While poker is played throughout the world, there are few organized ladies poker teams. In Croatia, a relatively small country where poker is just starting to develop on a wider scale, a women's competitive poker team was recently founded. The Pokerica Ladies team was started by three women who all enjoy poker, and play part-time. They met each other through playing poker and soon found that encouraging more ladies to get into the game was a goal they all shared. As well as all being members of Pokerica.net, all three women play regulary in croatian casinos and they have made some respectable results. With support from their colleagues and poker players in Pokerica.net - The Pokerica Ladies Team introduced themselves in January.

Zeljka Pencinger loves to play Hold'em and PLO, both live and online. She played many final tables at local live tournaments and won several low buy-in online tournaments. Playing in casinos, she noticed that only three girls (including herself) were regular players there, so she came up with an idea of forming a ladies team which would promote poker to women and try to encourage them to play.

Zeljka Pencinger, Sonja Kovac, and Hana Soljan - Founds of the Pokerica Ladies Team

Among her many talents, Sonja Kovac, who is a well known croatian actress, has played several final tables. She believes that her experience with acting will help her to excel at poker.

Hana Soljan manages to find time between studying to play poker. Last year she ranked third at The Croatian Series of Poker league, and came up second at a humanitarian tour. This year, she won one of the biggest tournaments held last year in Croatia (Pokerica Cezar Main Event). As another jewel in her 'Croatian Poker Queen' crown, a few weeks ago she won a three month long Cezar Poker League, in a tough (mainly male) competition of around 250 players.

In Croatia, the majority of the general public still views poker as pure gambling and not as a game of knowledge and skill. It has not been a simple quest for these women to encourage more females in poker. One step they have undertaken, is to create a ladies night for poker and the participation in these games has been steadily increasing over the past four tournaments they have held. They also moderate a ladies section on the Pokerica forum, where they try to inspire and motivate other women. One of their members, Andreja Begic-Fazlic, made a remarkable great result in a Double Douce tournament at Full Tilt Poker. She ranked 4th and won $11000. A great return from her investment of a $2 satellite win.

In the future, along with expanding ladies poker in Croatia,  the Pokerica Ladies Team are hoping to get a chance to have their members participate in other ladies events throughout the world. I'm sure we will be hearing much more from them.

photo credits:  Tomislav Dolenec