|
 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Tiffany Williamson drags deeply on the last inch of her cigarette on the way into the poker room, crushes the butt into an ashtray and sits down to business as if she were showing up for work in her law office — only now she is calmly arranging multicolored stacks of $1.99 million in chips.
There are bloodshot, unshaven players who look as if they're already beaten, and there are champions who look vacation fresh, flush with their own stacks piled on the seven tables left Wednesday at the start of another marathon session as the World Series of Poker winds down toward Friday's final table.
Williamson, her long braids pushed back by a wide white and gold bandanna, is the only woman player in the room, one of the few black players left in the tournament, and the consummate amateur. She, like champion Chris Moneymaker two years ago and Greg "Fossilman" Raymer last year, is the reason why millions of people are playing poker at home, online and in casinos and why they'll watch ESPN's broadcast of this tournament — their imaginations soaring that someday they, too, may sit in this room with their own stacks of chips. No woman in the 35-year history of this event has ever won the championship bracelet.
|
|