The $25K Fantasy league rolls on, and as of June 19, Team The Dinkers (Josh Kay) is still on top with 899 points, which is a good bit ahead of both Team Sternheimer (765 points) and Team Baker (673 points). Of the 19 teams, Team Chingas is on the bottom with 213 points. Check out 25Kfantasy.com to see the current standings.
PokerNews has been tracking $25K Fantasy players in our live updates and has even made it simple to follow the action by tagging all players with a $25K Fantasy badge. That allows you to utilize our chip count filter option to follow only those players (just tick the $25K Fantasy badge); what’s more, each blog will have a “$25K Fantasy” tab that if you click all you will see are hands played by $25K Fantasy players.
As a result, we can capture some of the biggest, best, and most game-changing hands involving the $25K Fantasy roster. Here are five from the last week of action in the 2024 WSOP.
The ladies arrived back from dinner break and it folded to Susan Bluer in the small blind and she contemplated for a moment and moved all in for 720,000 and Shiina Okamoto called from the big blind. Bluer played a solid game and patiently waited for the right moments throughout the day and on this one she just got unlucky on the river.
Susan Bluer: 6♠6♥
Shiina Okamoto: K♦Q♥
The board looked safe for Bluer until the river when it ran out with 3♥7♣5♦J♥K♣ and Okamoto is heading into Day 4 second in chips.
The tournament has concluded for the night and six lovely ladies will return tomorrow at 3 p.m. local time to battle it out. PokerGo will be live streaming this event.
Recap will follow soon.
Day 3 of Event #71: $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold'em Championship at the 2024 World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas saw 32 players return, scheduled to play down to six. When play surprisingly wrapped up less than two minutes after the dinner break, it was Jamie Kerstetter who stood at the top, closely followed by last year’s runner-up Shiina Okamoto.
End of Day 3 Chip Counts
Rank
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Jamie Kerstetter
United States
9,330,000
117
2
Shiina Okamoto
Japan
8,640,000
108
3
Linda Durden
United States
3,110,000
39
4
Mor Kamber
Israel
1,755,000
22
5
Cecile Ticherfatine
France
1,100,000
14
6
Ceci Liao
United States
970,000
12
Kerstetter is known as an all-around poker talent. She is a player with $837,207 in tournament winnings, a witty commentator and a two-time Global Poker Award winner, having been named Best Twitter Personality in 2020 and 2021. She started the day with the sixth biggest stack and was able to run and play well, eliminating multiple players on the way to her chip lead.
Okamoto, who was chip leader coming into Day 3, has also played a great tournament so far and is still in with a good chance to improve her last year’s score and win her first bracelet. Okamoto has $297,721 in live tournament winnings, with the biggest share of it coming from the $118,768 prize she won for her second place in the Ladies event last year. She is second with 8,640,000 chips.
Shiina Okamoto
Kerstetter and Okamoto are way ahead of the field, both deep with over 100 big blinds. Third in chips is Linda Durden with around 39 big blinds. Durden has had a rollercoaster of a day, coming in with a medium stack, at one point taking a big pot from Cecile Ticherfatine and then soon after losing an even bigger one to Kerstetter to get down to 12 big blinds. She was then able to double up through Cherish Andrews to pick things up again and ended the day in the middle of the pack.
Also remaining in the battle for the $171,732 first place prize and their first-ever WSOP bracelet is Mor Kamber with 1,755,000 chips. Kamber has $106,800 in career tournament winnings and is already guaranteed to surpass her biggest tournament win so far, which was just shy of $32,000.
Cecile Ticherfatine, who came into the day second in chips, also made it through the day with around 14 big blinds. Ticherfatine has $544,049 in live tournament winnings, including a WSOP International Circuit event win from Dakar in 2023 for $65,372.
Ceci Liao was not among the biggest stacks coming into Day 3, but was able to catch a good run in the middle of the day. After being down to as few as ten big blinds, she was able to chip back up, including by eliminatingNancy Nguyen and, soon after, Ting Ho. However, at the end of the day, she is bringing up the rear as the short stack with 12 big blinds.
Among notable players who made it to Day 3, but did not make the final cut, were known chess and poker player Jen Shahade, vlogger and poker pro Marle Spragg and pros Nadya Magnus and Cherish Andrews.
Play will resume tomorrow at 3 p.m. local time at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas with blinds at 40,000/80,000 and a 80,000 ante. The battle of the final six down to a winner will be streamed on PokerGO with an expected 60 minute delay.
