Kristen Foxen Deep in the Main Event: "Today it Started to Feel Real"
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You're all in with kings. You take a deep breath. You mutter a silent prayer. And you hope they hold.
Whether it's Day 1 of a tournament or Day 6 of the largest WSOP Main Event in history, this hand plays out the same way each time. And even if you're a player with the poker resume of Kristen Foxen, you can't help but feel a little stressed.
Foxen Secures Crucial Double
With the blinds at 50,000/100,000, Foxen opened off of a stack of 34 big blinds with K♥K♦ and Bradley Mercer three-bet from the big blind with AxKx. Foxen four-bet and called a shove from Mercer for her tournament life.
The board came Q♥8♦6♣4♠10♣ with Foxen celebrating on the rail with friend Natalia Breviglieri before returning to the table, exclaiming in relief to her tablemates "That's like the biggest all-in of my life."
"It was the slowest runout of my life," she later told PokerNews. "Earlier in the day I doubled him up for 30 big blinds, and it was not the start I wanted for the day. So [to double] was a relief."
Foxen now sits on a comfortable stack and is looking to continue the deep run.
"Today was when I started to feel nerves and it started to feel real. I've been very calm this whole tournament, but Day 6...I started to feel it; it's getting close."
Heading into 2024, Foxen enjoyed a solid start to the year with a string of cashes in Las Vegas, including winning a title at the 2024 PGT Kickoff.
Kristen Foxen Bests Negreanu & Cracks Husband's Aces to Win PGT Kickoff Finale
She's cashed nine times at this year's WSOP, her best result coming in the $25,000 High Roller with a 32nd place finish for $50,637, and it's deep runs in these these tournaments — including playing under the lights at a feature table — have helped prepare her for this moment, but she also admits that it's taken a bit of luck to get this far.
"At the same time, I try to remind myself that I've been playing a lot, especially in the PokerGO studio. And that's like a boot camp for poker, and I just feel very ready.
"I hear people on Day 1 or 2 saying they don't want to be on the stream. And I was like, if you register the Main Event, you want to win. That's going to be on stream, so get used to it."
Dreaming of the Final Table
"I've definitely dreamed about being the woman who takes down the Main Event"
Last year, 395 female players entered the WSOP Main Event, and although numbers this year have yet to be released, Foxen says she's hoping to continue being a trailblazer on the biggest stage of all with just three female players remaining.
"I've definitely dreamed about being the woman who takes down the Main Event," she said. "So I'm starting to live my dream. There's still a long way to go, so I'm trying to stay calm.
It takes a lot of skill to win four bracelets and over $7 million in career earnings, and Foxen says she's using that experience to get through each day.
"I keep telling myself that it's just 10 hours of poker. And with 10 hours of poker with such a slow structure I know what to do on every hand. I'm just reminding myself of that."
"This is the stage in the tournament where you can't go wrong in being a little conservative in decisions when they come up. There is that element of high ICM in play that I don't think many people understand. So I feel like I can't go wrong and I know what to do."
"I'm just trying to remember how many big blinds I have, and what would I do in this spot with this many big blinds. At the end of the day, if I look down at ace-king and I have 70 big blinds and the other guy has 30, what do I do here? It's just playing poker, just like any other spot."
Whatever happens from here, Foxen says she's made friends along the way and has enjoyed her deep run. That run has taken her to Day 6, which, according to her, was the day it started to feel real.
