Princess Love, a reality TV personality and spouse of Ray J, defeated almost 3,800 players to reach the top 45 of the World Poker Tour Championship.
There are now just 45 players left in the $40 million guaranteed World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship, down from 3,835 at the beginning – and reality TV star Princess Love Norwood is one of them.
Thirty-two players returned to Wynn Las Vegas on Day Four (Monday) in the hopes of taking home the $5,678,000 first-place prize. However, for roughly one-third of them—Igor Kurganov (48th place, $111,300), Upeshka De Silva (76th place, $60,800), Brad Owen (WPT ambassador, 88th place, $53,500), and Joe Cada (108th place, $41,900)—that dream died.
Princess is the only Black woman and one of the two remaining in the competition, according to reports.
She posted a celebratory message on Instagram late on Monday night, saying, “Going into Day 5 of the $10,000 WPT World Championship Main Event with 45 people left out of 3,835 entries. By the way, three quads were made! Come on, let’s go.”
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She has Ray J’s support at the competition as well. He said to Poker News on Monday, “She’s never played in this kind of atmosphere, so we here supporting. I’m squatting in the space, rising and falling. However, she seems well, so perhaps this year will be lucky for us.”
According to Poker News, Princess Love’s chip stack has decreased to 3,625,000, placing her in 38th place as of Tuesday.
There are usually one or two players at the top with a significant lead over the rest of the field in tournaments, especially one this deep. However, in the 2023 WPT World Championship, that isn’t the case. Because of how close the race is going into Day 5, there’s a good chance the leaderboard will look very different early in Tuesday’s session.
The outlet also said that since there isn’t a lone pack leader, anyone can still win.
Mark Mounsey currently has the highest chip count (18,725,000), but he is closely followed by five other players, and every player in the top 10 is only one large pot away from the top spot.
With 17,900,000 chips, Maxime Chilaud is in second place. Ren Lin comes in third place with 17,750,000 chips, just above Raphael Blouet’s 17,450,000 chips. Ben Heath, with a healthy 16,600,000 stack, completes the top five.