Yesterday we wrote history here in Tallinn as the first ever women's only poker festival kicked off at Hilton Park and Olympic Casino. No one has ever tried this before, but the long-experienced tournament guru and Swedish Poker Hall of Famer Christer Larsson said after this was announced during WSOP in September that it was time for something like this to give back to all the amazing women out there and create something extraordinary just for them. And he surely succeeded together with his weapon bearer Teresa Nousiainen and her world-class staff.
Christer Larsson
Teresa and poker professional Davia Byrne
The evening started with a meet and greet for the ladies, or should I say queens, with some champagne and mingling down at the casino before the opening tournament started at 7 pm. That was a €100 No Limit Hold’em Deep Stack.
We didn’t really know what to expect but I don’t think anyone would have thought the turnout of this event would land on an astonishing 61 entries in total. After the first break, Christer and Teresa gave them all a warm welcome and also showed the fabulous necklaces every winner of each event would receive. It was then followed by a big round of applause by the players.
Amanda Harkim and her friends is here to compete in Queens of Tallinn
I didn’t really know what I expected the tournament to be, but I must say that this is the friendliest and funniest tournament I ever covered in my entire career, and I've been doing this for almost 20 years now. I’ve never seen so many laughs and smiling faces in a tournament ever before so my expectations for the rest of this festival are huge.
The 61 entries created a prize pool of €4,874 to play for with the top seven getting paid. The field surely was dominated by Finns and home soil players here from Estonia and so they were when it was time for the final table.
Around three in the morning, the final nine players gathered to play for the big bucks and obviously, the wonderful silver necklace specially made for the winners here.
Going into the final table Finland's Katrin Rajasalu had the largest stack but with this being a deep stack tournament there was still anyone's game. Even for Leone Kala who started the final table with one big blind. And she managed to double up a couple of times but eventually bubbled in eighth place leaving the remaining seven in the money.
As soon as the bubble burst our favorite entertainer in the tournament Anne Bezdek asked if they shouldn’t just split the prize money, but the others didn’t seem to be up for it and the play resumed for another two hours before it was all over. With three players left, all from Finland, Anne, Riitta Sahala, and Katrin Rajasalu agreed to make a deal giving each player €1,000 and €434 to play for. And then it went pretty quickly until Riitta Sahala took down the tournament after beating Katrin Rajasalu heads-up.
A huge congratulations to Riita for the victory and all seven players who made the money in this first event.
Queens of Tallinn Event #1 - €100 NLHE Deepstack results:
Place | Name | Country | Prize |
1 | Riita Sahala | Finland | €1,434 |
2 | Katrin Rajasalu | Finland | €1,000 |
3 | Anne Bezdek | Finland | €1,000 |
4 | Kristi Kirs | Estonia | €500 |
5 | Emmi Juutilainen | Finland | €380 |
6 | Hannele Lerviks Soile | Finland | €310 |
7 | Vita Veidemane | Latvia | €250 |
The opening event of the historical festival for women only here in Queens of Tallinn had an astonishing 61 entries in total creating a prize pool of €4,874 in total. They just reached the final table in the tournament as the clock passed three in the morning. A total of seven players get paid.
Among the players who entered the field we had notable names such as Lithuanian poker professional Daiva Byrne and the always very sweet and funny former miss Finland Sara Chafak.
The final table seat draw:
Seat | Name | Chips | Country |
1 | Anne Bezdek | 120,000 | Finland |
2 | Emmi Juutilainen | 225,000 | Finland |
3 | Leone Kala | 100,000 | Estonia |
4 | Kristi Kirs | 10,000 | Estonia |
5 | Ekaterina Kovaleva | 160,000 | Estonia |
6 | Hannele Lerviks Soile | 215,000 | Finland |
7 | Katrin Rajasalu | 410,000 | Finland |
8 | Liisa Sahala | 240,000 | Finland |
9 | Vita Veidemane | 302,000 | Latvia |
Event #1 NLH Deep Stack Opening Event - Prize pool:
Place | Name | Country | Prize |
1 | €1,664 | ||
2 | €1,060 | ||
3 | €710 | ||
4 | €500 | ||
5 | €380 | ||
6 | €310 | ||
7 | €250 |
I've been in this industry for 20 years and have been waiting for something like this and I can tell by the hype this poker festival has created I’m certainly not the only one either.
Today a new era of poker is written into the history books as Queens of Tallinn is about to start. A festival dedicated to women in poker and you will be able to read all about it here in the blog from start to finish. We will give you chip counts, results, pictures, and some great stories from this fabulous festival that will take place at the Olympic Casino and Hilton Park with the game starting on December 1st but first everyone is invited to a meet and greet with the organization behind this fantastic festival.
One of the queens coming to Tallinn and playing in this festival is Sara Chafak who made herself a big name on the European Poker Tour and Shark Cage where she pulled off one of the best bluffs in poker history and gave us a show. We know Sara and she will most likely give us that over this weekend too as the fantastic ambassador she is for the game of poker. another highly notable name is Lithuanian player Daiva Byrne who has been crushing the game for years and has an astonishing $228,651 in tournament winnings.