It was supposed to be The Year of the Woman at the World Series of Poker. 2010 was touted as the year that women would finally make a big splash at the WSOP. Mike Matusow, seemingly the skeptic, even got into the act, by making his famous bet that he would run down Las Vegas Boulevard naked if women could take home three bracelets in the Series this year. He got to keep his clothes on, and Las Vegans breathed a sigh of relief, at least in that respect, when that didn't materialize. But many women around the world were disappointed to see that another year went by without a major victory at that historic venue. Now, here in November, that has all changed. It has been a fantastic year for women in poker and for PokerStars women to be sure. But earlier this year it didn't seem to be starting out that way.
There were major victories for women earlier in the year, however, and Vanessa Selbst's huge win at the PokerStars NAPT Mohegan Sun in April was one of the events that kicked off the speculation of it being such a big year for women. She won the Main Event title there and took home $750,000 for her efforts, and became a member of Team PokerStars Pro shortly thereafter.
Liv Boeree followed up on Selbst's heels with a win at EPT San Remo a few weeks later and scored another major victory for women with that main event cash of €1,250,000. Her capture of an EPT Main Event title was highly publicized, and brought her instant fame and another signing by PokerStars as a member of Team PokerStars Pro.
Then October rolled around and Selbst made another huge splash with her fourth-place cash at the EPT London High Roller event and a cash of $226,910. But she wasn't done yet, and in November, just over a week ago, she pulled off the biggest cash of her career and another major title when she won the Partouche Poker Tour in France for €1.3 million.
These were all highly publicized wins and many people were definitely starting to note the fact that even though women are typically outnumbered by a huge margin at live Main Events (usually less than five percent) they can be a huge threat if, against all odds, they make it deep.
This was proven once again on Monday when Young-Shin Im, playing the final table of the APPT Cebu Main Event finished off the other eight players (including her boyfriend!) to take home the title for 5.8 million PHP. She played her own game all the way, waiting for the right spot to make her moves, and when it was said and done she walked away with the title and a place in history as the first female Main Event title winner of an APPT event.
Im's win marks the fourth major win for a woman this year in PokerStars Main Events. Liv Boeree and Vanessa Selbst are Team PokerStars Pros and Im is a satellite winner who has only played poker for two years. The women of PokerStars are bringing home some amazing results on the PokerStars home stage this year and they are proving that this is the Year of the Woman -- just make it The Year of the PokerStars Woman.
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