At the European Poker Tour Deauville stop over the weekend, 22 men entered the €200 + €20 Ladies Event. Before you ask how men could have played in an event designed for women, the simple fact of the matter is they cannot be legally barred from playing. Registration is an “on your honor” thing and casinos expect men to stay out for that one tournament. But every year, we still see men trying to have a laugh or thinking they can beat an allegedly “soft” field and have to suffer their foolishness.

As for the EPT Deauville Women’s Event, it just so happens that Thierry Derkx, a male, won the whole thing and €4,380. Of course it had to end that way. Of the ten other players who cashed, half of them were men. On the bright side, the runner-up and highest female finisher, Sabina Hiatullah (pictured), was awarded the winner’s trophy.

The World Series of Poker essentially solved the problem of men being boys and jacked the price of the WSOP Ladies Event to $10,000. Women, however, get a 90% discount and only have to pay $1,000 to play. Clever.

As mentioned, men entering Ladies’ Events is nothing new. One of the more “celebrated” party crashes by men happened in 2004 when Phil Gordon, Perry Friedman, Rafe Furst, and their “Tiltboy” friends dressed in drag and entered the Ladies’ Event at Bay 101. Furst actually went on to finish fifth. At the time, people thought it was funny, with Tournament Director Matt Savage even joking that they would have to do a “panty check” for future events.

Former baseball star and current sideshow Jose Canseco entered a Ladies Event in California and, in 2009, the ultimate insult happened when Abraham Korotki won the Ladies No Limit Hold’em Event at the Borgata Poker Open. Runner-up Nicole Rowe offered a chop to Korotki, but he refused, wanting to win the whole thing. In the meantime, she had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and could have used some of the extra money to pay for her medical expenses.

The debate on this subject has been carrying on in the internet forums. Most men seem to agree that there is nothing wrong with women-only tournaments and that men should just stay out. Others take the opposite stance, somehow thinking they are discriminatory or even trying to make a case that these types of tournaments are demeaning to women, that they don’t need their own tournament to “protect” them from men.

One woman chimed in to explain why Ladies Events are a good thing: “I play several Ladies Events a year and the vast majority of the entrants are women who are amateur players. I would say a decent majority of those entrants only play Ladies Events and do not enter regular tournaments at all. Ladies Events have a more fun and less serious atmosphere, which encourages less experienced players to get their feet wet.”

What do you think? Should there be any punishment for the 22 male entrants in the EPT Deauville Ladies Event? How can and should this be prevented in the future, if at all? Comment here and let us know.

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