Gender Gap
Magic is seen as a game overwhelmingly dominated by males, both on the Pro Tour and off. A woman has never made the Top 8 of a PT and for a long time there were only two women that made the Top 8 of a Grand Prix - Michelle Bush (second place, New Orleans, 2001) and Kate Stavola (fifth place, Columbus, 2004). However, in late 2011 this started to change and four more women have made the Top 8 of a Grand Prix since then: Melissa DeTora (fourth place, Santiago, 2011), Mary Jacobson (fifth place, Lincoln, 2012), Jackie Lee (third place, Baltimore, 2012) and Lissa Jensen (seventh place, Nashville, 2012). Until PT Charleston in 2006 a woman had never even finished in the money at a traditional-payout PT. That changed when Asami Kataoka, as part of the team "Tottori 1 6 1" (led by five-time Top 8er Masashi Oiso) finished in 18th place at the event, earning the team US$1800 in total. (Kataoka had won money at a PT before, winning $100 at the skins-game PT Philadelphia in 2005.)
The highest-profile first-place finish by a woman in the game's history belongs to Eda Bilsel of Turkey, who, in 2003, became Magic's first (and, as of July 2011, only) female national champion. Although she finished in 307th place in the individual standings at that year's Worlds, with her national team taking 35th in the team standings, she caught the attention of many players and coverage reporters who attended the event during the flag ceremony that year.
The highest finish for a woman at an individual PT was that of England's Carrie Oliver, who finished 32nd at PT Nagoya 2011, winning US$1350. Since it was her debut PT after only 18 months of playing the game (having learned to play via Duels of the Planeswalkers), it also marked the highest finish of a woman in her first PT appearance, earning her several mentions during the coverage of the event, including a feature article.
Read more about this topic: Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering)
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