The first-ever WPT Ladies Championship is just hours away from crowning a champion and the final table includes an eclectic mix of fresh and familiar faces.
Lina Niu, of Edmonton, Alberta, leads the final six players with 5,565,000. She’s one of an army of women who made the trip specifically to play the $1,100 buy-in Ladies Championship and contributed to the $560,660 prize pool.
“It’s been amazing. It’s been a grind. It’s been exciting. I’m so happy to be (at the final table),” Niu said. “I just came here to play the Ladies event, but I was going to jump into the Mystery Bounty event, but now I won’t have to, so that’s exciting.”
Niu is fresh off of a fifth place finish in a $1,650 buy-in event at Casino Yellowhead in her hometown.
Not far behind her is Ukrainian Olga Iermolcheva with 5,065,000. Iermolcheva has $372,359 in lifetime earnings, including a fourth place finish in Venetian DeepStack event this past summer for $95,494.
Kathy Liebert sits third with 2.34 million. Regardless of where she finishes in this event, she will have pulled off a rare tri-fecta, having cashed in the WPT Prime Championship, the WPT World Championship, and the WPT Ladies Championship.
Cindy Spier is just 110,000 behind Liebert is Cindy Spier with 2,230,000.
Jamie Kerstetter bagged the second-smallest stack of the final six players with 1,405,000 but after a whirlwind day was excited to be moving on to Day 3. Kerstetter started the day hosting the Ladies Meet-Up Game inside the Wynn Poker Room before returning to the tournament area to begin Day 2. This final table marks the first time that Kerstetter has made a final table that will be broadcast on television.
The short stack belongs to Dusti Smith with 680,000. Action resumes on Sunday at 4 pm PT with blinds of 20,000/40,000 with a 40,000 big blind ante meaning Smith has 17 big blinds.
Fans can watch the final table livestream beginning at 4:30 pm PT on the World Poker Tour Twitch channel.