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Miami Herald Story

Ante up for High Heels Tour

A Hollywood woman has started a company that specializes in ladies-only poker tournaments, and some local card room managers like the idea

JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA - To the eight men at the poker table, Lauren Failla didn't look like a threat.

With her long manicured nails, she carefully lifted the corners of her cards, glanced at them with her hazel eyes and tossed a few chips toward the center of the poker table.

She laughed in between plays and chatted with passing poker-room employees.

A minute later, she jumped up from the table, clapped her hands and shouted, "Yes!", after winning a hand with a three-of-a-kind.

But not all women are as comfortable playing poker with men.

That's why Failla, 38, a Hollywood wife and mother, is starting what she calls the High Heels Poker Tour, the first all-women's poker tour on the East Coast of the United States.

"Many women want to play poker, but they feel intimidated playing with men," she said.

"I hope that I am able to bring more women to the poker scene."

The company, which was launched this week, will cater to women who want to play the game in a casino setting against other women.

The way the tour will work, Failla said, is that casinos will host ladies-only poker tournaments. The High Heels Poker Tour, which costs joiners $30 annually, will organize the events and bring in the players.

Failla, a poker player for 20 years, says her business is filling a need in the poker world.

"This is a niche in the market," she said. "Only 6 percent of the people who play in poker tournaments are women because it's a male-dominated sport. But I want to change that."

Warren Targia, the poker-room manager at the Seminole Casino Hollywood, which will likely host tournaments for the tour, thinks Failla's concept will succeed. .

As the Texas Hold 'Em poker phenomenon continues to sweep the nation, more women are taking seats at card tables, Targia said.

Still, they are far outnumbered by men, he said.

"It's getting to be more and more women all the time," Targia said. "But, unfortunately, it's not enough."

The problem, he said, is that some women are turned off by male players.

"Guys will be guys," he said. "Sometimes they get loud-mouthed with each other, and it can be too much for some women."

Failla, who regularly plays against men in local card rooms and in high-stakes games in Las Vegas, agrees.

"I play in tournaments with men and see how they try to intimidate women," she said. "They think you don't know how to play because you're a woman."

On a recent Friday night at the Seminole Casino Hollywood, nearly 200 poker players battled it out in a $65-per-person Texas Hold 'Em tournament.

At each table of 10, only one or two players were women.

Whenever Failla plays in a tournament, she makes sure to let people know about the High Heels Poker Tour.

Failla wears a black baseball cap and black T-shirt bearing her company's logo -- a royal flush sticking out of a red stiletto high-heeled shoe.

Around her neck is a silver necklace with a pendant bearing playing cards.

Curious players, like 20-year-old Brian O'Keefe, often ask Failla what the High Heels Poker Tour is.

"It's a ladies-only poker tour," she says across the poker table.

"Isn't that kind of discriminating?" asked O'Keefe, a student at Florida State University.

"It's definitely discriminating," Failla says, laughing.

"For the last how many years, it's always been men, men, men, men, men. We finally deserve a break," she said.

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