Women’s Poker in Europe

As an avid poker player and supporter of women in poker when I heard that the WSOP Tallinn had included a WSOPC Queens Ring event on their July schedule, I happily booked my trip to attend. Although others may be surprised that Tallinn was host to such an event, those close to the Women’s Poker Scene in Europe would consider Tallinn and Olympic Casino a natural choice. Teresa Nousiainen (Olympic Poker Tournament Director) has been a long-time supporter of women and poker and also hosted Queens of Tallinn in 2023 which was a festival dedicated entirely to women.

The inaugural Women’s WSOPC ring Event “WSOP Queens” had 90 entries and it was Norway’s Linda Nyguen who walked away with the title, the cash, and the ticket to participate in the WSOP Tournament of Champions scheduled for Spring 2025. The Tournament of Champions is a $1 Million Freeroll (held in 2024 during the WSOPC LA) whereby all WSOPC ring winners are invited to participate.

The WSOP Circuit Tallinn rolled out the red carpet for the women. During the festival, they hosted freebuy tournaments into the WSOP Queens as well as into the Queens Mystery Bounty. Olybet TV also featured the WSOP Queens Final Table on their Live Stream, elevating the experience. There was also a Ladies’ Meet and Greet with bubbly and snacks before the start of the WSOP Queens Final Table.

WSOP Circuit and Records

The WSOP Circuit Tallinn kicked off the 2024 / 2025 WSOP International Circuit season and with dates announced through December 2024, WSOP Tallinn is the only stop (announced so far) outside of North America that will host a Ladies Ring Event. (Both WSOP Deerfoot and WSOP Playground in Canada will host Ladies Ring Events for those wishing to play outside of the USA).

The WSOP Circuit will return to King’s Resort Rozvadov in October but a Women’s Ring event is not on the schedule, however, a WSOPC Ladies NLH with a 5K GTD is listed. The last WSOPC Ladies Ring event was hosted in January 2022 when Ana Iordache bested a field of 30 players to win the ring.

Looking back to the WSOP Circuit 2023 / 2024 Season (August 2023 – May 2024), the season kicked off with WSOPC Tallinn (which didn’t host a Ladies Ring Event in their inaugural year) followed by the WSOP Super Circuit in London held at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House which did host a Ladies Ring and it was PokerStars Pro, Georgina James who bested the field of 70 entries to win her first Ring.

Although WSOP Circuit events were held at King’s Resort in Rozvadov, Casino San Remo, Jean Bouin Stadium in Paris, and Venlo in the Netherlands, no Ladies Rings Events were hosted. Dusk Till Dawn Nottingham hosted in March 2024 and had 32 entries in their WSOP Circuit Ladies Event.

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Big Fields Around Europe

If we are discussing high-profile Women’s Events, we need to include PokerStars and the European Poker Tour (EPT). Most EPT stops host a Women’s Event. The winner is awarded with a PS Spade Trophy and I did hear from some final tableists, that they also received a special edition silver spade pendant.

In 2023, EPT Prague also hosted a Women’s Event attracting 84 entries with similar numbers as EPT Barcelona and EPT Cyprus. In 2024, Juliane Aram Papazian was the first Women’s Event winner during EPT Monte Carlo. PokerStars also included Women’s Events at some UKIPT stops. Most recently the UKIPT London included a Women’s Event and Louisa Plint won. Under the PokerStars brand, these events have shown consistent numbers in Women’s Events but haven’t produced the biggest fields in Europe.

During WSOP Tallinn I played with several women, and although they were impressed with the turnout at the Women’s Ring Event, most players, when speaking of record-breaking fields, mentioned the Norwegian Poker Championships. I had the pleasure of meeting the reigning two-time champion Vilde Fagerbakke (in 2023 and 2021) in Tallinn who told me more about this event. She told me that the women’s community is very open and welcoming to new players. The players can ask each other questions about poker and will get honest answers, whether it’s about playing hands or strategies. When I asked her about satellites into the Championship, she told me that there aren’t any. Women come once a year to Oslo to play the Championship.

When I returned to Switzerland and started digging deeper, although Norway’s numbers are impressive, the event with the record number of entries is the Goliath (by Grosvenor Poker). In 2022, the Goliath Ladies Championship had an impressive 219 entries followed by 194 the following year. I reached out to Katie Swift, Grosvenor Sponsored Pro, who told me that this year the Goliath Ladies Event had 191 entries (148 unique). She also mentioned that the Goliath Main Event itself holds the record for the largest live event outside of Las Vegas. The festival is about a week and a half long and has a schedule to suit every player and every budget, from smaller to high stakes. It’s an annual event in the UK, one not to miss! Prize pools and numbers are incredibly high and extremely attractive.

Swift also hosts weekly women’s games online every Wednesday at 8 pm on grosvenorpoker.com – it often has various monthly leaderboard promotions and tickets can be won into satellites or events. It’s just £5 to play too, so encourages lots of ladies to join in the game and the fun.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) which hosted The WPT Ladies Championship boasted the largest guarantee ever for a Ladies’ event at $200,000 in 2022 and is a staple on the winter roster. In Europe, where the WPT Prime brand is prevalent, it hosts WPT Ladies Championships at some of its stops. In April 2024 at WPT Prime Slovakia, its Ladies Championship had 19 entries and its 2023 Liechtenstein Ladies Championship had 30. Which leads me to our next question, can we measure the success of Women’s Events solely by entries?

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Entries or Community?

Members in the Women’s Poker Community would argue against this, as Women’s events are important for various reasons, including building community, introducing women to poker, building confidence at the table, and learning skills through poker, which can translate off the felt.

One of the oldest poker Festivals in the world, the Irish Open, hosts a Women’s Championship and this year it had 136 entries, which is more than twofold the entries in 2023 (63 entries). I asked JP Mc Cann, co-owner of the Irish Poker Open, what he thinks attributed to the success of the Ladies Championship. He said that they made all events a single re-entry and added two ladies to their team of ambassadors: Karen Muir from Ireland and 2023 IPO Ladies Champion Elizabeth Bennet Martin from Canada. 

Tanya Masters, the Irish Poker Tour Ambassador, has highlighted and hosted many events for women, including the Women’s Championship in Killarney, which drew 46 entries in 2023. Masters also advertises giveaways and satellites on Paddy Poker, so best to follow her on X.

Another country providing many opportunities for women is the Mediterranean island of Malta. With several casinos and tournament series hosting international events throughout the year, there are plenty of choices, including The Battle of Malta, The Festival, and Malta Poker Festival.

Malta is host to the Battle of Malta, which includes a Ladies Event too. Daiva Byrne, founder and owner of Fantastic Ladies in Poker (FLIP), one of the largest Facebook groups for women in poker, was host to the Battle of Malta Ladies Event in 2023 and will also return in the fall. Battle of Malta did stream the Ladies Event highlighting the Ladies and bringing awareness and added prestige to the event. (Byrne also hosts the FLIP Championship in Manchester and the 2023 Championship had 88 entries.)

The Festival always includes a “Festival Queens” tournament at all of its stops across Europe. In 2023, The Festival headed to Portomaso Casino in Malta and had 48 entries in its inaugural Malta event. (They return to Malta in September 2024)

The Malta Poker Festival is another example. The Festival’s founder and co-owner, Ivonne Montealegre, was quoted in May saying – “The festival is respectful and inclusive, and it has put Malta on the right foot in the poker world”. It’s no wonder that she was recently promoted to vice president of the Women’s Poker Association in Las Vegas, an organization that she describes as a huge, non-profit sisterhood of poker players. For context, it’s a sisterhood that counts the world’s top female poker players within its ranks. Every edition of the Malta Poker Festival includes a Ladies First! Tournament and a special host are selected. I was given this honor for the Spring 2022 edition and Katie Swift hosted in Autumn 2022 which had 100 entries. Norwegian Ladies Champion and Twitch Streamer Ylva Thorsrud was a former host. Kerrijane Craigie presented the 2024 Spring edition of Ladies First, which had 84 entries. Craigie will return as the 2024 Autumn host too.

What the Future Holds

Kerryjane Craigie was named Ambassador for Women at PokerStars and welcomed female poker players to a special ‘Ladies Night’ at the Horseshoe in Las Vegas during the WSOP. As she explained, she “encourages the doubters” of women’s poker events and activities to explore that curiosity, saying she doesn’t want to silence those who talk down on women’s poker, but rather communicate with them.

She announced a Women’s Winter Festival coming to the Hippodrome Casino in London from November 21st through 24th 2024, boasting a 100,000 GBP guarantee. The dates have been announced and details will be released soon. For women traveling to Malta this autumn, the winner of the Ladies First! Tournament will receive a WWF package.

The 100,000 GBP guarantee sets the bar high on being one of the biggest prize pools for a Women’s Tournament. By comparison, the record-breaking Goliath generated just shy of a 20K prize pool this year. The 2023 WSOP Ladies Championship in Las Vegas with a 1K buy-in (the most entries in history) generated a prize pool of $1,152,550

Will we have a one million prize in Europe for a women’s tournament? Time will tell, but with many organizations and individuals pushing women’s poker forward, this could become a reality.

Community: Clubs, Groups and Leaders

It does take a village and with more than 20 languages spoken across Europe, local groups and community leaders play an important role in growing Women’s Poker.

In Tallinn, I was introduced to Kairit Leibold the founder of “Eesti naised pokkeris” a group for women poker players in Estonia founded more than 11 years ago.  She told me about how she started the Women’s League in 2009 in Estonia and they only had 24 participants. Now they have more than 150. Her Facebook group has more than 350 members.  Kairit also made history as the first woman in Estonia’s Poker Hall of Fame.

If you speak German, the Herzdamen Club offers study sessions, poker leagues and poker events all in the German language.  Although their study sessions are for female players, their Herzdamen Festival, which is held at Grand Casino AŠ in the Czech Republic is open to all players. I spoke with their current president, Mila Monroe, who told me that their 2023 Herzdamen Festival Main Event had 208 Entries with 24% female participation, which bild.de cited as a world record. Their next Festival is this September, and they have the long term goal of always increasing female representation at the tables, especially in open events. 

In neighboring Switzerland, the Swiss Poker Ladies led by Gabi Wirth Biri will host the 7th annual Swiss Poker Ladies Championship in October. The SPL is a community and she is looking forward to welcoming everyone at Prestige Poker near Zurich.

Many Swiss travel to Velden, Austria in summer to play the Poker EM because since 2017, the POKER EM has been home to Ladies European Championship (Ladies Europameisterschaft in German). The championship had a record 70 entries this year. win2day Testmonial Jessica Teusl is three-time Poker EM Champion and is also present at the CAPT Seefeld Ladies Championship in winter.  

As I speak German, researching this community is quite easy, but for other countries where I don’t speak the language, it is harder to discover the communities and key figures. There are also many other initiatives in Europe for women, including learning how to play the game and online events including the weekly PokerStars Women’s Sunday, and the upcoming WSOP Ladies Championship on GG Poker.

We are looking for more contacts for women in Europe for our next article, so please reach out if you know of more organizations and women driving Women in Poker in Europe. 

Hope to see you on the felt at an upcoming event.

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Editor’s Note: Our own writer Maureen Blöchlinger runs Women’s Poker Calendar to keep informed of upcoming Women’s Events around the globe