World Poker Tour comes to Maryland Live!

Capital Gazette

Jamie Kerstetter decided to go all in.

A crowd gathered around the poker table at Maryland Live and within seconds, the dealers hands were wrapped around the chips.

Kerstetter tapped the table.

"All right," she said. "Good game guys."

She was one of 337 people who entered the first World Poker Tour event held at the casino in Hanover, all hoping to win a cut of the prize pool of $1 million.

The World Poker Tour Maryland Festival began Friday, with each player buying in at $3,500. Monday, the final 27 players arrived at noon and played until just six players were left at the table.

"It can go all night," Jason Heidenthal, tournament director said.

"When you're playing for a lot of money, it's a slower pace tournament."

Among those duking it out for the cash reward was Greg Merson, a two time champion of the World Series of Poker..

A native of Laurel, Merson currently lives in New Jersey because online poker is legal there. He was happy to see the tour make its first appearance in Maryland.

"This one means a lot to me since we didn't even have poker in Maryland two years ago," he said.

"It's really cool to have this in my back yard in case I want to move back home."

The World Poker Tour visits several cities in a season, most recently the Borgata casino in Atlantic City. Some players follow the tour, while others only take a seat when the tournament comes to their area. While some stops, such as Atlantic City, are televised the Maryland Live games will not be.

The tour was in a convenient location for Washington, D.C., native Cate Hall, one of just two women who remained Monday before the tours final game Tuesday.

"Out of 337, there's probably only 15 to 20 females that played this event," Heidenthal said.

In a sport largely dominated by men, Hall and Kerstetter gave the guys a run for their money before Kerstetter played a losing hand and left Hall the one woman in the game.

At 5 p.m., Merson, Hall, Xin Wang, Ken Holmes, Aaron Mermelstein, Joseph Cashen and Andjelko Andrejevic remained.

After Kerstetter left, Merson told Hall, "Cate, don't ever stop playing tournaments."

"I haven't," she responded.

A lawyer, Hall revisited her interest in poker when Maryland Live opened and became a full time poker player two years ago. She's played with many of the others in the tournament before and knows Kerstetter well.

"We're friends so it's fun to be at the table with her," she said.

"I also know no woman has won a World Poker Tour event so it would be great if one of us could do it. There have been several of us at the final table but still we're outnumbered by men."

On being the last woman standing, she remarked,

"It feels nice to have gotten this far. I'm not happy about being the last woman. Jamie's a great player and I really wanted to see her at the final table so I'm sad that she's out of it."