Women and Poker
By Kathy Liebert

While there are still relatively few women poker players, most of the women players I know are successful. There are successful women players in both live games and tournaments. Some of the top women tournament players are Marsha Waggoner, Barbara Enright, and Beverly Kruskol. Some of the top women live game players are also good tournament players but don't play tournaments on a regular basis. Annie Duke, Jennifer Harmon, Cissy Bottoms, and Cindy Violette are all very successful ring game players. There are thousands of poker tournament players and relatively few of them are women. Many of the women who have endeavored to play poker have made it a profitable experience.

I would recomend poker to anyone who enjoys a challenging game and who is willing to take a risk for potential reward. In some ways, poker is a fairly simple game. It does not take long to learn the basics. Poker is also a very dynamic game. Many times your decisions are affected not just by your cards but also by how your opponents are playing. While everyone knows that poker has an element of luck, ultimately it is the quality of your decisions that determine your results. Poker is not an exact science. There are many different styles of play that can be successful. Many non-poker players have misconceptions about the game. I have often been asked how important math skills are in becoming a successful player. The fact of the matter is that having superior math skills does not contribute much to the success of a poker player. Certainly knowing things like how often you will make a pair, straight, and flush and whether or not the pot is giving you sufficient pot odds to draw to your hand are valuable. Most of the math skills you need can be easily computed or can be learned by reading the availble books on the subject. More important than math skills is the ability to make logical decisions relatively quickly. The quality of your decisions will improve with experience. There are many winning players who use different styles. There is no one right way to play most of the time. Often your decisions depend on many factors such as the actions of the other players and what you know about how they think and play.

I began playing poker as a child with friends and family in nickel-dime-quarter dealer choice home games and immediately enjoyed the game. In fact, I even bought a book on winning at poker and started keeping notes on my results on the inside cover. I enjoyed the home games, but we didn't play that often, and I didn't play poker all through high school and college. Once in a while there would be a poker game in the dorm but they were "guys games," so I wasn't invited to play.

After I graduated from college, I took a job as a Business Analyst at Dun & Bradstreet. I worked there for over a year and decided that I wanted to try something else. I wanted to take a break from the corporate world, so I decided to go to California and take a few classes at The University of San Diego. It was during this time that I first went to Las Vegas and played casino poker. I played $1-4 Seven Card Stud and $3-6 Limit Holdem. I really enjoyed the challenge of the game. I had little interest in playing slots or any other casino game because they require little thought, and you have less control of your money. In poker, you have to make many important decisions, and the quality of those decisions affects your results. That makes poker a challenging and fascinating game.

After just one week in Vegas, I had rediscovered my interest in poker. I then moved to Colorado, though I didn't know what I was going to do there. I thought I might ski and join the job force again. Shortly after I moved there, $5 dollar limit casinos opened not far from where I was living. I began playing regularly and bought a couple of poker books to study the games. I soon discovered that the casinos were hiring proposition players, players who are paid by the casino to play with their own money to fill up a game. I took a job as a proposition player, and it was during this time that I developed my poker skills and became a winning player. I also played in home games where we played 4-8, 5-10,10-20 and occasionally 20-40 limit games.

After playing in Colorado for about two years, I went back to Las Vegas, played in my first major poker tournament, and won $11,000. Several days later I played a $230 buy-in Limit Hold 'Em tournament and won $21,000. In my first week of playing poker tournaments, I had won $32,000. After that, I went to several other tournaments and continued to win. I became a traveling tournament player, going to most of the major poker tournaments in Las Vegas and California.

In 1997, A Poker Tournament Player of the Year Ranking was conducted, and I ranked 4th out of all tournament players in the U.S. I had many wins that year, including a 2nd place in the WSOP, No-Limit Hold 'Em event, where I won $167,000.

I was the only woman to make the top 12 in 1997. In 1998, Barbara Enright was the only woman to make the top 12, and in 1999, I was once again the only woman in the top 12. There are very few women who regularly play the poker tournament circuit, so to have a woman in the top 12 every year since its inception is quite good.

Poker is a game of skill with an element of luck involved. Even the best players can't always win. In the short run, All poker players will have some wins and losses. In the long run, The quality of your decisions determines whether you win or lose at poker. There are many books available to help the beginning players become winning players. As more and more women discover poker, I think it will grow in popularity among them. The more experience one gets at the game, the better one becomes. I believe most people can be winning poker players. It is a game that rewards patience, discipline, observation, and the ability to make intelligent decisions quickly.