Several of the world’s top female poker pros will take to the felts this Sunday at Three Mills Studios in London, the site of the third PartyPoker Women’s World Open. Three days later, the $3,000 buy-in tournament will crown a champion, who will see her bank account grow by $50,000.
A total of 36 entrants are set to hit the felts, including Betfair pro Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad, the champion of the inaugural World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe Main Event in 2007. The youngster battled through a 362 player field two years ago and defeated fellow Betfair pro John “kunku wap” Tabatabai heads-up. Her first place finish was worth £1 million and a coveted gold bracelet. Online, she has multiple wins in the challenging PokerStars $100 rebuy and allegedly won a $4 buy-in 180-man sit and go on PokerStars while only looking at her cards once.
Obrestad will battle against another bracelet winner in the Women’s World Open field, actress Jennifer Tilly. She stormed through the field in the $1,000 buy-in Ladies Event held during the 2005 WSOP, winning $158,000 for her efforts. In the tournament, Tilly dueled against Anh Le heads-up, who has finished as the runner up in the WSOP Ladies tournament in two of the past four years. Sandra Naujoks, who took down the European Poker Tour’s (EPT) Dortmund stop for $1.2 million, will also take a seat at the Women’s World Open. In the German EPT event, Naujoks bested Holger Kanisch heads-up.
The last running of the Women’s World Open was won by Soraya Homam, who is expected to be in the field this weekend trying to repeat. Stefanie Bergener, May Maceiras, and Eliza Burnett, all of whom reached the final table when the second Women’s World Open played out in October, will return to vie for the title once again. The tournament is played as a six-handed shootout, with each of the winners moving onto the final table. The second place finishers in each heat will then battle for the seventh and final spot at the feature table. Jessie May and Obrestad will provide play-by-play and the tournament can be seen on Five in the United Kingdom later this year. Then, it will be rolled out to a worldwide audience.
The inaugural Women’s World Open took place in August of 2007 in London. In the end, Beverly Pace took home the $50,000 first place prize, defeating Jen Mason heads-up. Also at the final table was Kara Scott, whom ESPN poker commentator Norman Chad ogled over during the broadcast of the 2008 WSOP Main Event. Scott took 104th in that tournament, cashing for $41,000. She finished as the runner up in the Irish Open in Dublin last month, pocketing $413,000 in an event won by 2003 World Poker Tour (WPT) Euro Finals of Poker victor Christer Johansson.
PartyPoker’s VIP club, dubbed the Palladium Lounge, sent four qualifiers to the Women’s World Open this weekend. On some of the highlights from the six preliminary heats, a statement from PartyPoker read, “There are certainly some interesting heats lined-up. The opening heat features Annette and Germany’s Christine Klecz, while the second in the afternoon features both Jennifer Tilly and Jen Mason. Heat Five on Wednesday looks to be one of the toughest on paper, however, as it features May Maceiras, who seriously impressed last year with her hyper-aggressive game, as well as Maria Demetriou and Sandra Naujoks.”
Other top female gamers who will head to London include Lynne Beaumont, Maria Demetriou, Jen Mason, Veronique Gordon, Liv Boeree, Cecilia Nordenstram, Kim Wooka, Lise Vigezzi, Colette Murphy, and Agnieska Rylik. Here is a look at how the $108,000 prize pool is divided, with the top six players finishing in the money:
1st Place: $50,000
2nd Place: $22,000
3rd Place: $14,000
4th Place: $10,000
5th Place: $7,000
6th Place: $5,000