by Simon Young

There can't be too many players at this year's Main Event called Gladys - but I found one, fighting it out with two other PokerStars qualifiers on the same table as Katja Thater. I'm not sure what a group of PokerStars qualifiers should be called, perhaps "a set" is appropriate since there are three of them. Just as I decided this would be good to record, Gladys Landegger went and knocked one of her "set" out when her aces held up against jacks.

Gladys Landegger: all smiles after aces
"I've waited eleven and a half hours for the aces to come... and they held up!" she said, raking in a healthy pot that eased her past the 40,000 mark. Gladys is originally from Argentina, but moved to Los Angeles in the US, where she met and married Al, an attorney who originally came from Austria. Still with me?

She started watching poker on television, read up on the game, and only a few years ago decided to give it a go for herself - on PokerStars, of course. And she has not looked back. Al, watching proudly from the rail, takes up the story: "She is a very good player. She may joke that because I am an attorney I can keep her as a happy housewife, but she has got here herself with the good game she has got."

In fact, Gladys got here via the PokerStars $650 satellite, but it was not all plain sailing... it was her third attempt. With a beaming smile, and happy demeanor, let's hope she can keep her good run going - the Main Event needs characters like her.


Joe Palmer: accounting for all his chips
Her axing of the PokerStars qualifier "Set" member made me speak hastily to the other remaining member, Joe Palmer, before he suffered some horrible fate as well. But I need not have worried, as upon closer inspection I found he was sitting pretty with 63,000 chips. This is the third time that Joe, from Chicago, has made the World Series and he's hoping for his first cash.

What he has not told his table mates is that in real life he is a tax accountant, so he should be pretty good at taking their money.

"I've got a three-week-old son, Jack Joseph, waiting for me at home, so I really want to do well for him," he said.

There, you read it here first, a tax accountant with a heart.