Lips Tour

BELL GARDENS, CA-- Last night, while a dark cloud moved over the future of online poker in the U.S., live poker flourished at the Bicycle Casino, where 227 ladies bought in for event #4 at Big Poker Oktober-- the $100+25 "Queen of Clubs" NLHE tournament. Yours truly crossed her fingers, downed two mimosas at the complimentary brunch buffet, and bought her donkey self in.

At my first table I was seated two to the left of the vivacious and chatty Timmi Derosa, who captured the California Ladies State Championship on Monday night at Ocean's 11 Casino in Oceanside. I immediately recognized Timmi's studded jacket and Louis Vuitton day planner from a fashion photo I snapped at the World Series of Poker (scroll down to the one with the caption reading "the Queer Eye guys want their hoodies back").

"What does L.I.P.S. stand for?"
"Lesbians in Poker Shirts."
-two women in line ahead of me at the last L.I.P.S. event at the Bike.

It very well could stand for that, but L.I.P.S. is actually the acronym for the Ladies International Poker Series, a ladies-only poker tour that is in it's third year. In addition to the dozens of local events they sponsor at casinos across the country, this year L.I.P.S. is running ladies' championships in each of the 50 states, culminating in the U.S. Ladies' Championships which will take place in 2007. California's Ladies State Championship takes place this coming Monday, September 25th at Oceans' Eleven Casino in Oceanside, CA (just north of San Diego). The buy-in is an affordable $230+30.

The defending CA Ladies State Champion? "First lady" of poker and saucy WPT storyteller Linda Johnson.