The WSOP Ladies Championship at last has a new winner, following two successive years in which Japan’s Shiina Okamoto swept all before her — plus a third year where she beat all-but-one.
Okamoto finished third in 2023, then won in 2024 and 2025. Many fancied the Japanese phenomenon to three-peat in 2026, but instead the victory, the bracelet and the $194,630 prize money went to the talented Californian amateur Skye Chen.
Chen earned her first bracelet in only her second ever WSOP event, a hard-fought tournament that drew a crowd of 1,475 entrants, mounting a successful comeback against Aubrey Williams after reaching heads-up play at a 2:1 chip disadvantage.
PokerOrg’s Dave Woods caught up with Chen following her impressive performance.
Getting out of her niche
How does it feel to have won a WSOP bracelet?
It feels amazing. This has been something that I've dreamed of ever since I was a kid.
Back in the 2000s I saw Chris Moneymaker and Jamie Gold, amateur players who came in and won the Main Event, and that's how I learned about poker — just watching occasionally on ESPN. I always thought, ‘Wow, that would be really cool to win one,’ but I didn't really plan on it or think that this would be possible.
I started just playing cash, and that was my main thing. I've always been someone who plays poker for the game, not for the money. I try to win, obviously, but to me, whether it's $1/$2, or $0.05/$0.10 at home, it's always been about trying to get better at a game that has so much depth.
It also has this huge intersection of the social aspect and the mathematics aspect that I love in a game.
Is it true you’re also an accomplished Mahjong player?
Yeah, the other game that I play is a game called Riichi Mahjong, which is a Japanese variant of Mahjong. It's an Asian tile game, and has a lot of overlap with poker.
There are obvious differences, but the mental game, the strategy of having to figure out the different probabilities in real time, those are all very shared between the games, so that's also a huge passion of mine.
I cannot say that I'm anywhere close to the top for poker, but I am probably one of the top 10 or so Japanese Mahjong players in the US. Though I do joke with people that it doesn’t mean too much, as there are probably only 1,000 players in the US! It’s a fairly niche thing.
Do you play poker online?
I actually had a conversation with Paulina Loeliger — Poker Bunny — on day 2, on the feature table. She was talking about how she's played hundreds of thousands of hands online, and she was basically selling to me this idea that you need to play a lot of hands online to be really good.
Paulina Loeliger, aka 'Poker Bunny'.I actually really don’t like playing online because, to me at least, half the game is the social aspect of it, you know? Reading players, making sure you're not giving off tells, all the different little things.
Also I think online people are playing a lot more GTO, they're playing a lot more ‘according to the book’. Whereas to me playing a live field, whether it's a tiny cash game or a tournament, requires a huge amount of adaptation to the field and identifying who you're playing against.
It's almost like a social deduction game, like Werewolf or Mafia. That, to me, is so much of the fun, and so I would never give it up. It's the same thing with Mahjong; I also don’t play that online.
Thriving in the chaos
How did you cope with playing on feature tables, and under the lights on livestreams?
I would say that's probably one of the biggest factors in why I was even able to make it this far, which is that I think I am fairly uncommon in terms of being unfazed by this kind of environment.
I thrive in the chaos and the lights and just the ‘having fun’ aspect of it. Like, everyone else is trying to calm down their nerves, and take it very seriously. Whereas me, I just keep it lighthearted, no matter the situation.
Chen made sure she enjoyed the WSOP experience.There are definitely moments where the anxiety and the energy builds up, though. By far the most stressful moment was deep into day two when there was a crazy hand where I flopped a straight against a short stack, who had an open-ended straight draw.
She jammed, and I'm sitting there just kind of internally freaking out, because I'm, like, ‘What do I do here? There’s a giant stack behind me’.
I was actually panicking, despite having the nuts there, and obviously being in a great spot, but I was thinking that with someone behind me, I can't just act quickly. So I just ended up thinking and thinking and thinking, trying to try to get her to also call, if not jam, behind me.
So I spent two minutes tanking, and then I put in the call, which got exactly what I wanted – and she had a really strong hand as well, with top two pair.
I was elated when she jammed. I wouldn't have imagined that she would end up with such a strong hand. I think the only way to get the exact outcome that I ended up with was what I did.
Afterwards I was, like, ‘I just took down probably the equivalent of $50K-$60K of ICM. This is by far the biggest single hand I've ever played’. Even compared to heads-up, where we were playing for $50K, that doesn't even feel as big as that one.
Chen and Williams battled hard when the tourney got heads-up.And was that your parents on the rail?
Yeah, I didn't even know that they were coming. I wasn’t expecting them. I think they showed up when we were heads-up. I didn't even notice they were there until I won big flip, got up and turned around and saw them, and I was just, like, “Why are you here?”
I basically didn't have a rail the whole time, because all of my friends who are here are all playing in the Mahjong tournament over at Luxor.
The irony of it is that I've basically spent the past four days here and I haven't been able to hang out with them.
Chen's parents surprised her with an unannounced visit.What do you do outside poker?
I used to be a software engineer. I did a lot of financial technology, but I semi-retired from that last year and decided to just travel and pursue my passions.
It’s only the second WSOP event I’ve played, after the $777 Lucky Sevens event in 2024. I mainy just play local dailies, but I haven’t played very many.
How will you celebrate? Will you play the Main Event?
I promised the Vegas Mahjong Club that if I won the bracelet I would treat them all at my favorite sushi place over in Chinatown.
And as far as the Main Event goes, at the very least I need a breather. I have always wanted to play it, but I told myself I'm not going to enter the Main Event until I’ve put more time and effort into it. I'm not just gonna blow $10,000, even with this win.
I am not delusional in thinking that winning this somehow makes me, like, the best player in the world. Not even close. I think I am a decent and competent player who definitely still has a lot of weaknesses I need to shore up.
I've never had poker coaching, I don't even have a group that I talk poker with. To me, it's always been much more of a hobby. And I would say that, in terms of somebody who calls it a hobby, I would probably say I'm very good. But I can't possibly deign to say that I'm at a professional level at this.
But maybe this will give me the kick to actually put in a little bit more time and enter the Main Event at some point.
The WSOP Main Event begins on Thursday, July 2.
Stick with PokerOrg for round-the-clock coverage of that tournament and everything else happening at the WSOP and across the world of poker.
