Only one woman played this year’s $50,000 Poker Players Championship at the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP), longtime American pro Esther Taylor. Taylor, who recently signed on as BetMGM Poker ambassador, is on a mission to change that by getting more women into mixed games.
Last month, Taylor launched Her Edge Academy, a poker training program aimed specifically at helping women break through in poker. And to celebrate the launch, she gave away five seats to the $1,000 Ladies Championship.
Esther Taylor Signs With BetMGM Poker
Passion for Coaching
Taylor, who has $3.3 million in live tournament earnings and last year became the second woman ever to final table the PPC, told PokerNews she has always been passionate about coaching and mentoring women and girls, whether it’s coaching her daughter’s softball team or helping one of her old teams from high school.
“I have kind of always loved coaching,” Taylor said. “I knew eventually I wanted to do something as far as training and coaching specifically for women in poker.”
When Taylor decided she wanted to coach women in poker, she knew right away that she wanted to focus on mixed games, noting that “there’s not too much (training material) to get women in at an entry level, especially with mixed games.”
“I’m a mixed game player, and when I’m playing these fields there’s very very few women that play.”
Taylor, who brings two decades of mixed game experience to the table, also believes that women have an advantage at the table, hence the name of her coaching venture.
“You have an edge just by being a woman at the table in these male-dominated fields in a lot of ways.”
Giving Away Five Seats
To kick off the launch of Her Edge Academy, Taylor hosted a contest where she gave away five seats to the $1,000 Ladies Championship. She received 75 entries from women sharing their poker stories, and Taylor read every one of them.
“Each story meant something to me,” she said. “It was very cool to read all of these stories from all over the world.”
The seats went to Maria Huete, Juli Keene, Nicole White, Candy Nhoybouakong and Janine Gentry.
“So I just tried to pick ladies that might not have the opportunity to play. And I think we got a good squad this year.”
This year’s Ladies Championship drew a record-setting field of 1,475 players, and Taylor said she anticipates that number to continue growing in future editions.
“It absolutely would not surprise me if we got to 2,000 and we start seeing a quarter-million dollars to first and things like that.”
To hear more about Taylor and her coaching efforts, check out her recent interview on the PokerNews Podcast.
Connor Richards
Senior Editor U.S.