POKERSTARS Pro KerryJane Craigie admitted the success of the Women’s Winter Festival was ‘overwhelming’.
KerryJane – the director of poker at London’s Hippodrome Casino – has been a key figurehead in getting more women into poker.
She was recently announced as a new PokerStars Pro, allowing her a greater reach with the backing of a huge organisation to put her theories into practice.
So seeing every seat filled in a women’s only event, at her own place of work, was unquestionable a memorable sight.
In fact, it broke the record for the largest women’s poker tournament field held outside the USA. A total of 270 players took part in the £400 buy-in, £10,000 guaranteed Main Event.
The event is a certainty to stay and it’s potentially one that could be taken on the road in years to come.
And despite this being a vision come true, both PokerStars are KerryJane know it’s not the end of their goal, but merely a strong start.
She told Poker.org: “When we discovered we’d broken the record it was almost overwhelming.
“We had a room full of women that were just enjoying themselves, playing poker, talking. There were no phones out, no heads down, no hoodies, and it was joyous.
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“There was so much laughter and that continued through every day.
“It has been almost like ‘build it and they will come’, but I know that there’s so many more players out there that haven’t been able to make it for one reason or another. I need a bigger boat!”
Given its success, KerryJane is adamant this is the start of something special, hailing the ‘immense support’ PokerStars has given her, while insisting hitting the correct pricing point made it attractive to players.
The worldwide PokerStars appeal will only help that and KerryJane believes there’s a massive mix of women they’re yet to reach.
She added: “I’ve always been a champion for women in poker, and being given the opportunity and the support from PokerStars has been immense.
“They gave me a blank piece of paper, so we literally sat in a room and thought ‘Okay, what should we do?’ And, after the first day, we were like, ‘Okay, so what do we do next?’”
“The price point was something that we discussed considerably. I think we got it right, because we filled the room. We’ve had every seat filled, other than the flight A, but we still hit the number that we were looking for, so I think we got the price point right.
“I think we’ve created a brand, a sub-brand. We’ve created something special, and there’s still this massive mix of people and women that we haven’t reached, like Central Europe because of the restrictions with online satellites.
“But we’ve got people from Canada, Brazil, America, they’ve come on their own buck, which is awesome and I can only see this growing.”
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