Just Poker Talk

In the past few weeks I’ve come across a couple articles about how more women are playing poker. Like there was an article about Shannon Elizabeth getting to the final four at the National Heads Up Poker Championship and another article about more women playing online poker. Today I just read an article at burnabynewsleader.com about how women are playing more live poker, which you can read here.

The article is pretty interesting. Like I never knew there was a Woman’s Poker Club or Women Poker Player Magazine, but apparently there are. With the latter I wonder how many people subscribe to it, as it’s obviously not as well known as Card Player or Bluff. Also that magazine really only fills a small niche.

The article also goes into some reasons why some women don’t play poker. A lot of the reasons leaned toward poker being a male dominated game and that the men intimidated some women at the poker table. That’s definitely the image of poker that I get in the media. Like I’ll be watching some sitcom or cartoon and they never have women playing pokerl it’s always all men playing.

I’ve been reading a book called the Sociology of Risk and Gambling Reader and it makes some interesting points. One point that relates to this article is that men tend to play more skill oriented gambling games, like Poker and Horse racing, as it gives them a chance to control their fate, or at least a perceived chance, and that conversely women tended to play more passive gambling games, like Slots and Bingo, which their fate rested completely on luck. In effect they had no control. They were dependent on an external force to win. This division kind of parallels the social roles of men and woman before the women’s rights movement. Granted American society is still a very much male dominated society.

Another possible reason for the growth of women poker players is the more commercialized and clean family-friendly image that the poker world is advertising. I think that makes women feel more comfortable playing poker because poker seems more accepted nowadays and they definitely don’t have to play like how Doyle Brunson used to make a living by traveling the country and looking for games to hustle.

Also online poker rooms are helpful in bringing in more women players because it’s hard to distinguish gender without the physical presence of the players.

I think it’s a good thing that more women are playing poker. The more players the better.

women and poker, Shannon Elizabeth, poker, Women Poker Player Magazine