Sex plays a mean hand as women invade poker

LOOK deep into the eyes of a woman you know. Would she lie to you? How could you tell? And here is the multi-million-dollar question: is she really holding a pair of aces or is she just bluffing to make you throw away your pair of kings?

These questions are increasingly agitating the male-dominated world of high-stakes poker, which was last night heading for the climactic moment of every serious player?s year ? the $50m (?28.4m) World Series of Poker (WSOP) finals in Las Vegas.

The emergence of the fiercely competitive poker playing woman is threatening to transform one of the world?s most popular pastimes. Internet gambling is helping to develop the card playing skills of a generation of women who have traditionally been regarded as fatally inferior to men in one crucial area ? the ability to bluff convincingly.

The victory of Jennifer Tilly, a Hollywood actress who beat 600 players to win a $158,000 pot at a WSOP satellite tournament, has sparked debate about women players turning their supposed sexual flaws to their advantage.

?An interesting thing happens when you put a woman at a poker table,? said Annie Duke, the world?s top-rated female player. ?Some men become unhinged and forget that they are playing a ruthless game in which emotion should be separated from strategy.?

However, women players still have a long way to go.

Of the 27 competitors still in the WSOP contest on Friday ? out of an original field of 5,619 ? only one was female. She was Tiffany Williamson, a corporate lawyer who finished 15th with about $300,000.

The successes of women such as Williamson and Tilly are encouraging a rethinking of a woman?s place in the casino.

?Poker has come a long way over the past two years, but the way women are perceived in the game [by men] has stayed the same,? explained Shirley Rosario, a California-based player and internet columnist.

?Women are perceived as tight, weak, emotional, less likely to bluff and not inclined to gamble as much as a man.?

Tilly admits male prejudice in this regard is not unfair. ?I don?t want to be sexist, but girls want everything to be all right,? she said recently. ?Women think it would be cheating if they were bluffing. You never see that in a men?s game.?

Duke and other female players agree that the secret for women is to exploit any sign of male chauvinism and to take advantage of other feminine qualities that might confuse or distract the men. The prime weapon, inevitably, is sex.

?You will meet a lot of flirters at the table,? said Duke. ?They see you as a girl rather than an opponent. They see you having cocktails with them.?

She added that by ?flirting right back?, women often gain the upper hand. ?Let them think that being with them is the most fun you?ve had at a poker table in years. These guys won?t want to take your money. They will want to take you out on a date. So they will not put the kind of pressure on you that they should. They won?t bluff you as often as they should.?

Another male type, said Duke, is the ?angry chauvinist? who is ?offended by your mere presence at the table?.

The best way to unsettle such men is to make them even more hostile: ?Giggle girlishly when you win pots ? men like this don?t want a girl to beat them.?

Men had better marshal their defences, for women are flooding into the game via the internet. One recent study found that 53% of those gambling online in America were female.

By Tony Allen-Mills

News Added: 17 July, 2005

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