Why So Few Women Poker Players?

[RacersEdge]

Obviously, there is no physical strength or coordination required like in sports.

Is it the obvious - that women aren't mathematical/analytical in nature so they can't grasp the strategy easily?

They don't like the emotionless part of it?

They get intimidated? (Live games).

Curious as to people's ideas.

[obsidian]

Alan Schoonmaker had a good article written on this in card player.

[Warren Whitmore]

Super system 1 By David Sklansky

"....To figure the chances a hand has to scoop, you must name each good card one hand can catch to give it a possible scoop. Then, when you determine how many of those cards there are, you multiply that number by the number of bad cards the other hand can possibly catch to make the scoop stick....

Super system 2 by Jennifer Harman

"..... If your opponent is folding too many hands pre-flop, you should be raising on the button 100 percent of the time-even with 7-2! think about it, if your opponent isn't defending his blind with 10-6, K-2, 8-5, etc, raising with any hand on the button is probably enough to ensure a win. A pre-flop raise followed up by a position bet will force your opponent to either hit the flop or try to make a play at the pot. And who's to say that you can't hit the flop? Describing a player as passive in heads-up play is a more polite way of saying that he can't win....."

I will start by saying I could not outplay either of these people on my best day. Thats not the point though.

The point is that in general men tend to have a conceptual thought process and that woman tend to rely more on remembering things. Or put another way men tend to concentrate thier studies on theory and abstracts and woman on experiance and improvements based on experiance.

Because of this men tend to be better and math and science which require a great deal of conceptual abstract thought. Woman tend to be better at spelling, remembering names, and a good many other things which require experiance over abstracts.

The thing with poker is that a person (male or female) can play poker for 50 years and still be a negative ev player (the learn by doing method). And a theory type player can be a positive ev player the first hand he or she recieves thier first hand.

In college most of your 4.0 type people are great memorizers. Most of sucessful buissness people are conceptualists. Thats just the way it goes.

A more interesting question to me is why arent most winning poker players physically cripples?

If you take the most often prejudice thing for income in corportate America it is height. The taller you are the more money you make thats all there is to it. When you pull that out of the curve with regression it accounts for all of the females making less for the same work phenomenon.

This is made up for of course by having more short people as investors and self employed in direct proportion. No harm done.

I don't see this trend with poker though. I dont see a disproportionate amount of physically disabled people playing cards and I dont know why. I do know that if I were confined to a wheel chair that I would be putting in a lot more hours. I am only one data point however.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously, there is no physical strength or coordination required like in sports.

Is it the obvious - that women aren't mathematical/analytical in nature so they can't grasp the strategy easily?

They don't like the emotionless part of it?

They get intimidated? (Live games).

Curious as to people's ideas.

[/ QUOTE ]

It may just be that poker just doesn't appeal to most women in the first place (why it doesn't appeal to them, I have no idea). I do know one thing, though - the idea that the reason there are so few women poker players is because of oppression or discouragement from the men in their lives is absolutely ridiculous (to prove it, look at the demographics for online poker players - more women to be sure, but still the vast majority are men, and how could a woman be discouraged in an area of poker where nobody knows she's female??). So my guess is it's just the same as something like computer science; some women study it, but in general it just doesn't pique the interest of most women for some reason, as they certainly aren't being "oppressed" (hell, we would have loved to have more women in our CS department in college [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img])

[Bodhi]

Why don't more men like clinical psychology? Why don't more men major in English?

There's nothing biological, conceptual, or neurological to explain it. It is an illusion that we choose our path through life. Rather, culture lays out the path for us and we play the part.

Anyway, a lot of the men I know aren't attracted to women who are their intellectual/competitive equals. It's very difficult to strike out on an unpopular path that doesn't fit your society's gender stereotype.

[Hermlord]

Poker does not involve enough baking.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]


There's nothing biological, conceptual, or neurological to explain it. It is an illusion that we choose our path through life. Rather, culture lays out the path for us and we play the part.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh for christ's sake, not this thread too. Read this, or if you don't feel like trodding on down to the library, read these:

The Science of Gender and Science

The Science of Difference

And here are some more things Pinker had to say about the Lawrence Summers issue.

But I'm guessing you're still going to repeat the Berkeley Party Line of "culture is everything". (Even though people will swear up and down that culture and society mold us from head to toe and there's nothing we can do about it, I've never felt any resistance as a male in endeavoring to learn how to cook or clean house or any thing that isn't in line with my "gender role". Funny, that.)

/You can't have babies, you haven't got a womb!

[RYL]

I don't know the reason why there are few women poker players but I do know that women and men are biologically different.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know the reason why there are few women poker players but I do know that women and men are biologically different.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do women have an unfair advantage at Texas Hold'em?

Because they start off every hand with a big pair!

HOOAH!

[img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[o0mr_bill0o]

i feel like most men get started in poker as some sort of cock measuring exercise: hence all the table coaches. i don't think that appeals to women quite as much.