The PokerStars Ladies’s Summer season Pageant that happened in London, UK this previous week has wrapped. PokerStars Ambassador and Chess Grandmaster Jen Shahade was in attendance supporting the occasion — and ended up taking down the Primary Occasion for £22,200.
The occasion happened between August 12 and 17 on the Clermont, Charing Cross, that includes a wealthy event schedule, with the deal with the £100,000-guaranteed Primary Occasion. The occasion fell in need of its £100,000 assure, creating an overlay and additional worth for the gamers of round £30,000.
“There’s such an unbelievable ambiance at this event”, stated Shahade by way of a press launch. “It was such a pleasure to play and be right here, not to mention win the factor! I’m thrilled, however extra enthusiastic about seeing increasingly more ladies fall in love with the sport.”
The summer season pageant follows on from the debut Winter Ladies’s Pageant that happened again in November of final yr at London’s Hippodrome On line casino. The occasion cemented PokerStars’ dedication to creating inclusive environments for all followers of the sport and significantly ladies.
“The Ladies’s Solely Primary Occasion is to allow and encourage ladies to take part in reside poker video games with aspirational outcomes,” PokerStars Ambassador and Director of Poker on the Hippodrome On line casino Kerryjane Craige stated again in 2024. Craigie can also be the architect behind the occasion, spearheaded the initiative from the beginning. “The eye to each element of this four-day pageant has been superb to be a part of, and I consider we now have hit the mark. We’ve got constructed an occasion across the viewers — now I’m hoping they’ll come.”
Jen Shahade Headlines a New Period of Progress in Ladies’s Poker
That hope has now been powerfully realized. Simply months later, PokerStars Ambassador Jen Shahade captured the title on the Ladies’s Summer season Pageant, additional underlining how rapidly the ladies’s recreation has grown in each dimension and stature.
Figures launched by PokerStars spotlight simply how outstanding the enlargement has been. Ladies-only reside tournaments have seen total attendance rise by 49% prior to now two years, whereas flagship stops have posted record-breaking surges. On the Irish Open ladies’s occasion, participation jumped 116% between 2023 and 2024, with one other 20% carry this yr. Different standout will increase included NAPT Las Vegas (up 94%), EPT Monte-Carlo (up 51%), EPT Prague (up 33%), and EPT Cyprus (up 31%).
The devoted Winter Ladies’s Pageant and now the Summer season Pageant have acted as milestones, however the ripple impact runs a lot deeper. Ladies are coming into mixed-field occasions at unprecedented ranges, reshaping the aggressive steadiness. At EPT Prague, feminine participation climbed 40% from 2023 to 2024, whereas EPT Monte-Carlo noticed an 18.75% enhance this yr. Tour stops together with Eureka and FPS have additionally reported sturdy upward developments, pointing to a sustained and widespread cultural shift throughout international reside poker.
Shahade’s victory symbolizes the momentum behind this motion — one that’s not solely drawing greater fields, but additionally fostering long-term pathways for girls to compete on the very highest ranges of the sport.
PokerStars management additionally framed the expansion in broader phrases, emphasizing not simply attendance information however the goal behind them. “PokerStars has all the time believed within the energy of poker to rework lives,” stated Lizzie Wilson, PokerStars Advertising Communications Supervisor.
She added that the sport is more and more acknowledged as a strategy to “construct confidence, decision-making expertise, and resilience, qualities that reach far past the felt.” For Wilson, the pageant’s vibrant ambiance was proof that the sport is evolving — and that PokerStars “is proud to be main the cost to a extra inclusive future.”
What’s Subsequent on the PokerStars Reside Calendar
Though the London occasion has wrapped, there’s loads of PokerStars Reside motion arising.
Fan favourite European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona has gotten underway within the Spanish metropolis, which is all the time a crowd pleaser. EPT Barcelona runs till August 31 with a packed schedule of occasions for gamers to sink their tooth into, each on and off the felt. On the felt highlights embrace the €5,300 Primary Occasion, €100k Tremendous Excessive Curler, and Spin & Go Championship Reside. The Spin & Go Championship options 81 certified gamers competing in a fast-paced, three-handed format and makes its reside debut.
Together with worldwide occasions schedule after the summer season, we’re taking a look at you EPT Malta, a few of the most fun occasions will happen within the US. As an illustration, October will welcome PokerStars Open Maryland for the primary time. The reside debut of PokerStars Open Maryland will happen October 19 to 26 at Reside! On line casino & Lodge Maryland.
The complete schedule has but to be launched however highlights embrace a brand new event, which is a single-day thriller bounty event with a sports activities betting twist known as the Sunday Sweat and a $2,200 Excessive Curler.
Persevering with with the corporate’s emphasis on Ladies in Poker, the PokerStars Open model is as soon as once more that includes a $300 Ladies’s Occasion, mirroring the buy-in of the women-only occasion that ran earlier this yr at PokerStars Open Philadelphia.
After the Maryland occasion completed, the North American Poker Tour will happen in November with two ladies’s occasion on the docket as a part of the whole 48 occasions that can run. There can be a $330 Ladies’s occasion on November 9 that can function a $50,000 assure and a $1,100 Ladies’s Excessive Curler will observe on November 10 with out a assure.
The NAPT runs November 3 to 12, 2025.
