WSOP Day 17 recap: Dutch Boyd wins, Ladies controversy continues

You know that poker has truly arrived when controversy and rumors overshadow the actual game. First we had the durrrr prop bet gossip, and now the focus has shifted to the Ladies Tournament. It seems a small, vocal, minority take great offense at the inclusion of the ladies-only tournament, and some male players decided to show their distaste by registering in the event -although they only managed to number six people, so either there is not much momentum behind their cause or they simply are low-limit players that couldn’t manage the $1,000 buy-in.

What has ensued since has been a firestorm of responses -most in favor of the women’s tournament-with Poker Pros taking to their blogs or creating a video as Shaun Deeb did. Deeb was at the center of the controversy as the most well known male player to enter the event along with his decision to play in drag. Both Daniel Negreanu and Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt had some not too kind words for Deeb’s antics on their blogs -Leatherass devoted two full blog entries to the issue.

Oh yeah!!! There was poker played yesterday too! Although yesterday was the first day in which no new tournaments started -although day 1b of the $1k NLHE tournament got underway.

Event #22: $1,000 No Limit Holdem Ladies Championship

The nine women who reached the final table of the tournament show exactly why the Ladies-Only is needed; it brings women to the World Series of Poker to compete, and hopefully to gain interest in poker and return to the WSOP year-after-year. The reason I say this is because of the nine final table members they had a total of three WSOP cashes between them, with two of those coming in previous Ladies-Only championships; in fact no woman at the table had more than 1 WSOP cash prior to yesterday.

This event brings new players to the WSOP!

Vanessa Hellebuyck of France was the eventual champion picking up a nice $192k payday, to go along with her first WSOP bracelet.

Event #23: $2,500 6-Max Limit Holdem

The 6-Max event was won by Dutch Boyd, who picked up his second WSOP bracelet. The often troubled poker pro continues to have good showings at the WSOP and is somehow able to ignore all of the controversies that swirl around him.

Event #24: $1,000 No Limit Holdem

The trend continues! After 1,932 players on day 1a, day 1b saw a significantly smaller turnout of 1,357 players. One player everyone will be watching on Day 2 is Tom Dwan, who surged to the top of the leaderboard with 37,525 chips, good for 9^th place.

Event #25: $10,000 Limit Omaha 8 or better World Championship

Day 2 of the tournament saw the field play down to 23 players with poker pro Michael Chow topping the leaderboard. Chasing Chow are Abe Mosseri, Jean-Robert Bellande, David Baker, Miami John Cernuto, James Dempsey, Steve Zolotow, Chino Rheem, John Dagostino and Eric Baldwin.