Check it out … we love seeing Poker present in popular culture, and Buzzfeed dug up this kinda sexy-funny advert for Ladies Poker at the Adelaide Casino in Australia. The promotion is a few years old, but it made the BF spread honoring International Clitoris Awareness Week, a new real-holiday charity campaign. So this week only especially, do your lady a solid and pay a little extra attention to her pointer, yo.

Source:Buzzfeed: 14 Vagina Imagery Ads.
(No worries, totally SFW … though some may or may not find one strawberry strangely arousing.)

Say what you will about the WSOP Ladies Championship — I’ve got the over/under at 15 for number of men who enter this year — it’s still the kinda event that some people get super-excited about for weeks if not months beforehand. And our super-good friend Donna from Pink Ladies Poker Tour has a series of single-table satellites this Sunday, June 24, St. Jean Baptiste Day, at the Tropicana.

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The always-controversial WSOP Ladies event got underway this weekend … with 1,055 players, up from last year’s total of 1,054. At least 10 entrants were men, one of whom showed up in drag. While the WSOP can’t legally require players to show their vaginas to the dealer before receiving a hand, the presence of Y-chromosomes in the field suggests that with Shaun Deeb’s breaking through the gender barrier in 2010, it may well become WSOP tradition for this special tournament to appeal to dudes who clearly have issues with their mothers and/or painful memories of oppression at the hands of East German Olympic coaches during the Cold War.

Click here for BJ’s photo gallery from the 2011 WSOP Ladies event … and here for WhoJedi’s … and here for coverage from Wicked Chops … and here to follow the actual tournament, which is currently at the final table and streaming live with only women left and a $192k first prize up for grabs. (The “last man standing” finished 9th.)

But beyond the inevitable spotlight stealing by a flash mob of penis-wielding hooligans … the WSOP Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship is also where many players experience their first shot at being backed in a bracelet event. The low buy-in ($1k) and proportion of men who believe putting a woman in a tournament might some day help them get in her pants makes the hustle for support another ubiquitous part of the ladies event every year … and to that extent, I wanted to know, from the ladies, how they handle it when a guy wanting to give them money might have a different expectation about what it means to book a big score by going deep.

(Men can be so crass and dumb.)

Have a listen as I sit down with Mike Matusow’s girlfriend Annie LePage and Pokerati editrix Marie-Lizette (at the Peppermill in Reno last month, at the party for Jen Harman’s charity event before the HPT’s $1,600 Nevada State Championship) … to learn how it works for women who may want backing but have to be sure all involved — including themselves? — understand that the benefactor really is interested in their potential skills on the table, not under it.

Part 1: Inappropriate Offers
Part 2: Business Women
[audio:https://pokerati.com/podcast/pokerati-raw/Pokerati-Raw-ladies-buyin.mp3, https://pokerati.com/podcast/pokerati-raw/PokeratiRaw-Ladies-buyin2.mp3]

It’s apparently all about not sending the wrong message for less than a $10k buy-in. While some may believe everyone has a price … I’m not sure if the service this audio really provides is essential listening for up-and-coming women players — on how to draw proper lines when dealing with a potentially horny backer — or more for men, on how to minimize the creepiness factor to be a better big-swinging-dick.

Someone will win the first bracelet of the 2011 WSOP today, before registration opens for event #1. We listed about 13 percent of the field as people who might be worth watching, just because, and three of them made it to the final table and ITM of the WSOP-freeroll championship … which I’m not sure whether or not qualifies for POY points but obviously should. You’ll have to just believe us that the guy who woulda been my 14th pick on that list was Huy Nguyen, who ended Day 2 yesterday by banking $27,500 for 10th place.

So cards just got in the air for the first televised event of the 2011 WSOP, and of the 10s of thousands of players who had a chance to be here, three of them are from Dallas (though one has since moved to Las Vegas), and one has been part of Team Pokerati since she got a lotta chips in the 2010 WSOP ladies event.

LIVE UPDATES here.

Go La Sengphet! Also go Josh Evans! And though for a while I wasn’t sure if I had first seen him at Jackie’s in Dallas or maybe was just confusing him with a guy seen once at the Venetian, go Charles “Woody” Moore! All three of these players and the others are anything but luckboxes in a sit-n-go … they are real grinders and rounders with skill … and a win here, my contention, is a ticket to the real big leagues … as the winner of today’s event will be known all around as a real real player, and will have the bankroll — $300k for first — to prove it for as long as they can hold as a true and successful pro.

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Don’t quite know the details, but it happened again. Apparently two men entered yesterday’s ladies event at the Venetian Deep Stack series. And at least one of them went relatively deep.

Here’s what I was able to glean from Facebook:

Annie LePage Bleeeehhhh… A freakin guy who crashed the ladies event and was totally rude to all of us at the table had to be the one busting me. I am sooo Mad!

Stacey Nutini yea well i was pretty pissed too busting in 16th and there was still one guy in…..i think they’re complete frickin morons to participate. and when you ask them why, their reason is always the biggest bullshit you’ve ever heard in your life.

The day before the Venetian ladies event, the Las Vegas Sun ran a story (with awesome art, btw) about the men who played in the WSOP ladies event. They’ve got a poll asking whether or not men should be allowed to play. Currently 40 percent say yes, and 59 percent say no.

OK, so it’s settled: the no’s have it … we can move on now, right? No?

Anyone got an over/under on how long before ladies events are eradicated completely? Because I sure can’t see — based on the above split alone — why this trend would eventually subside … not until the minority gets their way.

As a woman who began playing poker in the early 90’s on the smoky Riverboats of Louisiana, I was almost always the only woman at the table and often the only woman in the poker room. Other than my weekly friendly game, the Mirage poker room in Las Vegas (before the Bellagio opened) was the only time I played with other women. It wasn’t always easy being the only woman in the game. Nor was it easy being excluded from a friendly game that instituted a No Vagina Rule because some new fish didn’t want his wife to play. While sexist remarks at the poker table were uncomfortable at times, I’ve also seen cheating, robberies, fights, guns, racism, and five of nine opponents having a piece of each others action.

Of the four WSOP Ladies events in which I’ve played, I paid for one and was backed in three. Had I been given the choice to choose the event… it certainly wouldn’t have been the Ladies event. It’s not that I’m unsupportive of the Ladies event; yet, I’m not exactly supportive of it either. Reason being, who am I to say what someone should do with their time and money? Who am I to persuade another’s belief? Yet, sometimes I can’t help myself to reverse the role and think… as a woman, how would I feel if there were a Men’s-only event and no Ladies event? And so, I ponder the annual WSOP gender dilemma, not forming strong opinions one way or the other, but with some basic, recurring thoughts that to me seem like matters of common sense:

• Gender Specific Events: It’s only equal that men are given their own event held at the same time with the same buy-in, structure, extra prizes and treatment. If men are unable to play with their own gender, then they’re being singled out. Sorry to burst any bubbles but if men aren’t afforded the same opportunity…then we’re hypocrites and the Ladies event should be dissolved.
• Dissenting Opinions: As they say in Texas, opinions are like assholes … everyone’s got one. Chastising other’s opinions is expecting someone else to comply with our own view. That’s not equality, it’s not freedom to choose. It’s a childish tantrum of needing to be right. Last time I checked, the WSOP wasn’t located in a Communist country. And this gender crap is turning into a narcissistic dictatorship over a piece of jewelry. A good friend of mine always asked me…do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? I won’t bore you with details on my own happiness, but I will tell you that I heard a lot of unhappy complaining this weekend.
• Men Playing the Ladies Event: Seems to me if you want change then go through the appropriate corporate channels. It’s quite simple, either be part of the solution or be part of the problem. Now we have drama, potential legal issues and remind me again… was someone seriously injured?

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