The secret to making the Women’s Winter Festival bloom
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It’s day one of the Women’s Winter Festival and organiser Kerryjane Craigie – KJ to everyone – hasn’t eaten. There’s always something distracting her, which makes colleagues and staff eager to feed her. A breakfast burger is rustled up from the casino kitchen, but even that must wait.
“I think, today, it’s mainly because it’s set up day,” she says, reappearing in the card room after multiple disappearances. “It’s just making sure everything is how it should be.”
Glitches had sprung up with typical bad timing. A problem with YouTube being one. There was also her insistence on the personal touch.
“It’s trying to be ‘Hello and friendly’. Lots of women want to hug me. And I want to hug them back because I really want to welcome everybody.”
KJ runs the show, living and breathing every second. Message her on WhatsApp and it says, ‘Dreaming of poker, working in poker, or playing poker’.
She knows how important this personal touch really is, especially at an event like this which will be the dawn of something big both for her, and many of the players filing in.
The Women’s Winter Festival has a huge guarantee (£100,000). There are 80 qualifiers in London for free, each full of expectation.
Wide awake like a kid at Christmas she was scrolling Facebook at 2.30am reading updates from players headed to London. Some boarding planes. For now, KJ runs on adrenaline rather than breakfast burgers.
DIFFERENT PLAYERS WITH DIFFERENT STORIES
Who were those players?
Kim Kilroy was one. From Ontario, she remembers playing live poker for the first time 30 years ago.
“I was on a trip with my husband to Las Vegas and staying at the MGM Grand,” she says.
Kim Kilroy
This time she made this trip with a friend and for a specific reason. “I came to support the women’s winter festival,” she said. “We’ve been walking around the city for three days.”
Beverley Nicholson started her poker career joining friends in local pub leagues. The friendly environment gave her confidence to move on to casinos.
Beverley Nicholson
But she did confess something, checking over her shoulder before saying: “To be honest I hate playing with other ladies,” she says. “I don’t know where I am. I’m so used to playing with guys.”
But a tournament with a £100K guarantee helped her overlook it. As did winning a package, which saved her a commute to London from her home in Norfolk.
Tournament staff welcomed Gemma Thomas and her husband like they were Hippodrome regulars. But this is Gemma’s first big event and she’s nervous as hell.
Gemma is from a card playing family and got her first glimpse of the poker at her local casino, where her mother worked as a croupier.
“My auntie used to play in Hull, in some tournaments. I used to go with her to that. I was always real nervous to play and I didn’t know what I was doing properly. I knew like hands and that sort of thing but I didn’t… understand poker properly. But I did really enjoy doing it. Even though I didn’t know what I was doing!”
Gemma Thomas
Gemma has had her share of issues but found poker within her efforts to turn her life around.
“I had like a spiritual awakening like about eight years ago or something, and then I started really focusing on my mind.”
Gemma quit drinking. Quit eating meat. And in her words changed her life around.
“I like questioning things… like ‘why am I thinking like this’? And then I started reading books [about it]. It sort of… helped me out, and I was like, healing myself. And then… I just started playing poker.”
Poker became something to turn to for stability.
She started with games on her phone. Then conquered her nervousness playing and winning in casinos. These results transformed poker into a side income for Gemma, alongside her catering business.
She won a package to London and switched things up a gear, intensifying her study of the game. But the main event still has her nerves on edge.
“I just want my nerves not to get in the way,” she says, worried about the mental aspect of the game more than anything. “Because I know I can get a bit flustered like, because it’s the mind again, and controlling your mind.”
“And if I just play where I’m like, happy with where I played… that… might be all right. I’ll be happy because if my nerves get in the way I’ll be like annoyed that that happened because um, yeah… I feel like I’m pretty good.”
KJ’s experiences were similar.
“My earliest memories of actually playing live was EPT London in 2009,” she says. “Up in a hotel on Edgeware Road. It was the women’s event and I was nervous as hell. And I made a mistake. I pushed my chips forward and said ‘all in’ but not at the same time, and three of my chips fell over the line.
“And there was some woman on the table who was very confident. And we’re friends now, it’s really strange. And she said ‘no, no, those chips went over before she said all-in’. That was before forward motion, and stuff like that.
“And the flop came down and I missed. And I checked and she went all-in. And I kind of deflated at the table because I was obviously committed myself.”
Rather than stop her, the game has since seeped into her bones.
“Every day is poker, “she says. “I’m not jaded… I still love it.”
KJ learned to play online while living in the US. She tells a story of how PokerStars really did change her life.
“When I came back to the UK, I was playing on PokerStars and it was when they used to [show] where you lived.
“And two other guys that were playing in a little sit and go tournament… I was chatting in the chat box… invited me along to a pub league in the town. And that was my first live poker. In the pub league.
“I have been with one of those chaps now for 16 years. We met on PokerStars, it’s just the most cliché!”
THE MESSAGE MOVING FORWARD
Since then, KJ has experienced almost every corner of the poker world.
She’s struggled as the newcomer, tackled EPTs and tournaments around the world. She’s taken charge as the Hippodrome’s Director of Poker and become a PokerStars Ambassador for Women. Few others have the same breadth of experience with which to deliver advice.
So, what would she say to women wanting to starting playing?
KJ addressing the tournament room at the Hippodrome
“The main thing is to find a Women’s Club, find a women’s group,” she says. “There’s lots of us on social media now. Go play in a pub league. Take baby steps and take your time so that each step is a step in confidence as well as ability. Don’t jump into a massive multi-day tournament. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone because that’s what’s going to happen there? If you don’t have a good experience, win, or lose, you’re gonna wait before you go back – if you go back.
“So, find like-minded people. And play with those in a little mini club or league or something before you go move on.”
SMASHING EXPECTATIONS
KJ didn’t have numbers-based expectations, although she wanted three tables for the first ever high roller (and got them). Above all she wanted something memorable for players.
She got it. The largest women’s poker tournament ever outside of Las Vegas.
“There was a strong sense of community here that we don’t see in every event,” said Tournament Director Nick O’Hara, expressing sentiments that came through in players feedback as well…
…it’s the best live event experience.
So proud to be part of history!!
Very well organised and fantastic atmosphere. Love it! Xx
Caitlyn Arnwine
The best package that I have ever won! The perks that came with it were brilliant, unexpected and awesome!
Everything was excellent, atmosphere, tournament. Can’t fault it!
I’ve had the best time. I will be back.
Laura Glasgow
It’s been awesome all round
Honestly the best event ever
Vanessa Kade
Whole team is amazing!
The winner was Maria Lampropulos, one of the most successful players in the game. The £20,000 she earned doesn’t come close to the million she won for the PCA title in 2018, but it is sometimes about more than money.
Women’s Winter Festival Champion Maria Lampropulos
Runner up Ann-Roos Callens
In second place was Ann-Roos Callens. One of those qualifiers in town for just a few pounds.
“I want them to be able to play some great poker, feel comfortable, recognise that we have a place in the table,” says KJ. “Not make it about anything negative. Just a truly positive experience.”
She got that too.
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