy in Las Vegas, has an extensive history in tournament poker – with recorded cashes stretching back as far as 2013.
With 26 big blinds to work with, Alcorn has an opportunity to exceed her previous high score of $129,654 – earned with a win at the 2018 WSOP Circuit Southern Indiana Main Event – but it'll take an outright victory to do so.
Alcorn's experience at the tables – both as a dealer and player – should aid her greatly as she takes on the field. While she sits towards the bottom of the chip counts, it's still anyone's game and Alcorn knows what it takes to win.
6. Julie Huynh - 1.8M (23 big blinds)
Much like Hagberg, Huynh is a relative newcomer to the tournament streets – with her first recorded cash coming in 2022. As the second shortest stack in the field, Huynh needs a spin to stay in contention.
With her career-best score of $7,762 already well-surpassed, Huynh has a chance to more than quadruple her career earnings if she can pull off a comeback victory.
7. Sumire Uenomachi - 1.3M (17 big blinds)
With her first recorded cash coming less than a year ago in August of 2024, Uenomachi isn't as experienced as some of her competitors. Still, seven of her nine career scores have come with a final table appearance and she knows how to navigate the deep waters of a final table.
While she starts on the shortest stack, Uenomachi has a chance to notch her first-ever recorded tournament victory if she can find a way to take home the title.
The $1,000 Ladies Championship resumes play on Sunday, June 29 at 4:00pm local time and will be streamed live with a delay exclusively on PokerGO.
