What Does the Future Hold for Women’s Poker?

Women’s poker is a rapidly growing segment of the sport.  This year, several women made an impressive impact in Season 8 of the European Poker Tour.  Lucille Cailly made history by becoming the first ever woman to make it to the final table at the main event of the EPT Grand Final; however her accomplishments didn’t end there – she survived a long time at the final table, making it all the way to second place, and earning more than one million Euros in prize money.

Other significant performances included a win in the 5K Heads-Up tournament by Vicky Coren, and several strong finishes by the likes of Charlotte Van Brabander and Leo Margets.

These impressive finishes have raised a few questions among the poker player community.  Last year, many men protested against the Women Only event at the World Series of Poker, saying that they felt the event was discriminatory.  Now that women are putting together strong finishes in major big money tournaments, that adds even more fuel to the fire of those protests.

Poker is becoming a generally more socially acceptable game, and this opens up opportunities for people of all age groups and genders, and from all walks of life, to play the game on a competitive level.  Perhaps instead of running gender restricted tournaments, in the future there will simply be “beginners” tournaments, and tournaments for more experienced players.

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