Christina 'Baby Shark' Gollins is a regular on the tournament grind and is closing in on $1M in career cashes. She has won two WSOP Circuit events, including the opening $600 event at the Commerce Casino. You can follow Christina on X.
I played the Main Event this year and did not have any women at my table, but there were a few peppered in here and there. My table played like a $600 event, and I went a little too hard and bluffed off most of my stack early. I was home by dinner.
Lots of people say we don't have enough women in poker. I’m here to tell you that’s a lie. The truth is that there aren't enough women in high-stakes poker. The higher the buy-in, the fewer women you’ll find.
But let me assure you, women are flourishing in poker at low and micro stakes. I had the pleasure of playing at The Orleans this summer because they had a pretty sick main, and let me tell you, there were a shit-ton of women there. Every single table had at least one woman on it. I was sat at a table with three other women… making that table half estrogen. It was wild, and I got destroyed. I didn't get a single bluff through.
The moral of the story is that there’s a lot of women playing poker, if you hadn’t noticed. What people should start saying is not that there’s no women in poker, but that there aren’t enough women in high-level poker. There are a lot of reasons for this. It could be financial; it could be opportunity; they could have kids and not have the freedom to sit and play poker for 12 hours a day.
Women, unfortunately, don’t have the same opportunity as men in poker.
Kristen Foxen is a stud
But, of course they exist. If you were to ask me to name an inspirational high-level female player, it’s got to be Kristen Foxen. That girl plays with zero fear. She takes the aggressive lines, she postures well, and she's just a pleasure to have at the table. To your right, of course.
Foxen’s Main Event run was sick. I think she felt super comfortable and was very prepared for this event. When it got down to the last 18 players, I thought she was going to take it down. She's more capable and better than anyone who placed after her.
Lessons learned at the WSOP
Patience is always an ongoing battle for me. Sometimes, I go a little too hard in the paint and take too aggressive lines. I had to start modifying my playlist to listen to more mellow music because one time, I five-bet jammed 87s for way too many BB when ‘Drop the World’ by Lil Wayne came on. The line worked, but still… I literally said to myself, “Really, Christina?! WTF was that?”
*Queues Andrea Bocelli for the rest of the tournament*
The WSOP is a different beast, and to be honest, I’m not sure how you prepare for the f***ery you have to endure. You’re often 10-handed, 16 ways to a flop, c-betting multiway every hand, limpin’ is pimpin’. How do you study for this?
That's right, you don't. You do your best and pray you still have the winning hand by the time the river comes… and yes, you’re almost always seeing that damn river.
