Fighting her way through a starting field of 419 players, Californian Kelli Griggs took the top money prize at the Bicycle Casino’s Ladies Event this week, more familiarly known as the Ladies Poker Party.
Kelli’s prize includes being selected for the World Poker Tour‘s Ladies Night IV, giving her the opportunity to play against women’s poker luminaries such as defending Ladies Night III champion Jennifer Tilly, JJ Liu, Vanessa Rousso, Erica Schoenberg and Anahit Galajian at the end of this (August) month.
The mother of two was playing in a tournament where ten percent of the prize pool has been pledged to a breast cancer foundation, which had particularly relevance to her own life and experiences. Her grandmother died of breast cancer and her aunt is currently battling with the disease, and Kelli is herself a four year survivor of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Small wonder, then that this talented player added $2 500 of her own to the donation.
Kelli paid for her seat at the 2006 WSOP Ladies Event last month by winning a single table satellite. She parlayed that into a 59th place money finish out of the record Ladies Event field of 1128 players.