Many people find it difficult to believe that women could be naturally good at poker. And the root of this chauvinistic image of poker perhaps lies in the game’s history. In old times, the word poker was usually associated with images of tough, whisky-addicted egotistical males gambling away to glee with their wealth and oversized egos, and indulging in river boat duels on the Mississippi.
Poker has now become a lot more accommodating, but people still perceive it as some kind of a testosterone-driven, male-dominated activity in which the fairer sex has no place or role to play. After all, poker is a game of guts and wits. And this is exactly where Jennifer Harman-Traniello saw her opportunity!
Jennifer, a resident of Reno, Nevada, took up poker at the age of eight, decided to turn it into a full fledged career after graduating from college, and decided to exploit male predispositions to make personal gains. And she has made a fortune of over $2,000,000 by winning in live tournaments and the ‘Big Game.’
The latter is a type of high stakes regular cash game held at Las Vegas’ Bellagio, and she is the only regular female player out there. To add to that, Jennifer is the only woman on earth who owns two WSOP bracelets and has made at least two appearances at the final tables of the highly televised World Poker Tour.
Do you know how Jennifer attained so much success in a male dominated scenario? Well, as you may have already guessed by now, this lady understands a lot more about poker strategies than many of her opponents do. And the other reason for her early success was her sex.
Because she was a woman, the men she played against underestimated her knowledge and skills. After all women are supposed to be dumb and faint hearted, right? Well, guess what, she had a field day beating the hell out of seasoned veterans whom she took by surprise.
What advantages do women really have in poker?
Kill them with your sex appeal
Unless a woman’s male opponent turns out to be gay, there’s a good chance that the attention she has from him during the game would distract him from his cards. And if the woman happens to look like a supermodel and has dressed “appropriately” for the occasion, men will be all over the place just losing it. I have seen cases where women made sizable amounts of money from poker tables just by wearing revealing outfits and flashing their gorgeous smiles. Of course, I’m not saying that they weren’t good players; just that they had a lot more than a good game in their arsenal.
Believe in your instincts
It is true that poker is largely based on keen mathematical calculations. But at the same time it is also very much a battle of instincts or intuition. When male players tend to get busy over analyzing and dissecting simple situations, female players can get ahead by trusting their instincts about their opponents. I know, sounds feminist, right? It’s not. Men can cultivate this too by paying a lot of attention to people’s faces and correlating them with the emotions they display.
Patience is a woman’s virtue
Poker is a slow game that is nowadays played by many people who want to get rich quick. And mostly it is men who have these get rich quick schemes in their minds. This impatience to dominate the game and earn lots of money quickly often makes them take rash decisions.
Patience, on the other hand, is a virtue which comes naturally to women.
How should women play poker?
The common belief about female poker players is that they play passively and bet only if there are good hands. However, this perception could often work in favor of a woman who knows when to bluff and bet big. In other words, a smart woman would know when to turn the aggression on and still portray the image of a cautious and patient passive player.
There’s another way in which having the image of a passive player could be used to bluff. Let me explain: when someone believes that you’re a passive player, they expect you to play it safe when you don’t have great cards. This means that when you have great cards, they would expect you to bet high, which signals to them that they need to be more careful. However, if you don’t follow that pattern and actually make very small bets, the opponents would take that as a cue meaning you don’t have good cards. That would probably make them bet high or even bluff, and you’d end up with the entire pot.
Conclusion
Of course, there are many smart players who know how to keep their head in the game and are aware of how a woman can use many aspects of her personality or perception to her advantage. Therefore, it’s not always that a man would be fooled at the poker table. Having said that, most of us are mere mortals, and you would do well to remember that when underestimating a sexy opponent.
Do you want to become a better poker player? Learn the 6 things you need to do to win heads up!
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