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Women Poker Players

  1 August, 2005

  For hundreds of years poker was a male dominated game, but with the recent explosion in popularity, more and more women are playing poker both competitively and in home games. Thanks to television coverage, we even have legitimate female poker stars such as Annie Duke and Evelyn Ng. Is this a good thing? In this author’s opinion, this is one of the best things that have happened to the game in a long time. It has added legitimacy to poker, and on a more personal level, I find it much easier to get permission to go out to play poker from my better half since she has started playing some herself.

  With this influx of women, many men have a tough time adjusting to this change in their normal game. Some men have a hard time accepting this simply because it constitutes a change. Others have a problem recognizing the fact that a woman can be every bit as good a poker player as a man, or even better. Others get so caught up in flirting or talking to a woman at the table that they abandon solid play. Some men even try to intimidate female players and foolishly think they can bluff them more often than their male counterparts.

  Well, the good news is that if you find yourself saddled with any of the problems mentioned above, I have the solution. Of course if you have been playing poker any length of time at all, you have probably figured this out yourself. When I play against female players at the poker table, I treat them exactly the same way as I treat any other player. They are there to take my money and I am definitely there to take theirs. Through their actions and play, I try to determine their ability and tendencies and try to find any areas of weakness that I may be able to take advantage of. I also make a conscious decision to not let the fact that they are female alter my judgment of their playing ability. Just like one of the best ways to avoid tilt is to make a decision to not let it get to you, you must think about how you will handle a female at the poker table. They are just another poker player, not a female poker player.

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