In her decade and a half within the business, Jen Shahade has executed extra for girls in poker than most can declare.
From pioneering a PokerStars Girls initiative to facilitating girls’s boot camps and successful a GPI award for a poignant piece about secondary infertility and poker, it’s no shock to see the poker and chess professional among the many eight nominees for the Girls in Poker Corridor of Fame Class of 2024, together with Kristen Foxen, Liv Boeree, Annette Obrestad, Jamie Kerstetter and others.
PokerNews spoke with Shahade to get her response to being nominated and focus on her intensive poker profession, which has seen her assist numerous girls get into the sport.
Learn Extra Concerning the WiPHOF Nominees
Response to Being Nominated
It was Kerstetter who first informed Shahade she was being thought of for the Corridor of Fame alongside bracelet winners, high-stakes crushers and different pioneering gamers. “When she texted me to say that she and I had each gotten nominated, it was undoubtedly an thrilling shock,” Shahade informed PokerNews.
“It is sensational as a result of I am at all times seeking to showcase the optimistic aspect of poker, and I believe that each lady on the listing is de facto exemplary of that.”
As a prime competitor in a number of thoughts sports activities, Shahade acknowledges the legitimacy that the WiPOF and Poker Corridor of Fame each deliver to the sport. “As a result of we at all times are struggling to be seen for what we love about poker: the group, the thoughts sport and the fixed problem.”
“A Seat on the Desk Requires Cash”
Coming from a household that cherished video games, Shahade discovered an prompt reference to poker and “instantly cherished the tradition as a result of the thought of touring to play a recreation and to attach with an intellectually like-minded group is one thing that I grew up with.”
Shahade began taking part in on-line however “instantly cherished the dwell setting as nicely.” Nonetheless, she struggled to journey to large occasions as a result of “plenty of the occasions I needed to play have been past my finances on the time.”
“And so I see that as a particular issue for lots of ladies who’re attempting to get into the sport. That, after all, can apply to all genders. However seeing that there is a wealth hole and a wage hole, clearly it impacts girls extra. So I’ve at all times been actually aware of that and I believe that poker is sort of a metaphor for the best way wherein girls can excel and turn out to be so nice and make such nice contributions, however they should have a seat on the desk. And generally, a seat on the desk requires cash.”
Girls’s Initiatives Over the Years
Earlier than Black Friday, Shahade was a part of a PokerStars Girls initiative that enabled her to journey to her first large dwell stops in locations just like the Bahamas and London. She mirrored on this initiative as a “precedent” to most of the girls’s initiatives seen within the poker world immediately.
A decade and a half later, Shahade is now an envoy for PokerStars and nonetheless searching for methods to assist girls get into poker.
Final yr, the location partnered with Poker Energy (who Shahade can be an envoy for) on Girls’s Bootcamps that noticed Shahade and fellow ambassadors Lali Tournier and Georgina “GJReggie” James mentor the individuals and the winners incomes journeys to European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague and Cyprus.
“So most of the girls who’ve performed in these are nonetheless actually critical about poker and they’re going on the tour to completely different EPTS,” Shahade stated. “It is actually thrilling to observe.”
These individuals embody Chess Grasp Sabrina Chevannes and Judy Whitlow, who found poker in her 70s.
“So it is actually nice to see individuals who have this type of latent curiosity and expertise for poker,” stated Shahade.
Shahade has additionally been a vocal advocate for girls in chess. In September 2023, she resigned as the lady’s program director on the U.S. Chess Federation on account of hostility she confronted in her function after coming ahead with allegations of sexual assault towards a Grand Grasp.
PokerStars Ambassador Jen Shahade: Philly Poker Gamers are “Passionate”
Trending Upward
Shahade has had a hand in upcoming initiatives. The NAPT Las Vegas competition’s Women Occasion gives a assured prize pool of $30,000 and November’s inaugural PokerStars Girls’s Winter Competition in London will function a £1,100 buy-in Excessive Curler occasion.
It could be the primary women-only excessive curler occasion Shahade has seen on a competition schedule, “However it’s not going to be the final.”
“I am certain of it,” she stated. “I am certain that is going to be a development now as nicely.”
There have been different excessive factors for girls in poker through the years. Shahade identified that although each Unfastened Cannons on final yr’s season of The Huge Recreation on Tour have been girls, their gender was hardly the present’s focus.
“I actually appreciated that. And I really feel like that is a development, too, that when girls on the desk being nice turns into extra regular, the truth that they’re girls is not essentially the primary factor that is highlighted. And I undoubtedly assume that is signal that we see that occuring an increasing number of typically.”
Getting Private
Shahade’s contributions to poker through the years have earned her two International Poker Awards. The primary got here in 2019 within the Greatest Podcast class, however it’s her 2022 award for Greatest Media Content material: Written that she holds closest to her coronary heart.
To win that award, she penned a deeply private essay in The Wall Avenue Journal about poker and secondary infertility, which she famous was written “from a really feminist viewpoint” to explain “the best way that poker can educate us classes about danger and the function of luck in life.”
“I felt like that one was actually significant to me, getting that award and in addition simply getting an opportunity to put in writing that article, as a result of it actually sort of confirmed what poker has taught me, not solely as a participant but additionally as an advocate for girls.”
Voting is open for the Girls in Poker Corridor of Fame Class of 2024 till midnight PST on October 30, 2024
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