Local Man Wins Women’s WPT Hard Rock Poker Showdown
Pensioner wins poker tournament in America’s retirement capital, Florida. Nothing unusual there! Bearded man wins poker tournament in Hollywood’s Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Similarly, not worthy of a news headline. 70-year-old bearded man wins ladies’ event at the 2023 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown? It must be a misprint!
Pensioner, David Hughes took every chip off of every player when winning the ladies’ event at the recent WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown. ©GettyImages
Last week, despite 61 trophy events and 22,035 entries generating over $24 million in prizemoney, David Hughes created more headlines than every WPT Poker Showdown Championship series winner combined. His unique achievement was winning the only tournament labeled as a ‘ladies’ event’.
The winner, a local resident who collected $5,555, took his seat in the women’s poker competition thanks to Florida State’s anti-discrimination laws that dictate men cannot be prohibited from playing in ladies’ tournaments.
Man With a Bounty on His Head
Hughes’s participation in the $250 competition – which he re-entered twice – reportedly met with a mixed reaction from his 82 all-female rivals. One semi-pro, Ebony Kenney put a $300 bounty on the player’s head hoping to speed up his departure. She also posted a video of the brave man on her Twitter account.
Playing the @WPT ladies event today, and Dave here is the only man. (Filmed w/permission!)
While we appreciate the dead money, I really wish men would get what these events stand for.
So I put a $300 bounty on his head and Tamra & Noah Piderit matched it. 🥳🥳
Let’s get him. pic.twitter.com/dXVZVlriAP
— Ebony Kenney | Poker & Purposeful Pleasure (@Ebony_Kenney) April 29, 2023
The first major ladies’ tournament was played at the 1977 World Series of Poker (WSOP). The competition was a $100 Limit Seven Card Stud event that featured 93 players. The WSOP Ladies Championship became a No Limit Hold’em competition for the first time in 2005. With a $1,000 entry fee, in 2022 the gold bracelet event attracted 1,074 entries.
Ten Times the Entry but Game On
Similar to Florida, Nevada has laws allowing men to play in ladies’ tournaments, and this includes the WSOP Ladies Championship. However, to discourage men from entering the Ladies Championship, in 2013 WSOP organizers introduced a rule giving women a 90 percent discount on the tournament entry. It allows females to play for $1,000, while male counterparts have to pay $10,000.
Nevertheless, in 2016 a male Florida-based poker pro, Tony Roberto, paid the full $10,000 to enter the competition. “It was a mixture of prop bets, losing a bet, and my stake horse having a sick and twisted sense of humor,” that led him to play the tournament Roberto explained after being eliminated on Day 1 of the event.
Twelve months later, Simon Després-Bellavance, a Canadian professional hockey player, tabled $10,000 to join the ladies’ event but was also eliminated before the conclusion of the opening day’s play.
This was also the case for the most recent male contestant to pay the full $10,000 WSOP Ladies Championship entry fee. In 2021, American Tom Hammers joined his wife and daughter in the tournament stating he would donate any winnings to women’s charities. Sadly, he also failed to finish in a prize-paying position.
