Women's World Open antes up in August

Thirty-six women will converge in London in August to participate in PartyPoker.com's inaugural Women's World Open. The poker tournament will take place Aug. 7-10 and be televised later in the year in the United Kingdom.

The American contingent making the trip across the pond to London will include Jennifer Tilly, Liz Lieu and Shannon Elizabeth.

Jennifer Tilly sports the most impressive tournament resume of the three with her World Series of Poker Ladies Event win in 2005 and took first in the World Poker Tour Ladies Night Out that same year. Since then the actress and poker player been honing her game and racking up cashes at WSOP Events, WPT events and more.

She may not have a WSOP bracelet yet, but Liz Lieu packs a lot of punch in the poker world as well. She has a long list of cashes all over the world, including several WSOP events. Before her foray into the tournament realm, she'd already established herself as a winning cash-game player.

Shannon Elizabeth brings a lot of star power to the event as well. She will be playing as well as commentating with Jesse May at the event.

The actress, best known for her role in American Pie, is making her way up in the poker ranks. Most recently she cashed in a WSOP event and also came in third in the 2007 NBC National Heads-Up Championship, taking out Barry Greenstein and Jeff Madsen along the way.

"I'm so excited to be coming to London to commentate and play in the inaugural PartyPoker Women's World Open," Elizabeth said. "So many great women will be playing from the United States, including Liz Lieu and Jennifer Tilly, so hopefully one of us can bring home the championship!"

The three will have their work cut out for them as some of Europe's shrewdest women players will also be fighting for a share in the $108,000 prize pool. They include former PartyPoker.com World Open winner Pippa Flanders, Xuyen Pham, European Ladies champion Jackie Meecham, Katharine Hartree, Jackie Vaswani and Deborah Rogers.

"This is the first women's tournament we have held, and we are delighted by the excellent line-up and hugely encouraged by the positive interest we have already received from broadcasters all over the world before a card has been dealt," said a PartyPoker.com spokesman.

The buy-in for the tournament is $3,000, and the winner will take home a $50,000 top prize, plus they'll have the added bonus of appearing on television when the show airs on Five later in the year.

courtesy of Sarah Polson

News Added: 21 July, 2007

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