To say that there’s a drought among female winners at the WSOP is an understatement. In fact, the last woman to win an open-entry WSOP tournament came in 2008, when Vanessa Selbst won a $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event. Maria Ho came close to ending this drought last year when she finished runner-up to Allen Bari in a 2011 WSOP $5,000 NLHE tournament – but again, no dice.
So it’s no surprise that plenty of people were excited when Amanda Musumeci made a deep run in the recent 2012 WSOP Event #9. The Philadelphia native burst onto the poker scene last year when she made a deep run in the 2011 Main Event; she ended up finishing 62nd and earning $130,997. So many poker fans were already well aware of Musumeci by the time the Event #9 final table rolled around.
Unfortunately for her, Ashkan Razavi was busy steam-rolling opponents at the final table, and by the time he and Musumeci met heads-up, he had built over a 6:1 chip advantage on her. She managed to make things entertaining by doubling up at one point and prolonging the heads-up match for a while; however, it wasn’t enough as Musumeci finished in second with a sizable $481,643 prize.
Seeing as how she was runner-up, this signifies another miss for the ladies when it comes to open WSOP tournaments. Of course, things aren’t over by a long shot for the women because there are still 50 bracelet events left to be played, which leaves them with plenty of time to end the dry spell.
As for Musumeci, there’s no reason to be sad because she’s proven to be quite the grinder over the past year. In between her 62nd Main Event finish and the 2nd place finish in the 2012 WSOP, she managed to cash in 15 different tournaments – including eight WSOP Circuit events. Taking all of this into account, she’s now earned $748,223 in career tournament winnings.