Poker Articles

Transgender Aggression
By Amy Calistri

In the movie Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman’s character confesses that “…I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man.” And as confusing as that all is, I have discovered that I learned a lot about being a more aggressive woman at the poker table from a woman…who was really a man.

Author’s note: Since I have given Jim McManus a hard time about his gender piece in The New York Times, I thought I’d better come clean about my own brush with gender stereotyping and poker.

I had spent a lifetime being an aggressive woman. In my non-poker life, I was known for this trait. In my consulting practice, I was the person that was called upon to rip apart an opposing expert’s testimony. In my corporate life, I was the negotiator selected for cutthroat “take no prisoners” situations. I was fondly called names like “the dragon lady” and “the terminator.” Of course I was called other less flattering names.

So I was surprised that when I took up poker, my strengths were patience and discipline. And a little more surprised that my lack of aggression on the felt was one of my primary leaks. A table bully could fluster me. I rarely took advantage of positional plays. While I was aware of the importance well timed bluffs and steals, I was seldom able to pull the trigger.

My Self Imposed Gender Trap:
I’m not a big fan of gender stereotypes. But my anecdotal experience was that the women I played with were fairly tight passive players. And if I was up against an aggressive thief, it was most likely a man. While I knew there were aggressive women pros and recreational players out there, I seldom got to see enough of their play to emulate. This was before the era of televised poker, and I rarely got to see the pros in action. So for maybe the first time in my life, I felt I was in a gender trap, frustrated that I couldn’t break out of it and yet almost using it as an excuse for my sub-optimal play. I felt this way, that is, until I met my savior, and nemesis, apryllshowers.

I often play at PokerSchoolOnline.com. When apryllshowers joined, she took the site by storm, rising quickly to the top of the ranking charts. She was all about aggression. She had a way of keeping up the pressure without getting caught. You knew sometimes she was stealing, and yet there was little you could do about it. She got paid off for big hands because people doubted she had the goods. And if apryll suspected you were a weak passive player, she was all over you like dead armadillos on a south Texas highway.

Being Her, Not Beating Her:
You’d think that I was overjoyed to finally have my gender role model for aggressive play. But that’s not how it started out. I was jealous that she broke the code that still eluded me. And for some reason, I felt that it was my personal mission to expose her, to prove that she was less than she was. I specifically joined tournaments she was playing. My whole “reason for being” was to bring her down. Needless to say, devising a tournament strategy that centered on butting heads with a tough aggressive player was a recipe for disaster. Over time, she intimidated me like no other. And I started avoiding her at all costs.

But then it dawned on me. To become a more aggressive player, I had to “be” her, not “beat” her. I developed an aggression checklist.

• Raise from late position into an uncalled pot
• Re-raise over the top of a positional raiser
• Steal the big blind from the weakest player at the table
• Bet on a missed or marginal flop when I was the pre-flop raiser
• Bet out of the blinds on a rag flop
• Raise my strong hands no matter how many limpers preceded me.

In the course of a tournament, I would put a check mark next to each item as I accomplished it. At first it was hard to check every item. Over time, I had multiple check marks next to every item.

While I was on my way to becoming more aggressive, I still had a little intimidation problem to overcome. In public speaking, one tool that is often employed to overcome intimidation is to picture your audience naked. But since I play a lot of poker online, I already assumed my opponents were naked. And knowing what the average poker player looks like, I just didn’t want to go there. So I made up little post it notes with new nicknames for the players that intimidated me most. When I found myself at their table, I’d stick the post-it over their online name. Apryllshowers became “goldenshowers.” Every time she was at my table, I had to laugh. And while I am past the point of needing my post-its, I find that I still create silly nicknames for both my B&M and online opponents when I play.

Aggression in poker is not something that you either have or don’t have. It can be learned. None of us was born with an inherent skill to drive a car. But with only a little experience behind the wheel, driving becomes second nature. With just a little time with my checklist, aggression started to become a more natural element of my game. Starting down this path, my goal was to be aggressive, and didn’t particularly focus on results. There were definitely times where an aggressive play backfired or was less effective. But once I understood the skill set, adjustments were easier to make. I admit I still have a lot of work to do, but mastering poker is a long road and I am happier with the path that apryllshowers showed me.

Apryll’s Footnote:
While playing most online sites, I make no gender assumptions based on nicknames or avatars. But PolerSchoolOnline.com is a very supportive and trusting site, where people often post their pictures, real names, and personal information in their profiles. So it came as something of a surprise when after many months, Apryllshowers finally confessed that he was a man.

At first I felt cheated. My gender role model for aggression was a fraud. But then I realized the skill that I had started to develop was very real. This gender stereotype was my fraud not his. So in the end, I did learn more about being an aggressive woman player from a man as a woman than I might have from a man. And maybe shattering that gender trap was the best lesson apryllshowers taught me.

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