Kristen Foxen is just 17 players away from a historic feat — becoming the first woman to win the Main Event at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas. In 54 previous runnings, no woman has ever sat atop poker’s highest no-limit hold’em pedestal, but Foxen, with the fifth biggest stack for Day 8 and nearly $8 million in wins to her name, is a strong favorite to be the first.
Of course, it won’t be an easy walkover for Foxen. Sitting just above her in the chip counts for Day 8 is Swedish phenom Niklas Astedt while immediately below her is Joe Serock. Malo Latinois leads the way with a bit more than 61 million but the final two tables also include Jason Sagle and Jason James among others.
The Final 18 in the Record-Breaking 2024 Main Event
| Table | Seat | Player | Home | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Niklas Astedt | Sweden | 50,000,000 | 63 |
| 1 | 2 | Diogo Coelho | Portugal | 51,500,000 | 64 |
| 1 | 3 | Gerardo Hernandez | Mexico | 13,400,000 | 17 |
| 1 | 4 | Yegor Moroz | United States | 24,500,000 | 31 |
| 1 | 5 | Brian Kim | United States | 42,400,000 | 53 |
| 1 | 6 | Andres Gonzalez | Spain | 14,900,000 | 19 |
| 1 | 7 | Kristen Foxen | Canada | 47,400,000 | 59 |
| 1 | 8 | Joe Serock | United States | 46,300,000 | 58 |
| 1 | 9 | Jason James | Canada | 45,800,000 | 57 |
| 2 | 1 | Jessie Bryant | United States | 27,600,000 | 35 |
| 2 | 2 | Boris Angelov | Bulgaria | 8,300,000 | 10 |
| 2 | 3 | Malcolm Franchi | France | 45,900,000 | 57 |
| 2 | 4 | Malo Latinois | France | 61,300,000 | 77 |
| 2 | 5 | Jason Sagle | United States | 51,400,000 | 64 |
| 2 | 6 | Guillermo Sanchez Otero | Spain | 24,500,000 | 31 |
| 2 | 7 | Gabriel Moura | Brazil | 24,600,000 | 31 |
| 2 | 8 | Jonathan Tamayo | United States | 18,400,000 | 23 |
| 2 | 9 | Jordan Griff | United States | 8,300,000 | 10 |
One Woman Left Standing
far as her run would go as she finished in 28th place for $300k, a 30x multiple
of her previous best score.
When Day 7 kicked off with 59 players still alive, the field featured two women. The aforementioned Foxen started Day 7 in 17th place, but sitting way up the tables in second was Chinese native and California resident Shundan Xiao. Xiao was already on the run of her life with her previous best score sitting at less than $10k and though she was surely dreaming of the big bracelet prize, Day 7 was as far as she would go.
Xiao had a rough Day 7 and by the time they were on the bubble to the final three tables, she was down to just 3.5 million from her start-of-day high of nearly 25 million. She got her final chips in good with queens over fours, but Yake Wu flopped a four for a set to send her home in 28th place for $300k. While she was surely hoping for a deeper run, the score represents a 30x bump to her previous best, so when the dust settles, it’s still likely she’ll be happy with the run.
woman to win the Main Event
The bust from Xiao left Foxen as the last woman standing in the Main with just three tables to go. Day 7 action played on for another 9 eliminations before they bagged up for the night with the Canadian Foxen and the Swede Astedt in the top-five counts.
Astedt and Foxen got into it a bit on Day 7 in fact when, while both were on the feature table, Astedt ended up folding the best hand to a river raise from Foxen who turned her pocket kings into a bluff on an ace-high board where Astedt and another player had both hit the ace. A flush card on the turn (and the nut king blocker in her hand) gave Foxen the storyline she needed, and the river raise let her win with her bested kings.
Foxen was nearly on the rail before the end of Day 7 when she was down to just 7 million but managed to find a double to stay alive when her kings held against the sevens of Gerardo Hernandez. That pot gave her 16 million and a fighting chance, and she rode that up to 47.4 million when they bagged at the end of the day.
One of Foxen’s biggest competitors in the final stages of this Main Event was six-time bracelet winner Brian Rast. While Rast doesn’t have a Main Event title to his name, among his bracelet wins was 2023’s prestigious Poker Players Championship. That was his third PPC win, adding to bracelets in the event from 2011 and 2016.
With other wins in draw games, hold’em, and Omaha, it’s clear that Rast is among the elite in the game right now and posed perhaps the most serious threat to Foxen’s run to the title.
Unfortunately for Rast, he’ll have to wait at least another year for a Main Event title. Rast hit the rail in 24th place after he three-bet ace-queen then tank-called off the four-bet shove from Jonathan Tamayo after the original raiser thought better of their participation in the hand.
Rast ran into the goods, however, as Tamayo was playing pocket kings, leaving the three-time PPC champ drawing pretty thin to an ace or running cards. Rast flopped some backdoor outs with three to a flush, then turned the fourth spade to leave him drawing to the nut flush but the red king on the river bricked for Rast and gave his opponent the set of kings.
Day 8 is set to be huge with 18 players coming back to the felt, and play is expected to continue until the final table is set. After that, the final nine play down to the winner of the 2024 Main Event. Will Foxen be among the players to survive Day 8? Only time and poker will tell, but if you were picking any woman from the current crop of top players to get it done in the Main, you’d be hard-pressed to pick better than Foxen.
