Why Don't Women Play Poker?

[theBruiser500]

It really amazes me how few women play poker. I play a little chess, and at chess touranments it surprised me how few women played chess, but poker is even worse. I haven't been to Foxwoods, but I did go to Turning Stone and I remember playing with one or two females the whole night. It seems like there are even FEWER online. There are some people on pokerstars that have pictures of girls granted, but half the time they are pictures of models (so this person is obviously not a girl) and the other half the time they've choosen random pictures of girls just to trick other people. Oh, also, in all the live games I've played with my friends, for instance the one at Umass Amherst where about 50 different people ahve played they were all guys!!!!

What's going on here? Where are all the girls?

danny

[daiwiza]

I think it's just a general phenomenon. Woman simply do not have so much interest in games as such. When I was younger I played a lot of Video and Computer Games and guess: There were not many womans interested in that, too. Poker and chess are somehow a fight. Women don't like fighting by far so much than men. Fighting is rather men's nature. Girls have a more preserving nature.

Your hobby-philosopher [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Webster]

Yea- but the ones that do are good!

[ChristinaB]

[ QUOTE ]
Women don't like fighting by far so much than men. Fighting is rather men's nature. Girls have a more preserving nature.



[/ QUOTE ]
You are right. Just look at Granny Mae and Lorinda. Passive, meek, mild-mannered. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Nikita]

Actually, they do and the ones that do play poker are damn good.

Actually there are bunch players women playing online - just most of them chose misleading account names like ZimaDog, lmao! or Mr.Shark, so it's hard to guess. Sometimes the tables are 'women only' which is pretty funny - they love to chat and chat and chat.
Some of them just love to socialize - flirting with guys and turning the chat to a XXX room..which we love for not only the obvious reasons

If you play at Party, the chicks are there [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
Take advantage of the SockerMoms and run away from the silent destroyers

[regisd]

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't been to Foxwoods, but I did go to Turning Stone and I remember playing with one or two females the whole night.

[/ QUOTE ]

i've played at foxwoods occasionally (usually 4/8, and i just tried my hand at 5/10-kill), and while i'm sometimes the only woman at my table, there's usually just one other woman playing at my table. i don't think i've ever played at a table at foxwoods with more than two other women, though. so, yeah, same deal.

[Beach-Whale]

I don't believe in the "genetic" or "nature" theories - I believe that it's in the culture, and our upbringing. How many guys, e.g., are into sewing and knitting? Well, not many, I suspect. Why? I just think that they are not among the things that are very accepted for guys to choose from. Same with poker for girls - it's not on their "accepted activities" list, so it takes more interest and a more active choice for them to get into it.

Of course, some people have more of this girl/guy cultural attitude in them than others. But at the end of the day, I believe that it's mostly a "PR" problem. Let's stop presenting poker as such a "manly" game.

[daryn]

do you go to MIT?

[AwesomeAli]

There are deffinitely more women players online than play live poker. Funny thing is, you see most of them playing for fun money.

I started on fun money tables, as most people do, and now that I've moved to real money tables, only one woman that I met at the fun money tables now also plays for real $$. The rest of the women prefer to stay and play for fun.

My research into this found that they are the wives/girlfriends of men who play for real money online. An these women just wanna play to see what all the fuss is about. So the husband/boyfriend says "sure you can play, but only for fun money [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]". This I know for sure as I have asked these women and even been one of them myself [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]. They just like to play with their play chips and have a chat and a giggle with the other people at the table. Most of them are terrible gossips (but aren't all poker players [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) and will stop at nothing to find out the latest and then pass it on.

I think that live poker is a completely different matter. At my local casino this past Saturday there were only 25 runners in the competition, five of those were women. So not a bad %age really. But again, whenever I play there, I am usually on a table full of men [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

At my home game I have had a surprising amount of women pass through the doors. I have three regulars which are women, the rest are men. A normal home game consists of 3 women and 13 men.

I really don't see what the big fuss is about women and poker. As far as I am concerned, once you sit down at a poker table, you just become yet another poker player. Men aren't going to fold or check to you because you are female. If anything, they think you are easy meat and that they can take your $$.

Personally, I love being a female in the poker world.

Ali

[astroglide]

more conservative, less competitive