At the Ladies Event of the World Series of Poker, Vanessa Hellebuyck of France won her first bracelet and a prize of $192,000. Despite the uproarious applause of what seemed liked every French man or woman in Las Vegas, Vanessa's win barely registered a peep compared to the media coverage of the dozen men who took their legal right to play in the "Ladies' Event" seriously.

Women's poker tournaments have a great atmosphere. Daniel Negreanu called it "electric!" We compliment each other's clothes and handbags, offer each other gum and lip-balm, and spend the first three levels set-mining and waiting for aces. Except of course if Shaun Deeb is on our right in which case we three-bet him until his mascara, applied by none other than Liv Boeree, drips and he changes his mind, decides that drag is uncool and women's poker tournaments are just wrong.

The poker blogosphere hosted a war of words between Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu on the Ladies WSOP. I have written before about why I like Ladies' Poker Events (their value and the camaraderie are my top two reasons), so I combed through numerous blogs and hundreds of 2+2 comments on the Shaun Deeb debacle. The noise included sonnets, in-depth and insightful legal arguments, as well as misogynistic rants and simplistic arguments and some thought provoking points of view.

Animosity toward women in our culture is not always as obvious as claiming that women are stupid, or that women can't play poker or chess. Misogyny can take a more convoluted form like when instead of celebrating Vanessa Hellebuyck's win or discussing the final table play, the Ladies WSOP discussion revolves around the dozen or so men who played, or the one man who used a tampon as a card protector. So I'm going to stop talking about all that, and describe some poker.

The Ladies WSOP, like last year's was not particularly eventful for me. The structure is shallow—we start with 3000 chips and 25/25 blinds. The most I got up to was about 4500 chips but that was quickly depleted when antes began. In the end, I shoved A-3o from the cutoff with a miserably low chip count (M of about 5), and busted out when A-Qo in the big blind called. I was still happy with my expected value in the event, as players would routinely put the majority of their stack into the pot, only to fold after tanking. Unfortunately I never got a good spot to take advantage of this. But as I said on my latest Woman's Poker Hour show with Amy Zupko, "When you have 80 per cent of your stack in the pot, it's not the time to use women's intuition.

The Ladies Event final table was fun to watch. The aggressive players who stood out besides Vanessa Hell, as she calls herself on facebook, were La Sengphet, Sidsil Boesen and Dr. Kami Chimsolm. One of the most interesting final-tablists was the fashionable Timmi Derosa, who ended up in third place.

I actually played with Derosa at my first table so I have some back-story for you. Derosa, who is engaged to professional player Lee Watkinson told us about a hand she played with another famous poker pro's girlfriend, who we will henceforth call "The Blonde." Heads-up against Derosa, The Blonde made a bet on the flop, (possibly a standard continuation bet but Timmi didn't tell us all the details of the hand) and when Derosa folded, The Blonde showed her a bluff. Derosa went on a tirade (as in, Derosa was still talking about it when I got KO-ed an hour later) about how mean this was. By contrast, when a woman tanked and eventually folded despite great pot odds on a king high board with two clubs, Derosa told her (but did not show) that she had A-K of clubs and said, "I'm so glad you folded because I didn't want to see you get knocked out of the tournament." Of course everyone at the table had to cover their mouths to prevent from cracking up, and I chatted with the Russian girl to my right about how funny it would be to show Derosa a bluff. Honestly, I would not have gone through with it, since I desire no mortal enemies and it's evil to show bluffs in tournaments, especially when stacks are shallow.

I was reminded again of this story when Derosa made a big move at the final table, which eliminated her in third place and played a large role in Vanessa Hellebuyck eventually taking down the event.

The action summary is from pokernews.com:

Sidsel Boesen folded from the button, and Timmi Derosa completed from the small blind. Vanessa Hellebuyck then raised to 100,000 from the big blind, and Derosa made the call.

The flop came {5-Clubs}{3-Diamonds}{9-Diamonds}. Derosa bet 100,000, and Hellebuyck called.

The turn was the {6-Hearts}, and this time Derosa announced she was all in for her remaining 651,000. A big moment, and big decision for Hellebuyck, who had Derosa well covered, though to lose the hand would change the complexion of this final table considerably.

While Derosa looked down silently at the felt, Hellebuyck sat back and exhaled. Finally -- after three solid minutes in the tank -- she very quietly leaned forward and said "I call."

Can you guess what Timmi's hand was?

Q-Jh for overcards. Vanessa had 6-7d for a pair, a gutshot and a flush draw. She avoided a queen or a jack on the river, Timmi was out and now Vanessa had a huge chip lead over Danish pro, Sidsel Boesen. She won a race shortly thereafter and took down the gold bracelet. Congratulations to Vanessa!

While in Vegas, I also covered the Las Vegas International Chess Festival for Chess Life Online. But even miles off the strip at the South Point Hotel, the chess tournament site, you couldn't escape the pokerati. Allen Cunningham was playing in an amateur section, and won $181. For the five-time bracelet winner, his prize may only be good enough for an ante, but the pressure will soon rise. Allen is preparing for a high stakes chess match against Howard Lederer. Howard hasn't played for decades, but he used to be a strong "Class A" chess player, so it will be an interesting match.

I also got into the chess action and played what I think is the first ever chesspoker heads-up battle against Brandon Lee, a former chessplayer turned poker pro that I ran into at  the Rio. (An illustrated story on this is imminent on jennifershahade.com.)

My time at the World Series ended with an inspiring private lesson with poker professional Vanessa Rousso. I won the Big Slick Boot Camp sponsored lesson by winning a freeroll a couple months ago here on Woman Poker Player Magazine.  I have much more to say about the lesson and will cover it in a separate article. But I will say that the lesson left me with the taste of aces on my tongue. Despite my disappointing experience at the Ladies WSOP, I felt excited to play poker again.