PokerStars has been spearheading efforts to encourage more women to play poker for some time, and these efforts will culminate in the Women’s Winter Festival, which will take place in London at the Hippodrome Casino starting November 21.
Headlined by a £100,000 guaranteed Main Event, the Festival will feature several female-only events, along with an exciting 50/50 tournament and a handful of off-the-felt activities for all the players who make the trip to London in November.
First introduced at an exclusive Ladies Day Breakfast meet & greet, the Women’s Winter Festival was made into a reality by PokerStars Ambassador and Director of Poker at the Hippodrome Casino Kerryjane Craige, who will be taking charge of organizing the event and promoting it with the ladies over the next couple of months.
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Craige commented on the upcoming Festival, saying: “I am so excited about this event, honing in on the schedule and finalising the details truly gave me goosebumps. Opportunities for women to have access to more inspirational poker events is a driver to all that I do.”
“The Women’s Only Main Event is to enable and encourage women to participate in live poker games with aspirational outcomes. The attention to every detail of this four-day festival has been amazing to be part of and I believe we have hit the mark. We have built an event around the audience – now I am hoping they will come.”
Exciting Schedule with Unique Ladies Events
The inaugural PokerStars Women’s Winter Festival will run over a 4 day period and include four unique poker events, all focused around female participation.
The focal point of the entire Festival will be the £400 buyin Women’s Only Main Event with a £100,000 guaranteed prize pool, the biggest ladies’ event ever played in the UK.
The Main Event will feature three Day 1 flights, each giving players 30,000 tournament chips to play with, and advancing 20% of the player field to Day 2, where the event will play down to a winner.
Apart from the massive Main Event, the Women’s Winter Festival will also feature a single-day £220 50/50 event on November 23, where 50% of the field will be made up of men, and 50% of women, creating the balance many groups within the poker world have been striving for in recent years.
This will be a stark contrast the most poker tournaments, which currently see about 3% of the overall playing field made up of female players. Players for this one will enter individually, but special prizes will be added for pairs who do best on a dedicated leaderboard during the tournament.
For all the UK poker players coming to London alone, the Hippodrome will offer an opportunity to partner up with other players without a pair and still compete for the extra prizes.
The Festival will also include a £220 event with a single re-entry that will be open for all players, as well as a Women’s Closer Freeroll on November 24, whic will award an EPT Prague women’s package to the winner and other valuable prizes to all the final tablists.
PokerStars will also ensure that all the ladies have a good time away from the felt, with activities like a sparkling afternoon tea party and a Magic Mike Live show at the Hippodrome Theatre also scheduled during the Festival.
Win Your Way to Women’s Winter Festival
The first-ever Women’s Winter Festival is some two months away, but PokerStars is already offering opportunities to qualify for the Festival and book your seats at the Hippodrome early.
All ladies playing at PokerStars France, Spain, and Portugal will have an opportunity to exchange their Power Path Silver Passes for a Winter Festival package, which will include the buyin for the Main Event and travel expenses.
All players in the international .com market, on the other hand, will have plenty of chances to win their Women’s Winter Festival packages via satellite tournaments that are already running on the platform. These include daily Freebuy satellites with £0.11 rebuys, £1.1 and £11 feeder satellites, and £109 direct satellites with guaranteed £1,300 Women’s Winter Festival packages.
All players who win their packages via PokerStars satellites will earn a £400 Main Event entry, three night’s accommodations at the Z Hotel Nottingham Court Road for the duration of the Festival, and a £300 stipend for travel expenses.
PokerStars will also be hosting a variety of live satellites in several locations in the US, as well as a final £40 live qualifier at the Hippodrome on the first day of the festival, November 21, which will come with no rake or tournament fees involved.
This final satellite will include five Main Event seats added by PokerStars, another extra prize the operator is throwing into the prize pool to entice the ladies to join the action and make this the biggest ladies poker festival in the history of the game.
Winner of NAPT Women’s Event to Get Package to London Event
PokerStars are also giving the winner on the Women’s Event at the North American Poker Tour in Las Vegas a package to the Women’s Winter Festival.
The winner of the $330 buy-in Women’s Event that plays out on November 5 will receive a full package to the London event that includes:
- Entry to the Women’s Winter Festival Main Event.
- Return flights from US to London.
- Accommodation at the Z Hotel in London (November 21-25).
- Entry to the Women’s Closer freeroll which offers a package to EPT Prague.
PokerStars Leading the Way for Ladies in Poker
With the creation of the first-ever Women’s Winter Festival, PokerStars is once again demonstrating its dedication to helping poker grow among all demographics, including the female population.
The operator’s efforts in this regard have already been evident in the past, with events like the PokerStars x Poker Power Women’s Bootcamp being a part of the effort to bring more women into the game and make them feel welcome at the tables.
This time around, ladies from the UK and beyond will have a whole poker festival dedicated to them, giving them an opportunity to play in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere where they can thrive and fall in love with tournament poker.
The satellites are already running at PokerStars, and your opportunity to play in this year’s Women’s Winter Festival is at your fingertips, so join the action now and win your way to London for a fraction of the price over the coming weeks.
