2026 WSOP: Skye Chen Wins $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship on Back of Gutsy All-in Call| P4Poker

Poker News June 29, 2026

0 0 2 Views

Call of the year?

In just her second-ever World Series of Poker event, Skye Chen won the 2026 WSOP Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship, outlasting Aubrey Williams in a thrilling heads-up contest. It was the largest Ladies event in WSOP history, with 1,475 entrants, eclipsing last year’s record of 1,368 entrants.

After Lisa Teebagy was eliminated in 3^rd place, Williams had a sizeable lead going into heads-up play, 19.075 million chips to Chen’s 10.350 million. Chen had cut the deficit in half when the hand of the night happened just as they were about to go on break.

Holding Qd-9d, Williams limped pre-flop, Chen raised to 1.1 million with Ac-Tc, and Williams called. The flop was 3s-Jh-8h and both players checked. With the 2c on the turn, Chen checked, Williams bet 1.650 million with her gut-shot straight draw, and Chen called.

The turn was the 7c, missing both players. Neither Williams nor Chen had anything but high cards. Chen checked and Williams moved all-in to try to sweep up the large pot on a pure bluff.

Ain’t over ’til it’s over

Chen went into the tank, perhaps surprising because she had nothing. She was actually considering what to do instead of insta-folding, as calling would be risking the tournament with just Ace high. But she pondered and pondered, later saying that the all-in instead of more of a standard bet got her to think that Williams was trying to “intimidate” her, to get her to fold.

Going with her instinct that Williams was bluffing, Chen made an insane hero call to double up and take control of the table with a 24 million chip to 5 million chip lead.

Williams didn’t give up, though, treading water for a while until finally chipping up enough to take a slight lead. But then Chen and Williams had another massive confrontation when the two women were all-in pre-flop, Chen with Ac-Td and Williams with 8s-8d. Despite someone on Williams’ rail yelling, “There’s no men like snowmen!” Chen hit an Ace on the flop to double-up once again, this time crippling Williams.

It looked like the tournament was over. Williams was down to 2.6 million chips with blinds at 200,000/400,000 with a 400,000 big blind ante. She was going to shove pre-flop on the next hand, but couldn’t pull the trigger with 2-7 off-suit.

Now needing to just shove with any two cards, Williams proceeded to win all-ins on the next three hands, the first coming when she nailed a backdoor straight.

Williams still faced more than a 2-to-1 chip deficit, but she had some life and made the most of it, eventually pulling back to around even (thinking back, she may have even taken a tiny lead for a hand, but I’m not sure).

But again, with blinds reaching untenable heights, moves had to be made. Chen was just slightly ahead when she quickly moved all-in pre-flop with 4c-4d. That actually flustered Williams a bit, who was seemingly surprised that her opponent will opt to insta-push when the stacks were so close. Williams had Ac-5c, a powerful hand heads-up, but did she want to risk her tournament life on a call?

Williams did guess out loud that Chen had pocket Three’s, a basically correct assumption, thinking that the shove meant that Chen didn’t want to make post-flop decisions with her hole cards. With little time to wait for a better spot, Williams made the call. Williams was unable to improve her hand and Chen had her first WSOP bracelet.