Woman Not Allowed At State Poker Tour - Unless She Posed In Bikini

[matcom]

<snip>

The way Stacey Stefanich sees it, being female has nothing to do with knowing whether a full house beats a flush.

So she was puzzled to see the second rule of the Washington State Poker Tour: "No girls are allowed." (Right after "Please put all garbage in garbage cans.")

And when she was told she might be allowed to join if she sent photos of herself in a bikini, Stefanich felt the group's humor had crossed the line. "I thought that was really inappropriate, especially in this day and age," said Stefanich, 28, a Puyallup nurse who has played in a weekly poker game with friends for about seven months.

Stefanich heard of the tour from a friend who showed her information circulated by e-mail about a tournament expected to draw more than 100 players tomorrow at a community center at Redmond Ridge.

But despite its official-sounding name, members of the Washington State Poker Tour say it's just a private social gathering, not a formal organization, and a state gambling-commission agent says the male-only event is legal.

"It's just a men's group ... a guys-night-out type of thing," said Dan Gorman, a Redmond mortgage broker who said the sessions grew from "basically just me and a few other guys."

The tour's monthly tournaments, which started about a year ago, have usually been played in someone's home, not a public facility, cardroom or casino. Because of the increasing number of players, the group is renting a room tomorrow in the private housing development.

Gorman, 33, acknowledges sending Stefanich the "bikini" e-mail but says that at the time he thought her message was a prank sent by a man. "We basically just kid around with everyone. I thought it was from one of the guys in the group."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002322073_poker09m.html

[Spinzonner]

1. You've got a nice Ace there lady ...

[VelmaD]

2. Subpoena them til they glow...

then sue 'em in the dark. :evilgrin: