Additional reporting by Mo Afdhal.
Being a sponsored poker pro is a double-edged sword. Sure, you may be granted opportunities to play events that may be more expensive, or further from home, than you’d otherwise play, but you’ll be doing so with a patch on your shirt and therefore a target on your head.
While the PokerStars Women’s Summer Festival (WSF), which ended on Sunday in London with the final table of the £100K GTD Main Event, has established a reputation for friendly fields and warm welcomes, the heat of intense competition remains.
Of the nine women who contested the final table at London’s Hippodrome Casino on Sunday, four were PokerStars online qualifiers and another four more had put up the £400 buy-in to take a swing at the £22.2K up top (approx. $30K). The ninth was PokerStars ambassador, renowned chess grandmaster and member of the PokerOrg Player Advisory Board Jennifer Shahade.
With space inside the small streaming room limited, this reporter watched on from an adjoining room as a procession of defeated players exited one by one. The famous camaraderie of the WSF is real, but so were the pained expressions on the faces of those who came so near, yet fell short of the title. They’d come to have fun and enjoy themselves, sure, and from all over the globe — Japan, Brazil, France, Finland and more — but also to overcome the patched-up pro player ‘end boss’ in Shahade and scoop the top prize.
In the end, none could: Jennifer Shahade is the WSF Main Event champion, taking the £22.2K top prize and adding another feather in her well-stuffed cap.
‘I ran like a goddess’
“I ran really well today, so I was pretty happy,” said Shahade, clutching the trophy. “For most of days 1 and 2 I pretty much had an average stack, but I've been in there fighting. Then today I ran like a goddess: I won every flip, and I even won some that weren't so flippy, like K-4 against 7-7.”
That last hand was the final one of the tournament, and saw Shahade river a straight on the 
board to claim the title at Claire Taylor's expense.
While she left a table of disappointed players in her wake, a high-profile winner in Shahade may not be the worst thing for the future of PokerStars women’s events. With the platform and means to celebrate her victory in the public eye, Shahade’s win may pave the way for even greater participation in future events.
The Winter incarnation of this event, held in London at the tail end of 2024, drew 271 entries for its main event to create the largest women’s poker event ever held outside the USA. The summer edition that just ended drew 193, and thus fell short of its £100K guarantee for an overlay of some £30K.
Few tournament players are disappointed by an overlay, of course, and while the field size may have been down, the mood remained resolutely up.
“The experience was electric for me,” Shahade explained, following her win. “I think there's just amazing energy around women in poker now, and the level keeps rising.
“Getting more chances to play on live streams is also so important, because in the final table dynamics, that's where so much of the money is, and without that experience it's harder to perform well when you're playing potentially for even more money one day.”
Steve O’Dwyer on the ‘Okamoto effect’
One attendee in town to take in the unique vibes of the festival — if not to play any of the women-only events — was super high-roller Steve O’Dwyer.
“I haven't played any poker in 3 months,” shared O’Dwyer, “I’ve taken the entire summer off since the end of Triton Montenegro, so I’m making a little vacation out of it, to just kind of get my feet wet again before starting to play bigger stuff in Barcelona and Triton.”
As a man at the Women’s Summer Festival, O’Dwyer’s playing opportunities were limited but he was quick to jump in the famous 50/50 event, a £220 freezeout which can only be entered by pairs of men and women. O’Dwyer teamed up with the back-to-back WSOP Ladies champion, Shiina Okamoto, though neither made the money in the 124-player tourney. Okamoto did, however, come close to winning the £1,100 High Roller.
We asked if it’s tough playing a £220 tournament when your brain is attuned to super high rollers. “I think it's very helpful to occasionally play low stakes in these kinds of environments, as a high stakes player,” O’Dwyer responded. “It’s good to separate the money from the competition, I always take it as seriously as possible. It’s never just to ‘blow off steam’, I always try to play my best no matter what the stakes are.”
As an occasional playing partner with Japan’s dominant female player, O’Dwyer has had a front-row seat for the ‘Okamoto effect’, with fields in Asia seeing major growth when it comes to the participation of women players.
“I've been playing poker for 20 years and we've barely seen any increase in the amount of women playing large field, bigger buy-in tournaments, especially in Europe and North America. Whenever I play in South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia or Japan, there are so many more women playing there.
“Certainly, in Japan, Shiina's had a huge effect on that — it’s crazy, it’s got to be around 15-20% of the fields that I’ve seen have been women.”
‘It's not like we're shopping or knitting’
Comedian, player and PokerStars ambassador Caitlin Comeskey was also in town for the WSF, and while her record across the events may have ended in the red, her experience was also a positive one.
“I think the summer festival has been made with a love and a desire to create an environment where it's just for women,” Comeskey told PokerOrg. “We pay a lot of lip service to women's events, that they like a soft start for beginner ladies, and it definitely serves that purpose too, but there's also the sense that it's a space for women to be with women."
“Like, men like to get out on the golf course and get away from their wives, and this is a space where women can come together and do something that's a little bit maybe less cliche — it's not like we're shopping or knitting, you know.”
But while players are out here playing a game and having fun, Main Event champion Shahade is keen to point out there’s more going on than just having a good time.
“To me as a chess player, I feel like that element of treating poker like a mind sport is really exciting, and I feel like this festival definitely nails that.” explained Shahade.
“It’s a way for people to feel intellectually fulfilled. Some people can play just purely for fun, and that's great too, but I think there's a lot of people who are seeking intellectual fulfillment from poker; the way you're really feeling and thinking at the same time, and that you can develop those skills and use it for your life.”
The sun may have set on another PokerStars Women’s Festival, but just as before the event appears to have left a lot of women poker players happier in its wake; pleased to be able to enjoy a friendly, yet highly competitive series of tournaments in a world-class setting.
Just check out the portrait of the Main Event final table — did you ever see smiles this big? Something tells me it wasn’t just about the overlay.
£400 PokerStars Women's Summer Festival Main Event - final table results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jennifer Shahade | £22,200 |
| 2 | Claire Taylor | £14,000 |
| 3 | Lynne Beaumont | £10,000 |
| 4 | Tanya Masters | £7,650 |
| 5 | Akiko Ota | £5,900 |
| 6 | Morgane Fevrier | £4,530 |
| 7 | Miri Balen | £3,770 |
| 8 | Valerie Morris | £3,150 |
| 9 | Saara Benlamine | £2,600 |
Images courtesy of Manuel Kovsca/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd
