Allison Whalen of Atlanta, Georgia works as a creative director. Her poker game of choice is no-limit hold'em, and she credits her improvement to reading books and experience in bar room games.
2010 World Series of Poker
Event #22: $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Day: 3
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2010 World Series of Poker
Buy-in
$1,000
Entries
1,054
Level
24
Blinds
15,000 / 30,000
Ante
4,000
Kami Chisholm -- a.k.a. "Dr. Kamikaze" -- of San Francisco, California has a cashes in limit hold'em and H.O.R.S.E. to her credit. Most recently Chisholm finished second in the 2009 Deep Stack Extravaganza III $500 H.O.R.S.E. event (good for more than $20,000) last summer, and this past January won the $1,000 Six-Handed Limit Hold'em event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (good for more than $10,000).
The "Dr." part of her nickname refers to the fact that Chisholm holds a Ph.D. from the Universit of California Santa Cruz. The "Kamikaze" part is self-explanatory.
Sidsel Boesen of Copenhagen, Denmark returns as the chip leader for the start of today's final table. Boesen began playing the game in 2005, learning it from her husband. Her favorite game is no-limit hold'em.
Most recently Boesen managed a first-place finish in the 2009 Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza IV in November 2009, thereby turning a $300 entry into a $27,793 score.
When she's not playing poker, Bonnie Overfield of East Wenatchee, Washington works a financial analyst. When she is playing poker, Overfield has enjoyed financial success.
This marks the second time she has cashed in the WSOP Ladies Event, having finished 53rd in 2008 for a $3,357 payday. Overfield has also had cashes in several other events in nearby Pendleton, Oregon at the Wildhorse Resort and Casino's "Round-Up" tourneys, with her biggest cash there being a $10,000-plus score for finishing third in a limit hold'em event in November 2008.
Loren Watterworth has been playing poker for five years. Like many women, the Ladies Event is the only one she plays at the WSOP.
Watterworth comes in today as the table's short stack, a position she was in for much of the latter stages of play on Day 2. She nursed that short stack well to make today's final table. Of course, she has a lot of experience with nursing -- she's a registered nurse based in Temple, Texas.
Timmi Derosa of Los Angeles, California comes to today's final table with a few previous tourney cashes to her credit, including a win in California Ladies State Championship in 2006.
Derosa's fiancé is the well-known pro Lee Watkinson, final tablist at the 2007 WSOP Main Event. Besides sharing an interest in poker, she and Watkinson have also dedicated time and effort to saving chimpanzees from bio-medical related research.
La Sengphet was born in Laos and is now a resident of Carrollton, Texas.
Sengphet was the overwhelming chip leader following Day 1, coming back with more than twice the stack of anyone else, and continued to enjoy the chip lead for most of Day 2. Sengphet has already improved on her previous best finish in the WSOP Ladies Event, having made it to 23rd in 2006.
Fans are already starting to fill the bleacher seats here at the main stage where today's final table of the $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold'em Championship will take place. We are still about 10 minutes away from the scheduled start.
Meanwhile, here are some short introductions of our final nine:
Begun in 1977 as a seven-card stud event, the Ladies Event -- just like the WSOP as a whole -- has grown by leaps and bounds over the decades.
Just a handful of women entered that first event, won by Jackie McDaniels. In 1990, the total field size crossed the 100-player mark for the first time, with Marie Gabert coming out best of the 110 who played. In 1992, the buy-in was upped from $500 to $1,000 (where it has remained since), causing a brief dip in numbers. But by the mid-1990s they were back in triple digits.
In 2000, the WSOP changed the event from stud to a mixed limit hold'em/stud event, and Nani Dollison would win the next two Ladies Events back-to-back, becoming the third woman to win two Ladies Events titles along with Poker Hall of Famer Barbara Enright (1986, 1994) and Susie Isaacs (1996, 1997).
In 2004 the event was played as limit hold'em only. A record 204 women participated that year, with Hung Doan winning. In 2005, the game was switched to no-limit hold'em, and as we saw elsewhere at the WSOP, there was a boom in entries. At total of 601 came out to play that year, with actress Jennifer Tilly the victor. The field size peaked in 2007, with Sally Anne Boyer emerging from a field of 1,286 women to claim the bracelet.
This year's event drew 1,054 entries, and today just nine return. Sidsel Boesen of Denmark begins the final table with the chip advantage. Come back at 3 p.m. Vegas time to see how this year's chapter in the Ladies Event story concludes!
Event #22: $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Day 3 Started