WiPHof to Induct Debbie Burkhead, Victoria Coren Mitchell
The Women in Poker Hall of Fame has announced the election of two prominent female poker figures to the WiPHoF’s family of honorees, Debbie Burkhead and Victoria Coren Mitchell. Burkhead, a veteran of the Las Vegas and western-US poker and poker-business scenes, and Coren Mitchell, a UK writer, public figure and poker player, will make up the WiPHoF’s class of 2016.
Burkhead and Coren Mitchell, the latter of whom is likely the youngest-ever inductee into the WiPHoF roles, will be honored at a “Luncheon Celebration & Induction” on Wednesday, July 6, 2016 at 11AM at Gold Coast Casino Ballroom in Las Vegas. The shindig is hosted by one of the WiPHoF’s long-running sponsors, Card Player Cruises, and will benefit Poker Gives, a poker-themed charity which has been associated with the WiPHoF since its inception.
The election of Burkhead and Coren Mitchell follows an Internet-based gaffe of sorts in which the WiPHoF planned to introduce a public-voting mechanism which was designed to allow poker fans to participate in the vote. Instead, due to unexplained technical issues which might have involved online ballot-box stuffing, the WiPHoF reverted to its previous voting format, at least for 2016. That format involved polling all previous WiPHOF inductees, WiPHoF board members, and a select panel of media representatives.
Those representatives, per a recent WiPHoF release, were Nolan Dalla of WSOP and Poker Night in America; Scott Long of Ante Up Magazine; Dan Cypra of Pocket Fives; Kevin “KevMath” Mathers; Matthew Parvis of PokerNews; poker writer Eric Raskin; fame tourney director Matt Savage; Robbie Strazynski of Card Player Life; Jason Somerville of Twitch and RunItUp.com fame; Jeff Shulman of Card Player Magazine; Dan Russell of Poker Central; Dan Ross of Holdem Radio; Wade Andrews of Texas Holdem Radio; and Pamela Jones of On Tilt Radio.
Burkhead and Coren Mitchell were among the most deserving of this year’s nine finalists. (Your scribe was not invited to vote, but correctly predicted this year’s two honorees.) Burkhead, the industry veteran, has been a part of the poker world for a quarter century, and has been involved prominently with publications such as Poker Digest and Poker Player Magazine. These days, following Poker Player Magazine’s demise, she works for Ante Up.
Coren Mitchell, who brings a long-missing international flair to the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, became the first female winner of a main event on the European Poker Tour when she took down the EPT London stop in 2006. Coren Mitchell hen made more history on the EPT when she took down the EPT San Remo stop in 2014, becoming the first two-time winner — male or female — of EPT mains. The articulate Coren Mitchell has also written about poker amid her other work and has served as a host and presenter on several televised poker shows and at live poker events.
The election of Burkhead and Coren Mitchell will swell the ranks of the WiPHoF to 19 members. The WiPHoF itself has grown sporadically since being founded back in 2008.
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