Why aren't women more successful in poker?

Jacki Burkhart · Nov 23, 2013

Hopefully I'm posting this in the right section.

I'm a woman player (if you can't tell by my username)

I am constantly disappointed at how few women play, and then among those of us who do, I'm frequently disappointned in our results.

To me, the characteristics needed to be a successful poker player are:

*patience
*basic math competence
*psychology
*situational awareness
*well timed aggression

Now, I know supposedly men are better at math than women, but that is really only pertinent to upper level theoretical math. Poker math is like 5th or 6th grade math at best. So I think for poker math, any high school graduate who bothers to apply themselves will have the same performance in the "poker math" department.

As far as patience and psychology I think women in general are better at these 2 things. I know I'm stereotyping...this entire thread is a stereotype so ignore this post if you don't like it!

Situational awarenes....I don't know if I think either gender has an edge here....

Then that brings me to the last item on my list which is aggression.

Clearly, men have an advantage in the aggression category. Do we really think this is the primary reason that men outperform women in poker?

Am I missing anything else obvious? Am I overstating the performance of male players in relation to female players?

XXPXXP · Nov 23, 2013

I think
because the number/poker population of women playing poker is less than men.
eg 40 good male player from 40K male player [percentage of good male player 1/10K]
but may be 1 female good player from less than 3K female player in total [percentage of good female player 1/3K]
that maybe the main reason, less good female player.

if same number of female or male player, I think there will have a lot of good female players.

Jacki Burkhart · Nov 23, 2013

a decent thought, but even when women make up 10% of the field, we don't usually make up 10% of those who cash....the exception being in some limit formats

joshuawacaster · Nov 23, 2013

Too many guys offering to buying them drinks. They can't focus

Debi · Nov 23, 2013

Will get back to this later!

Daniel72 · Nov 23, 2013

There are not many women playing poker, in chess ist even sicker. Maybe one woman plays in a 150 people tourney in my country. Men are more competitive i think.

Jacki Burkhart · Nov 23, 2013

joshuawacaster said:
Too many guys offering to buying them drinks. They can't focus

wait, are you offering to buy me a drink? are you hitting on me? where am I? Oh, is the action on me?...sorry...

Mr Sandbag · Nov 23, 2013

There are simply less women playing the game than there are men who play. The number of "successful" players in poker is low as it is, so the percentage of a "minority" group that are successful will seem extremely low.

Why are there so few female players compared to male players? Not sure, but the number is definitely growing.

DaveE · Nov 23, 2013

Like Daniel said, men are more competitive. Maybe our will to win is stronger on average?

helpspb · Nov 23, 2013

I also believe that men are naturally more aggressive and willing to take more risks while playing. But of course this is generalization and JMO

and as others said there's many more men playing poker.

AlfieAA · Nov 23, 2013

I think women in general play a tight game, which means they are easily exploited by others at the table (men) some men adopt the tight way of playing too but there are more that open up abit especially if they are playing against good players when they know that a tight game wont work....most women dont adapt to that way of thinking and think that when they raise UTG and have a vpip of 7 after 200 hands they will still get a call even when observant players will know she has aces or kings lol....although there are a couple of ladies on here who play a looser game and it shows in their results...a few wins and top finishes etc...but the vast majority will be nowhere near the money coz they get blinded down waiting for the monster....

helpspb · Nov 23, 2013

I will have to start playing these "women" games on PS, so I get to see how women play, gotta study bigger field. Because it's true that normally it's a miracle if there's two women at the table lol. But Alfie is absolutely right. Everyone needs to mix up their game, raise, put pressure on others and not just sit around waiting for the monster. I'm still working on my own aggression, but I believe it's going in the right direction LOL

lovemiscou · Nov 23, 2013

I think its just because of the number of women playing compared to number of men. There are some very good women players in wsop

Jacki Burkhart · Nov 23, 2013

AlfieAA said:
I think women in general play a tight game, which means they are easily exploited by others at the table (men) some men adopt the tight way of playing too but there are more that open up abit especially if they are playing against good players when they know that a tight game wont work....most women dont adapt to that way of thinking and think that when they raise UTG and have a vpip of 7 after 200 hands they will still get a call even when observant players will know she has aces or kings lol....although there are a couple of ladies on here who play a looser game and it shows in their results...a few wins and top finishes etc...but the vast majority will be nowhere near the money coz they get blinded down waiting for the monster....

yes, there is probably something to this.

This is probably what I could use to work on too...even though I don't think I am a nit a lot of you probably would!

please keep the observations coming. don't be afraid to offend...I want to hear what you are able to exploit about women...

p.s. one thing I'll say is that men tend to rarely give us credit for bluffing. I run a big bluff at least every 2 hours and rarely get caught (I don't consider blind stealing a big bluff either).

our all-ins tend to get more respect too...and I absue that every chance I get.

AlfieAA · Nov 23, 2013

missjacki said:
yes, there is probably something to this.

This is probably what I could use to work on too...even though I don't think I am a nit a lot of you probably would!

please keep the observations coming. don't be afraid to offend...I want to hear what you are able to exploit about women...

p.s. one thing I'll say is that men tend to rarely give us credit for bluffing. I run a big bluff at least every 2 hours and rarely get caught (I don't consider blind stealing a big bluff either).

our all-ins tend to get more respect too...and I absue that every chance I get.

if you play online and use a hud then why not post some stats and i'll tell you if you are a nit of not

yeah women don't usually bluff too much, they are always betting for value and rarely with a semi bluff.......wait you only steal the blinds once every 2 hours?....thats sort of the point with the tightness.......

okay im going to get shot here and possibly banned from one of the lady admins but here goes

if women learned position and stack sizes and played against ranges and player types they would be challenging the men.....until that happens and it might be soon with the younger players then you gals are gonna get exploited like mad imo....there's a lady player called vanessa selbst and y'all should be learning from her....better than most men

Mr Sandbag · Nov 23, 2013

Some of the assumptions made in this thread are ridiculous. It has nothing to do with women being tighter, or less competitive, or less aggressive. It's simply numbers.

Let's say 95% of poker players are male, 5% are female. Let's also generalize that 5% of all players are long term winning players ("successful").

If you took 100,000 random poker players, it could look like this:

- 95,000 players are male
- 5,000 players are female
- 5,000 players overall are winning
- 4,750 winning players are male
- 250 winning players are female

The number of winning male players almost matches the number of total female players.

I highly doubt there is a higher percentage of winning players in the male population than there is in the female population. Males just outnumber females by a rather large margin.

helpspb · Nov 23, 2013

p.s. one thing I'll say is that men tend to rarely give us credit for bluffing. I run a big bluff at least every 2 hours and rarely get caught (I don't consider blind stealing a big bluff either).

There's one problem with that. If I play online nothing except my cutie dog pic gives away my gender, so they call me names and yell at me in chat all kinds of things without knowing they play against the girl, so I guess even if it was truth that wouldn't help me haha.

I can't further comment on how often I bluff or not since my fellow CC players are always lurking behind the corner LOL

EDIT: Mr Sandbag I believe your research and I'm not gonna be defending male poker players

newbie in training · Nov 23, 2013

What about annete obrestad shes damn good and it looks like shes not afraid to bluff but most of the time when she does she doesent get caught

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk 2

dudemanstan · Nov 23, 2013

Deb won over 5k in a game a few days back, and she's a girl. Also i thought there were a lot of female players. I know on BC at the tables when I click on the info, only one time was there less females then males, and I did this many times. A few of those times I was the only male at the table.
Unless some guys are lying in there profiles.

RamdeeBen · Nov 23, 2013

Poker is populated by far more men than women. I'm sure if they was equal amounts of women as there are men playing you would see women winning just as much.

The very few women In poker do seem to do well.

rdm4k · Nov 23, 2013

this, absolutely!!!

Mr Sandbag said:
Some of the assumptions made in this thread are ridiculous. It has nothing to do with women being tighter, or less competitive, or less aggressive. It's simply numbers.

Let's say 95% of poker players are male, 5% are female. Let's also generalize that 5% of all players are long term winning players ("successful").

If you took 100,000 random poker players, it could look like this:

- 95,000 players are male
- 5,000 players are female
- 5,000 players overall are winning
- 4,750 winning players are male
- 250 winning players are female

The number of winning male players almost matches the number of total female players.

I highly doubt there is a higher percentage of winning players in the male population than there is in the female population. Males just outnumber females by a rather large margin.

i was exactly about to write something like that. very well stated

Jacki Burkhart · Nov 23, 2013

AlfieAA said:
if you play online and use a hud then why not post some stats and i'll tell you if you are a nit of not

yeah women don't usually bluff too much, they are always betting for value and rarely with a semi bluff.......wait you only steal the blinds once every 2 hours?....thats sort of the point with the tightness.......

okay im going to get shot here and possibly banned from one of the lady admins but here goes

if women learned position and stack sizes and played against ranges and player types they would be challenging the men.....until that happens and it might be soon with the younger players then you gals are gonna get exploited like mad imo....there's a lady player called vanessa selbst and y'all should be learning from her....better than most men

I'm not really an online player, and therefore I don't have stats. Plus a lot of what I'm talking about wouldn't apply online.

I steal the blinds a lot, at least 4 times every 3 orbits once blinds are big. That is not what I call a big bluff. To me a big bluff happens post flop, usually on the turn or river by using a scare card or abusing my image with a big reraise.

I am extremely aware of Vanessa selbst (my favorite player) and Annette oberstad. They are both awesome. I aspire to play like either of them.

Thanks for all the discussion!

joshuawacaster · Nov 23, 2013

missjacki said:
wait, are you offering to buy me a drink? are you hitting on me? where am I? Oh, is the action on me?...sorry...

lol

Jacki Burkhart · Nov 23, 2013

ok, AlfieAA (or anyone who is willing to humor me) since I can't give you stats, I can give you a hand I posted from a big tournament last weekend.

let's keep in mind I only post hands that I feel I misplayed. I'm fairly embarassed by both these hands, but here they are for your review if you are willing...warning it's a bit of a long read. 2 hands in 1 post vs. the same guy.

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-hand-analysis-51/530-nlhe-mtt-deep-stacked-lag-235204/

thanks for looking!

Debi · Nov 23, 2013

I don't know what you guys find in the micro levels online - I don't play those and neither do any of the successful female poker players I know.

But live - the bottom line is that the men far outnumber the women.

I would say percentage wise in the games I play there are as many men who are tight players as women. There are more men percentage wise who spew chips by being aggressive when they shouldn't be.

And there are plenty of men who lose to me because they assume I am a tight player.

So I love the perception. I can make a man lay down AT on an AJx flop when I am holding pocket tens because he "knows" I would only shove with a big ace or pocket Jacks lol.

Why aren't women more successful in poker?

Jacki Burkhart

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