Gigi Gagne will attempt to make poker history Tuesday as she aims to become the first woman to win an open Main Event on the World Poker Tour (WPT). Gagne is currently the chip leader heading into the six-handed final table of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts Poker Open, lording over an impressive 2.7 million chip stack, more than a million chips greater than that of Matt Juttelstad, the chip leader at the start of each of the last two days.
Gagne began Day 3 with 725,000 chips, good for second place behind Juttelstad. Her big move came during level 20, the second to last level of the day. Already sitting with around 1.5 million chips, she watched Alex Ivanov raise pre-flop to 25,000 and decided to take it up a notch to 50,000. Keith Ferrera got bold in the small blind, four-betting all the way up to 200,000, only to see Ivanov shove for a total of 393,000. Gagne thought about it and called, as did Ferrera. On the flop of Qc-9s-3s, Ferrera checked and Gagne moved all-in, forcing Ferrera to quickly fold. Thus, it was Gagne’s Kc-Qs (top pair) versus Ivanov’s Jc-Js for Ivanov’s tournament life. The 5s was dealt on the turn which meant both players had a flush draw, but it was meaningless since Gagne’s draw was better. The river blanked for Ivanov, sending him out in 11th place and shooting Gigi Gagne to the top of the leader board with 2.55 million chips.
As already noted, no woman has ever taken down an open WPT Main Event title, though a few have come close. Both Kathy Liebert and J.J. Liu have finished as runners-up, both coincidentally at the Bay 101 Shooting Star – the former in 2009 and the latter in 2007. Liebert has also finished 3rd (twice), as have Vanessa Rousso, Jennifer Harman, Mimi Tran, Vanessa Selbst, and Lisa Hamilton (Selbst and Hamilton did it in November and December, respectively). Liu and Abbey Daniels have 4th place finishes on their records, and Stacy Matuson placed 6th in 2005. So, Gigi Gagne is already in rare company, but she no doubt wants to seal the deal on Tuesday. With that chip lead, she no doubt has an excellent shot.
In addition to its historic meaning, a victory for Gigi Gagne, whose real name is Diane, would also be quite improbable. The Clearwater resident has just one live tournament cash on her resumé, $4,097 for a 39th place finish in the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Ladies Championship.
The final table will commence at 1:00pm EST on Valentine’s Day at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Though the competition will not be filmed for television, the World Poker Tour will be providing an “almost live” webcast on its website starting at 1:30pm and continuing with a 30 minute delay throughout the proceedings.
WPT Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts Poker Open – Final Table Chip Counts
1. Gigi Gagne – 2,708,000
2. Matt Juttelstad – 1,651,000
3. Uri Kadosh – 1,470,000
4. Sharon Levin – 1,208,000
5. Keith Ferrera – 1,094,000
6. Todd Jacobson – 718,000
