WSOP Commentary: Year of the Woman and Other WSOP Myths

This year at the 2010 World Series of Poker has been dubbed with different “Year Of’s.” I thought it was interesting to see how some of the “big stories” coming into the 2010 WSOP have been developing.

Year of the Woman

Coming into the WSOP, Ty Stewart made the prediction that 2 or 3 women would win open field WSOP events. Mike Matusow stated that if this happened, he would run naked down the strip. Through 44 events a grand total of ZERO women have won open events. Five different women have made a grand total of six final tables with Christine Pietsch coming closest to winning a bracelet by placing 2nd in the $1,500 Stud Event. Jennifer Harman has two final tables this WSOP while Karina Jett, Mandy Thomas, and J.J. Liu have one each.



While a woman has not won an open event, women at six WSOP open event final tables is still better than the average. At the same time, Jennifer Harman making final tables is not that unusual. Of course, there is still plenty of time left for a woman to win a bracelet, but I don’t see it happening unless Jennifer gets another shot.

Year of the NL

Harrah’s dubbed this year the “Year of the NL” due to all of the WSOP 1000 buy in NL events that are on the World Series of Poker schedule 2010. While there have been a lot of NL bracelet winners this year, there really haven’t been too many “big stories” from the events other than Tom Dwan’s near miss and maybe Scott Montgomery’s first bracelet win.



The big stories have been coming in the non-NL Event. Michael Mizrachi won the $50,000 Player’s Championship. Men Nguyen won the $10k Stud. Frank Kassela won the $10k Stud 8 and the $2,500 Razz. Sammy Farha won the $10k Omaha Hi-Lo.

Annette Obrestad Invades the WSOP

Annette Obrestad is playing in her first WSOP in Las Vegas and everyone was hyping her up to be the next best thing since sliced bread. She has a grand total of three cashes this WSOP so far. Two of those were bare min-cashes with her going out right as soon as the bubble broke. The other was an 11th place finish in the $1,500 Shootout Event. For the first couple of weeks, she was lucky to make it past the first break of events. Was the pressure to perform too much or does she need to improve her game? So far her invasion of the WSOP seems a bust.



In reality, Wicked Chops Poker stated it best when they claimed this to be the “Year of the Comeback” with many big names either finally breaking through or adding to their total. Of course, Phil Ivey continues to do what he does and has taken down bracelet #8. Going into a WSOP, many people will try to make predictions on what the WSOP will bring. The above are just some examples of those that shot the mark and missed.