This Monday, in the early hours of the morning—around 3am PT, to be exact—I won my first ever World Series of Poker bracelet. It was in an online WSOP event, the $888 Crazy Eights, in a field of 468 players, after almost ten and a half hours of play.
I know people tend to look down on online bracelets as somehow less real than ones won on the live felt. And I know that 468 players—well, 464, if I’m being honest, since four of those entries were my own—is far fewer than the several thousand that most summer live events routinely get. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud and happy. I’d been working hard for multiple years to get here, not knowing if any gold bracelet, live or online, was ever in my future. And it felt incredible to finally make it happen.
When I woke up later that day, I was still slightly delirious—it’s hard to sleep with all of that adrenaline!)—but very happy. After first taking up poker in 2017 for The Biggest Bluff, I’d done it! I’d finally won a bracelet! I decided I would spend a few hours reviewing my play, run a few sims, and then write a piece for my readers about the whole experience. I’d talk about my decision making during the run-up to the win, reflect on mindset, and dissect a few pivotal hands. It was a solid plan. And then I checked Twitter.
Before going to sleep, I had posted a photo of my win—the same one you see above. There was an outpouring of support and congratulations; it made we feel incredibly lucky to be part of such a great community. And then there was the other reaction. The reaction that decided to take this moment to use me as an example of…well, I’m not quite sure. Everything wrong with tournament poker these days, I think it is.
The poster child (man?) for this response: Norman Chad, WSOP announcer for the last however many years. I’m not actually sure what his official title is, but he does the WSOP broadcasts with Lon McEachern. And, even though he has never met me, he apparently has Many Issues with my win (not to throw shade or anything).
According to Mr. Chad, I committed two cardinal sins. First, I dared to play online. The horror of having to be in a particular location to play poker! It’s completely unfair to people who are not, currently, in that location. Can you imagine having to physically be in a place to play for it to count? This seems totally ludicrous, does it not? This is not how poker should be.
Get this. As Mr. Chad points out, to play in the event I won, you apparently had to be in one of three states. New Jersey, Michigan, or Nevada. This is clearly bonkers and completely unlike the real WSOP. Where you have to be in one state—actually, in one very specific location, Las Vegas—in order to play. Oh, wait.
Sin number two (and this is the horror of all horrors): I dared to rebuy. In a rebuy event. Now, we can get into the merits of freezeout events versus rebuys (and I’ve spoken before about the merits of freezeouts; I’m a fan!). But when an event is a rebuy, you…rebuy. Or not, if you decide not to – and believe me, there are plenty of rebuy events where I decide I’m done after one bullet. This time, though, I fired the maximum number of bullets allowed, three re-buys for a total of four bullets. Not ideal, but perfectly legitimate. You play the game, by the rules of the game.
Did I want to rebuy? Of course not! I wanted to coast to the finish line on one beautiful entry. I try to play every bullet as if it were my only one, making the best decisions I possibly can and hoping that the cards go my way. It would have been wonderful to fire a single time, for $888, and make it through the re-entry period with my stack intact. But then I was dealt pocket jacks. I know, I know. You get jacks, you fold. But I didn’t. I called. And my opponent had kings. And I busted. Had this been a freezeout, I probably would have folded my ha…oh, wait, no. I would have played it the exact same way and said a sad gg when it didn’t work out.
But this was a re-entry. So I rebought. And you know what happened the second time? I had jacks! Did I learn, reader? I did not. Again, I found myself all in for my 18 or so big blinds. Surely, it couldn’t happen twice. But what did my opponent have, dear reader? Pocket kings! I know, right? There went the second bullet. Again, had this been my only remaining bullet, I clearly would have fol…oh, wait, no. I would have played it the same exact way.
Luckily, I still had two bullets remaining. Because this was a tournament with three re-entries possible. I honestly don’t remember bullet 3; it was a very quick one. I can look it up in my tournament history, but I’m in the middle of a rant—I mean, post—here, so that will have to wait. And it was on my last possible bullet that I finally made it through. Lucky for me, because otherwise, that would have been a gg for good. Again, would it have been sweeter without those extra bullets—and better for my wallet? Yup, absolutely. But I was prepared to fire the four times I was allowed to if I had to. And I did.
One of the first lessons Erik Seidel taught me as I entered the world of poker was proper bankroll management. I was not allowed to play an event if I couldn’t comfortably afford it—no matter how much I wanted to. Back then, it meant I couldn’t play the $125 daily at Aria even though I really, really, really wanted to play at Aria. Because it was above my bankroll. It was only after winning repeatedly at lower buy-ins that I finally got a chance to enter that coveted event.
To this day, I keep a precise account of my poker budget, and before any series, I write out a full schedule, complete with the maximum number of bullets I can fire in any given event, and I stick to it no matter what happens. Not once have I gone above my allocated bullets, even if, according to tournament rules, I could fire more than I did.
Last month, I took fifth place in the €3,000 Mystery Bounty at EPT Barcelona. That event, unlike the $888 bracelet event, was in fact unlimited re-entry. Fire away! But a €3,000 buy-in is quite expensive. I had budgeted two bullets. Had I busted both, that would have been it, no matter how enticing the prize pool, because that’s what bankroll management means. Luckily, I got through on one single entry. I didn’t even have to go to bullet number two. But this is what bankroll management means: you understand the rules of the events you’re playing, and then you make choices based on your own personal circumstances.
For the Mystery Bounty, I had two bullets. But I have played non-freezeout events that were freezeouts for me because I couldn’t even afford a second one. That was a choice I made because I wanted to take a shot—like I did in this summer’s WSOP series, when I entered the $25,000 event. I knew that most players there were quite prepared to fire their second bullet, just as I knew that I never could. When I lost a flip before we were in the money, did I wish I could fire again? Sure. Of course I did. Did I resent those that could? Not at all. I knew I was taking a shot, and I took it. They weren’t cheating. They weren’t doing anything wrong. They were playing the game, by the rules of the game. Did I regret playing? Again, absolutely not. It was invaluable experience, and I hope to be able to repeat it—with, hopefully, better results.
One can debate the merits of re-entries versus freezeouts. And one can debate the merits of online bracelets or the proliferation of bracelet events. These are conversations worth having! I’ve had them myself. And we should continue working towards a reality that feels like the best version of tournament poker. But there is a time and a place for those debates—and in the meantime, you play the game. And you don’t hate on the players.
I recently rewatched the first few episodes of Game of Thrones. In one, the wonderful Peter Dinklage, aka Tyrion Lannister, visits the famed Wall that guards the Seven Kingdoms. As he tells Benjen Stark how impressed he has been by his visit, he says, “But…” And Benjen interrupts him. “My brother once told me that nothing someone says before the word ‘but’ really counts,” he counters. And, indeed, it does not—as Tyrion then demonstrates by essentially negating all of his praise. You know what words most reliably signal that great offense is about to be given? I don’t mean to offend, but… You can be sure that whatever is coming next is a nasty as it gets.
So let me just say this: Norman Chad absolutely did want to throw shade on me. Otherwise, why single me out, why tag me, why the personal touch in that final bit of prose? She ran out of chips. She re-entered. She ran out of chips again. And on and on.
I’ve never met Norman Chad. I don’t know what he has against me. But it’s definitely something. I am far from the only bracelet winner to rebuy—indeed, I happen to know that multiple winners of this online series in the last few weeks rebought multiple times. But I am the only one who he has chosen to single out. And the only way I stand out from the others—or from most of the live winners this summer, as most events are re-buys and the freezeout format is a rare breed—is a simple one. I’m female.
As far as I know, I’m the first female online winner since Krissy Foxen won this exact event, the online $888 Crazy 8s, one year ago, in September 2023. During the 2024 WSOP this summer, no female won an open event. At WSOP Europe, we finally had a single female victor, Vivian Saliba, in the €2,000 PLO (congrats, Vivian! beautifully done!). That’s three women winning WSOP bracelets in open events in over a year. And online, this WSOP season, I am alone. And I am the one who is called out by name.
Krissy, incidentally, also rebought on her way to victory. I know this not because it’s public information—rebuys never are, unless you choose to share—but because she texted me to tell me and gave me permission to share our exchange with everyone. Just like I chose to share that I rebought with the community. Because it’s important to be transparent—and it in no way diminishes a victory. Yup, I only beat 464 players, not 467. But I beat them fairly, within the rules of the game we were playing.
Krissy also told me something else. When she won her online bracelet, she almost quit social media, because one very prominent male accused her of having Alex Foxen, her husband, play the event in her stead. No way she could win herself! It’s not like she was an online crusher for years before she met Alex. It’s not like she has two other live bracelets. Nah, must have been Alex making her decisions.
“There is always some asshole there to try to take away a moment that should just be nice. Some men really don’t like seeing women succeed,” she wrote to me. And, sadly, she is exactly right.
***
Why can’t we just celebrate victories? Put good energy out there, be happy for people? If you have beef with reentries or online events, that’s fine. Write about it. But why make it personal?
Though he’s best known as a poet, W. H. Auden wrote one of the best books on writing I’ve ever read, The Dyer’s Hand. In it, he has an essay that delves into the role of literary critics. It is, to put it mildly, quite critical of those that choose to be nasty to other writers. He himself has made an important decision: he will only ever highlight things he finds that give positive value to society. As for those that don’t? He will simply stay quiet. “The only sensible procedure for a critic is to keep silent about works which he believes to be bad, while at the same time vigorously campaigning for those which he believes to be good,” he writes. “Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.” Auden’s goal: spread good energy. Spread the word about the things that will make life more meaningful.
And how does Auden feel about people who choose the low road? “Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character,” he says. “If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.” The only point of negative reviews, in other words, is to be nasty and show the world how funny and clever you yourself are. It adds nothing of value to society.
I sometimes write book reviews. And when I do, I have a clause I add to all of my contracts: if I dislike a book, I will not write the review. The only energy I want to be putting out there is positive. I take a page from Auden on this one.
I have nothing against Norman Chad. Again, I’ve never met the man. But it makes me profoundly sad that I had to write this instead of enjoying my victory—a victory that I have worked incredibly hard for, in a game that I work incredibly hard to promote to the world. How I wish I could have focused on the positive instead. And I fully intend to, by the way, just as I will talk through some key hands I played on my road to gold on the Risky Business pod with Nate this week. But first, I felt like I had to address everything instead of ignoring it. Because I want our community to do better. Because I want the world to see what a beautiful game poker is and how meaningful it can be. (Huge thanks, by the way, to all of the incredible voices that have come to my defense. I couldn’t be more grateful.)
And with that out of my system, I think I’ll go celebrate my bracelet win. At least for an hour or so. And then, I’ll go and fire up the $5,300 High Roller bracelet this afternoon, because I love this game. If you care for a sweat, I have a few small pieces still available at no markup. But please be warned: this event allows for a (gasp) rebuy. And I will absolutely rebuy if I bust.
1) Congratulations! Well done! Wonderful. But... but nothing! This is awesome.
2) Vesper Lynd is the best Bond girl.
3) Your job is to take every advantage and fully exploit the rules as they are today. If someone doesn't like that, then your job helps them identify what, if any, rules are worth changing next time.
4) Now you can play the $125 daily at Aria whenever you damn well please and you can tell assholes to kiss your ass. Both fun.
Congrats again on winning.
This was a very nice piece. In my view, you are being overly kind to Chad. He is in the business of entertainment and self-promotion, and has consistently put those goals above basic decency in my view. I do not think he is good for poker, and I'm sorry you had to get out in his crosshairs right as you hit a career milestone.