Man Wins Ladies Event - What's The Problem?

Poker, more than anything else has the unique ability of being able to throw weird and wonderful stories into the world. This one here is about as zany as they come!

Now we all know about Ladies Events - poker tournaments put on specifically so that female players can play exclusively against other female players without having any men to get in the way. Every time one of these events is on, we always hear about one guy or another who enters the event to prove a point and citing anti-sex discrimination laws to back them up. Traditionally these guys have either been bundled out of the tournament early or have left the table in tears and been blinded out as their ‘more manly’ friends make fun of them from the sidelines.

Well during the Ladies Event during the Borgata Poker Open the seemingly impossible happened. The last woman standing was in fact not a woman, but a man by the name of Abraham Korotki. He somehow drove his way through the field of handbags, lipsticks and short tempers to come out victorious. Until this point, the issue of men playing in ladies tournaments was never anything to take seriously but now thanks to this, the topic is being discussed in poker forums all around the world. So let’s take a look at the reasons why men should be able to play in these so called “ladies tournaments”.

First of all where and when do we live? Nazi Germany in the 1940’s? South Africa a decade ago? Since when is it ok to discriminate against people based on their origins? I remember the good old days (well I don’t remember them I wasn’t born...but try to stay with me on this) when there were men-only clubs, when women belonged in the kitchen and were not allowed to think for themselves, let alone vote! That was obviously wrong, but have we gone too far the other way now? We have women-only gyms and now we need to give them their own poker tournaments!

Have you ever played poker against a woman? I don’t know if you have noticed but they are a million times smarter than men are in all the things that are important to poker. They are cunning, they have great memories and they lie like a billion times better than we do. In fact if I recall the last two tournaments I played - in one I lost half of my stack to a Ms. Sally Snow and in the other I lost half my stack to a Ms. Donna Ciric. Both completely outplayed me and last time I checked (and sorry to their respective partners but I checked rather extensively) they are both women!

We also hear arguments about it being good to bring in new female players to the game as they do not feel intimidated or threatened. Are you kidding me? Where are these people playing? All of the tournament series that hold a ladies tournament are held in casinos. There are security guards, cameras and free coffee! I have played in several tournaments at casinos around Australia and the amount of loud, mean, scary people is minimal at best. To think that these circumstances are too intimidating for new players is laughable.

It is 2009 people, the battle of the sexes is over and women won. However ladies if you want equality in the house and equality in the office then you get equality in the poker room. Women’s liberation is not something that you can take when it suits you and knock it back when it doesn’t. Besides trust me you have nothing to fear. I think any woman has the ability to beat any man at poker. So I say well done to Abraham and to everyone else I say look for me at the next “Ladies Event” I will be the chick wearing the footy shorts and the blue singlet with a beer in my hand.

While Joey has his opinion, this is an interesting debate with a wide range of arguments both for and against the "Ladies Event" concept. Share your views in the PokerNetwork Forums!