Man Wins WPT Ladies Only Event and Sparks Twitter Frenzy

07:45
03 May

Another Ladies event on the schedule to bring more women into the game and, whaddya know, another male enters to make a point/be an asshole/just because he could, depending on your view – but this time the transgressor actually won the tournament.

David Hughes, a 70-year-old, white, male Florida player, decided to gatecrash the $250 buy-in ladies’ event at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

Florida law doesn’t allow the casino to bar males from what was planned as a female-only event and for some reason the ‘WSOP-style’ answer of forcing men to pay 10x the buy-in wasn’t in force.

Hughes not only caused a stir, but also walked off with the $5,555 first prize, despite – or some feel perhaps aided by – a Bounty put on his head by ACR pro Ebony Kenney and others.

According to Kenney, the “nice guy façade” Hughes put on was dropped when he found his 6-1 heads-up chip lead against Dayanna Ciabaton whittled down.

Hughes “asked for the $100 back he contributed for his bounty,” says Kenney, adding:

“He’s now down 3-1 in chips and has talked completely disrespectfully to the dealer. Nice guy façade has crumbled.”

Hughes recovered from his chip deficit to win the tournament, much to the chagrin of Jamie Kerstetter, among others.

Matt Glantz then entered the affray and his tweet sent the discussion in a whole new direction...

Transgender poker player Ariel Heart responded:

“This is a disgusting take That shows your ignorance on this topic that you've shown time and time again. Is the same people applauding this guy winning Are the ones who were threatening me with physical harm if I decided to show up at the event at coconut creek.”

Glantz had previously riled the community by mockingly self-identifying as a woman, and wasn’t about to back down this time either.

Meanwhile, Hughes apparently wasn’t finished playing poker, and had his eyes on more ladies’ events, Kenney eventually accepting the obvious...

Although there will doubtless be more such occurrences of me entering and occasionally even winning women-only events, for now we’ll give the final word to poker’s Pocket Queens...