Male Poker Pro Pays $10,000 To Enter $1,000 Buy-In Ladies Event At 2016 WSOPMiami's Tony Roberto Entered Because Of Prop Bets |
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Prior to the start of the 2013 World Series of Poker, tournament officials decided to make the annual Ladies Event a $10,000 buy-in, with women getting a $9,000 discount, in order to dissuade men from entering.
The move was applauded by the poker community.
According to the WSOP at the time, they couldn’t ban men outright, but the discount based on gender was within Nevada gaming law. The strategy worked. However, a man did decide to enter this year, which is presumed to be the first time a man put up the $10,000 to play what is a $1,000 for everyone else.
That player was Tony Roberto, a Florida-based poker pro with nearly $2 million in lifetime tournament earnings. Roberto said he entered not because of the $745,200 prize pool, but rather because he stood to make thousands in side action.
“It was a mixture of prop bets, losing a bet and my stake horse having a sick and twisted sense of humor,” Roberto told Card Player. “I had a lot of upside if I bagged, but I did not.”
Roberto said that he would have won anywhere from $10,000-$25,000 if he bagged and tagged his chips for day two. The amount was dependent on his chip stack.
“I had a blast,” he said. “Doing [triple Grey Goose and Red Bull drinks] at noon was great. The table I was at was nice. Every new player gave me a face, so I said politely, ‘Get all the jokes and dirty looks out now so we don’t have to do it all day, and it worked wonders.”
Poker pro Karina Jett was at Roberto’s table for part of the day (July 8), and she said that she “can’t get mad at [Roberto] for putting $10,000 into the prize pool.”
According to Roberto, the fact that the tournament wasn’t deep-stacked in the later levels meant that play was “pretty straight forward.” In other words, he didn’t feel like he had a target on his back for being the only man in a 819-player field.
“I could end up playing next year,” Roberto said.
The 2016 Ladies Event was still running as of early Saturday evening, with Amanda Musumeci, Mandy Baker, Vanessa Selbst, Ebony Kenney and Marie-Lizette Acoba among the 30 or so remaining. All the women were playing for the $149,108 top prize.
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