$125 + $20 + $20 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 12: Blinds 800/1,600/200 ante
36 players remaining, 57k avg (36 bb)

(ladies l-r) Hastings, Martini, Wolak & Johnson

With the field down to 36 players, its surprising that 7 women remain. Not because they aren’t good players, but because of shear numbers.

There are no hard statistics on percentage of women that make up open tournament fields across the country, but the generally accepted number is somewhere around 5% (The WSOP recently reported that in it’s World Series schedule women make up 2-4% of the fields)

The fact that nearly 20% of today’s remaining players are women is impressive in one of two ways. There was either an unusually high number of women in today’s field, or most of the women who entered are still playing.  Either one is great for the game.

Four of the women, Kelli Hastings (Orlando), Amie Martini (Tampa), Marsha Wolak (Ft. Lauderdale) and Suzette Johnson (Trinity) are all on the same table, while Vicky Renfrow (Palm Coast), Rina Cross (Wesley Chapel) and Pat Gigante (Port Charlotte) are split up on the other three tables.

Most of the women have healthy stacks, accept Gigante who is nursing a short stack.

****5:15 pm Update****

Gigante, one of the early chip leaders, busted.