Poker is a woman’s game. New York Times best-selling author Maria Konnikova may have been the first to say this because, well, poker has almost always been a man’s game.
There have been some exceptions. Lottie Deno traveled around Texas with her husband playing poker in the mid-1800s until they moved to New Mexico and opened their own gambling room in 1877. Alice Ivers, also known as “Poker Alice”, played poker to survive financially after her husband died. She worked as a dealer in local Colorado Territory in the late 1800s and early 1900s, eventually opening her own poker saloon in South Dakota.
In 1978, Barbara Freer was the first woman to enter an open World Series of Poker event, one not designated for ladies only. The following year, she won the first-ever Women’s 7-Card Stud event and became the first woman to win a bracelet. Barbara Enright won her first WSOP bracelet in 1986 and became the first – and only – woman to reach a WSOP Main Event final table in 1995.
June Field founded Card Player Magazine in 1988, and Poker Hall of Fame inductee Linda Johnson was its publisher for eight years.
There were many women who blazed trails in poker, all who chipped away at the traditional dictum that poker was a man’s game, even if this wasn’t their objective.
Konnikova and her latest best-seller The Biggest Bluff are doing the same.
Psychology and poker
Many writers have tried to tackle the intersection of psychology and poker. Most of them did not have a PhD in psychology from Columbia University, though, nor did they approach poker as an outsider. Konnikova was well-versed in psychology, having written best-selling books like The Confidence Game and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. But she knew little about poker.
When she first met Erik Seidel to discuss the idea for the book, she admitted that she wasn’t sure how many cards were in a deck. What she did bring to the table was her degree, her study of decision making. She wanted to study poker through the eyes of one of the most accomplished players in the world from a theoretical perspective.
Konnikova had no intention of analyzing the lack of gender parity in poker. And Seidel had no desire to train a woman to take over the poker world. Gender didn’t appear to be a factor at the beginning.
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It was only after she submerged herself in the poker world – entering major competitive tournaments in 2017 – that it became apparent she was often the only woman at the table. She admitted that the figure of three percent – the percentage of women in most poker tournament fields – was never far from her mind as she began playing. There were inarguable things she learned about poker: 52 cards are in a deck, it’s sometimes the hands you don’t play that help win a tournament, and women were a distinct minority.
Konnikova mentioned it only a few times in The Biggest Bluff, though when she did, her observations were astute, and her intentions were made clear. “If I’m known as anything in this game, I want to be known as a good poker player, not a good female poker player. No modifiers need apply.”
She changed the narrative.
The biggest hit
The book quickly made its way through the poker community, earning accolades for Konnikova’s honesty, efforts, and reflections.
Those characteristics of The Biggest Bluff drew a wide-ranging audience beyond the poker world. She brought the psychology of one of America’s pastimes, a common kitchen-table game, into focus. And under the spotlight, Konnikova learned the skill and luck aspects of poker, and how poker skills teach players life lessons that benefit them outside of the poker room.
By writing this book and becoming a full-fledged, card-carrying member of the professional poker community, Konnikova became one of the rare influential female figures in poker.
This is where the narrative change happens.
“I think it’s important to constantly and consistently keep reminding women of their power. The world we live in is still a man’s world, and so many messages serve to undermine female confidence. I see it as part of my job to keep pushing in the other direction.”
Konnikova’s book does this. She believes it exposes more women to the game and, in particular, “the circular nature of the skills.”
“Being female in a male world helps in poker – and the skills from the poker table, in turn, make you more powerful in life.”
The first way to do this is to change the way we frame women in the poker world. Instead of women playing a man’s game, start to view poker as a woman’s game.
New league of women
Women who have been in poker for many years bring an important part of history with them. They remind the newer generations of the game’s evolution, how things have changed, often for the better. Change may be slow – women still comprise approximately five to eight percent of any tournament field – but it happens.
Women who enter the game today, however, often bring with them new attitudes, fresh viewpoints, and no desire to fight old fights. Some of them are more assertive, more willing to call out sexism, misogyny, and even other isms. This is because more girls are being raised to feel empowered, to take charge, to be aggressive and take their places at the table instead of asking for them.
Konnikova receives a lot of public feedback about her book, much of it from women.
“A lot of women told me they’d never thought twice about poker before my book and that now, they were giving it some serious consideration as a tool to improve their decision making. A lot of men told me it was the first time their wife/mother/girlfriend/daughter/fill-in-the-blank finally understood why they played – and even joined them.”
When women sit down at the poker table feeling that poker is, indeed, a woman’s game, that old narrative can slowly disappear.