Female poker player Gaelle Baumann, who hails from France, had moderate success during the 2012 World Series of Poker prior to the Main Event. She finished 15th in the Ladies Championship for $7,716 and cashed for $5,265 in a $2,500 No Limit Hold’em event. She was the Final Table Bubble Girl of the 2012 WSOP Main Event.

Baumann was the chip leader after Day 2 of the 2012 WSOP Main Event and was hoping to become just the second woman ever to make the final table of the $10,000 buy-in tournament, joining Barbara Enright, who did so in 1995. She is known in the France poker community and represents Winamax as a Team Pro.

Baumann had a couple of battles with Hungary pokerpro Andras Kory Koronkai on Day 5. With the blinds of 15,000/30,000, Baumann lost out with J-J to Koroknai’s A-A for a 2.1 million chip pot. Despite the setback, Baumann still had a respectable 3.8 million in chips, but Koroknai doubled up to set up a controversial hand about 30 minutes later.

With the blinds still at 15,000/30,000, Baumann raised under-the-gun to 60,000. The action folded around to Koroknai in the small blind, who raised all-in for approximately two million. Canadian poker pro Gavin Smith folded from the big blind and Koroknai, not realizing the Baumann was still in the hand, mucked.

When he realized his mistake, Koroknai tried grabbing back his cards; however, one of them was irretrievable. Tournament Director Dennis Jones was called to the table and after hearing the story, ruled that Koroknai would only lose the 60,000 chips to Baumann and would not be eliminated from the tournament.

After Smith and others seemed befuddled by this ruling, WSOP Tournament Director Jack Eiffel was called and after a two-minute conversation, upheld the original ruling. According to Smith, Baumann showed K-K, so it could have been a huge pot for her if this controversial ruling were different.

Despite potentially having about six million chips, Baumann was holding strong going into Day 6 with 3,980,000 and was in eighth place with 97 players remaining. She bowed out one place short of the 2012 WSOP October Nine and landed in 10th for $590,000.