Poker Player Annie Duke - Women of Poker

Walking into the main tournament area at the World Series of Poker is an unnerving thing. The fierce concentration, the adrenaline, the sweat and hope and desperation are so thick in the air, you can practically see the fug they create. Competition is brutal, and nerves are on edge. It’s not a place for sissies.

On first glance, you ‘d probably conclude that it’s not a place for women either. For every 20 male faces on the tournament floor, there might be one woman. Maybe less. But those numbers are changing, thanks to television, movies, and women like Annie Duke.

For the past dozen years, Duke has been one of the few females who can hold her own in this male-dominated sport. A familiar face to WSOP fans and poker students, Duke has transcended ‘top female player’ status to become one hell of a player, period. And she credits her maternal responsibilities and poker un-obsessed lifestyle for helping her keep ahead of the field.

“I’m a huge believer that a good poker player needs to have a balanced life,” she says from her Los Angeles home, a few days before the start of the 2006 WSOP. She is relaxing poolside, phone in hand, cherubic child balanced on her lap.

“When I first started playing, I had this huge excitement for the game—but I’ve developed an understanding that the game is still going to be there tomorrow.”

An involved, engaged mother to four children, Duke has become quite the expert in balancing family matters with poker. But it hasn’t been easy.

“It’s different for a male poker player with kids,” she says. “Men traditionally are doing a lot more outside the house.”

Certainly no man has ever had to play the WSOP while eight months pregnant, as Duke did famously in 2000. A lot of people would consider these conditions impossible—yet she finished in 10th place. And she’s continued to view her family as her greatest blessing, from a professional standpoint as well as a personal one.

“There have been a lot of people who’ve come and gone—who have had amazing years, where they come in and win everything. And then so many of them disappear and go broke. I really believe it’s because everything in their life is just poker,” she muses.

“It’s so important to have other things, and to realize that in the scheme of things, poker isn’t that important. It’s a great job, it’s a lot of fun, but in the end if you took poker away from me, I would live.”

Duke also credits her family responsibilities for helping her manage her bankroll wisely throughout the years:

“One of the weird things about poker is that you’re handling all this cash, and you’re getting paid in cash, and it’s flowing in and out of your life, and it’s easy to lose the value of money. When you have a lot of success young, and you get a hold of a lot of cash, and you’ve never had to be an adult struggling, you lose perspective.

“But you do have months that go by, where things aren’t going well. If you haven’t handled your cash well, and you start to have money pressures, and you’re tilting, and you’re feeling these money pressures intensify, some people just never recover…because they don’t have balance in their lives. I’m raising four kids. I’ve got to write the check to their schools every year.”

It’s not exactly the glamorous, high-rolling lifestyle that most players aim for these days—but at the same time, it provides something much more stable than the never-ending adrenaline roller coaster.

“Without having something to feel like you’re working for, there’s no motivation,” says Duke, whose theory of balance also extends over into her World Series schedule strategy.

“For the last two years, I’ve concentrated on tournaments, and played no side games,” she says. “The World Series is so intense, if you’re playing tournaments and side games, you have no life. Plus, each one takes away from the other one. So I focus on tourneys, and if I get knocked out, I’ll go hang with my kids.”

As far as the unique pressures of being a woman in the WSOP, Duke is blasé:

“I’ve never cared,” she says. “I think that’s one of my strengths. I’m not worried about gender—I’m worried about whether I can play well against you. Poker is an amazing game because you’re pitting your mind against other guys. It doesn’t matter whether you’re man, woman, 25, 55, black, white—if you’re intellectually superior, you’re going to win.”

Outside of the World Series, Duke is busy with a number of other ventures, some poker-related, some not.

“I’ve been doing a lot of commentary with my brother [Howard Lederer] for Fox Sports Network. People enjoy that. And I really do, too,” she says.

“I also enjoy the educational aspect that I’ve developed. We have four DVDs out, and we’re going to be filming four more. The material’s written, and we’ll be filming in September, and starting to release them right before Christmas. I’m also working on a strategy-based book.”

And in case you’re wondering whether the Los Angeles address has some significance…yes, Duke has begun to batter down Hollywood’s golden gates.

“I was an executive producer with Annie Duke Takes on the World,” she says, referring to the eponymous TV special that appeared on Game Show Network in May. “I have a production company called Ten Dimes Productions. We’re developing a horror script, and we have a deal to produce two features with Red Wagon (Memoirs of a Geisha, Gladiator).

There’s no doubt that Duke breaks the mold where poker players are concerned. In fact, she’s an absolute paradox: the PTA mom/card shark/career woman/professor/producer. But that suits her just fine.

“Sometimes it’s poker, sometimes regular life—but if I can aspire to be great at something, or inspire someone else to be great, then I feel good about it,” she says.

Whether she’s at the table, in front of the camera, writing a book or teaching a camp, Duke always remembers who and what she’s working for—and she always goes home to it at the end of the day.

“You know, those people who spend all their time working, and then wake up when they’re 60 and wonder where the time went…that can happen for poker players too,” she says.

And I wait for her to emphatically tell me…that will not happen to her.

But just then, the cherubic child comes back, crawling up on her mother’s lap with determination.

“Mommy. Swim?” she says firmly. “You promised.”

And just like that, WSOP bracelet winner, poker millionaire and television personality Annie Duke says a polite goodbye and heads off to take a late-afternoon dip with her family. And just like that, I have my answer.