Lisa Costello Wins World Poker Tour Ladies Championship At Wynn Las Vegas

The 2023 World Poker Tour Ladies Championship at Wynn Las Vegas $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em event drew a sizable field of 457 entries, easily surpassing the $250,000 guarantee to build a final prize pool of $443,290. After three days of tournament action, the largest share of that sum was awarded to Lisa Costello. She took home $85,297 for the win, the largest tournament score yet for the Las Vegas resident.

This was Costello’s 64th recorded in-the-money finish, with results dating back to 2011. This marquee victory increased her lifetime earnings to nearly $270,000.

“I actually used to play poker for years,” Costello told WPT reporter Tim Fiorvanti after coming out on top. “I played full-time for two years, five or six years ago. But in the last few years, I just haven’t played much at all. I haven’t had it in me to grind it out like I used to. But it’s great because now I get to pick and choose all the tournaments that I want to play, just like this one. And it’s a lot of fun.”

Costello overcame World Series of Poker Circuit ring winner Ashley Sleeth heads-up for the title.

“I just said to Ashley, ‘I’m probably going to retire.’ Isn’t that what everybody says at this point? No, I still love poker, and I’ll always play here and there. This was just pretty incredible today,” said Costello.

The final day of this event began with eight players remaining and Sleeth in the lead. Costello was third in chips when cards got in the air. Michelle Gibson (8th – $11,058) and Alida Veliu (7th – $15,128) were knocked out before the official six-handed live stream began. The first elimination under the bright lights and in front of the cameras saw Ada Lang’s pocket nines lose a race to the A-K of Chris Read. Lang took home $20,155 as the sixth-place finisher.

Costello scored her first knockout at the final table when her A-J held against the K-Q of Aylar Lie. Costello made aces up to drag the pot, while Lie headed home with $26,480.

Chris Read, who won a $500 Ladies event at The Lodge Poker Club earlier this year, lost a big flip with A-Q suited against the pocket nines of Sleeth. Read was left with just a handful of big blinds and was soon all-in with K-9 trailing the K-Q of Kathy Stahl. Read was unable to come from behind and was eliminated in fourth place ($34,220), adding to her more than $400,000 in career tournament earnings.

A classic preflop race spelled the end of Stahl’s run in this event. She got all-in with AK facing the JJ of Costello. The board ran out 105232. Stahl secured $43,686 as the third-place finisher, increasing her career earnings to nearly $210,000.

Heads-up play began with Costello holding 9,675,000 to Sleeth’s 4,050,000. Costello pulled further away in the early going, only for Sleeth to double up to get things more or less back to square one.

In the final hand Sleeth limped-shoved from the button with A10. Costello had raise-called with AQ. The board came down 976K5 and Costello’s superior ace high was enough to claim the pot and the title.

Sleeth was awarded a career-high payout of $57,069 as the runner-up. She now has more than $409,000 in total cashes to her name.

Here is a look at the payouts from the final table:

Photo credits: WPT / Hayley Hochstetler.

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