In conjunction with International Women’s Day, the World Poker Tour announced several new ladies events on Wednesday.
The new events are scheduled throughout Season XXI and the announcement comes after the first WPT Ladies Championship was held in December at the Wynn in Las Vegas.
As part of the announcement, the tour outlined dates for the second version of that tournament as well. The schedule also includes several tournaments at international stops.
“At WPT we take pride in the efforts we have put forth to increase women’s participation in poker,” WPT CEO Adam Pliska said in a news release. “As we recognize and celebrate International Women’s Day, we look forward to these record-setting initiatives throughout Season XXI and seeing more women play in our events around the world.”
[cta id=975 type=geo]
A look at the WPT ladies schedule
In Season XXI, ladies events will be held at 13 WPT festivals. That includes seven tournaments at WPT Prime stops and six at Main Tour stops. The grand finale will again be the Ladies Championship at the WPT World Championship festival.
Numerous women are a part of the leadership team at WPT, tour officials noted. Vice President of global tour management Angelica Hael was a 2022 Women in Poker Hall of Fame inductee.
Some other key female leaders in the company include Vice President of finance Deborah Frazzetta, Vice President of marketing Hermance Blum, executive producer Mandy Glogow, and Vice President of studio, distribution, and ad sales Loc Sondheim.
“Fostering the presence of women in poker has always been a natural part of the WPT ecosystem,” Hael said. “This year, we are proud to present dedicated ladies events at an overwhelming majority of our global festivals, culminating with the 2023 WPT Ladies Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.”
A look at the schedule, TV events
In celebration of Women’s History Month, WPT will air episodes from various ladies events across TV and streaming platforms every night in the month of March. The Season XXI scheduled ladies events include:
- WPT Prime Cambodia
- Prime India
- WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown (Main Tour)
- WPT Choctaw (Main Tour)
- Prime Slovakia
- Prime Vietnam
- Prime Taiwan
- Prime Liechtenstein
- WPT Australia (Main Tour)
- Prime Madrid
- WPT bestbet Scramble (Main Tour)
- WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open (Main Tour)
- WPT World Championship (Main Tour)
WPT Prime Gold Coast winner
In other tour news, Sheng Ye came out on top in the second WPT Prime Gold Coast on Sunday night. He topped a record-breaking field of 1,224 entries in the AUD $2,000 buy-in main event at The Star Gold Coast in Queensland.
Ye grabbed AUD $374,953 for the win, which also includes a package to play in the season-ending WPT World Championship in December.
Just a month after Prime Paris broke the “non-championship” Prime entries record with 1,071, the Gold Coast event topped that by 153 entries. That entry total produced a prize pool of AUD $2.2 million. Ben Richardson finished runner-up, securing AUD $238,978.
WPT Prime Cambodia at NagaWorld Integrated Resort in Phnom Penh is next up on the tour. The festival runs March 9-21 with the $1,100 main event set for March 16-20.