Many women in the poker community were outraged after Abraham Korotki took down a ladies-only poker tournament in Atlantic City, New Jersey. After the event, Korotki had little to say in his defense besides that he wanted to find somewhere to practice for future poker tourneys. But Korotki did more than practice in September as he was able to win the tournament and the money that went along with it.
It hasn’t even been more than a few months now since Korotki’s win that we’re seeing another man win a female poker tourney. This time it is Greg Sessler who was able to defeat 95 other players at a WSOP Circuit Event en route to his “big victory”.
Sessler entered a $340 “Lake Tahoe Ladies Championship” tourney, and was able to walk away with the win as well as $9,900 after everything was said and done. And plenty was said during the tourney too since other men decided to enter this supposedly women’s-only event. The crowd started cheering every time a male player was eliminated from the tournament - little did they know though that a man would be the one to win it.
After taking down the women’s championship in Lake Tahoe, Sessler commented afterwards by saying that he only wanted to find a place to play poker during his day off. Conveniently, it just happened to be a ladies-only event that he decided to use as his place to play poker.
The WSOP wanted to clear themselves of the mess created by the win and issued a statement saying, “The WSOP isn’t a political organization and can’t be expected to get involved in debates about sexism, discrimination, or other polarizing issues which may be applicable to poker tournaments.”