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WPT Information
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Women's Only Events
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Online
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The Women's Poker Movement
Friday, March 16, 2007
Right now the “women’s’ industry” has very little to do with giving us the “tools” that we need to play poker. It has become unfocused, lazy and gimmicky and above all marketable. We are sold women’s only events in the same manner that you are sold everything else. We are being told that just because we are women and are so wonderful that we cannot help but be successful in poker. We are paying dearly in more ways than one.
Instead of stripping away our excuses we are provided with a whole new set of excuses not to play and not to succeed. The result is more distractions and more problems. We hear about the numbers in the WSOP main event and right away the excuse for not succeeding is there. Because of the number of women it is very unlikely that one of us can succeed….so why bother. Last night Susie Isaacs said on Women’s Poker Hour that she plays one table at a time. She plays the nine players seated at her table and when she is moved she plays THOSE nine players, not 7000. That increases our odds drastically. The odds are not 300 out of 7000 but one out of ten. I prefer those odds and plan to look at each and every tournament that way from now on. (Thanks for the advice Susie!)
We are being told that we need a ranking system for women. No we don’t. We need women to be treated as everyone else is. It goes right back to the bashing that Annie Duke and Tanya Peck took for giving their reasons for not playing in women’s only events. We are right back where we started. We are back to segregating ourselves and being not taken seriously as if we cannot play with the big dogs. We can and do play with the big dogs and we can do it well with the right mix of knowledge and strategy. Not just because we are women.
We are being sold women’s only events with higher buy ins as though those are the only events that matter…bigger buy ins. That is not true. Not by a long shot. By the time a woman is able to play bigger buy ins she should be playing in mixed events. I resent women’s only events being treated as the be all end all to poker for us. They are not. Also on Women’s Poker Hour Maryann Morrison said they should be used as a stepping stone and I agree whole heartedly. The structures that we are handed are awful…the idea being to get us in and get us out so the “real” players can play. Women need to be on the radar. We need to be public and we need to be seen. By moving ourselves out of the mainstream we taking ourselves out of the spotlight and back into the kitchen while the “boys” play poker.
I am not a big believer in “separate but equal.” History tells us that it fails miserably. If we are to be equal than we need to be seen as such and separation is not the way to go about it. Those with the experience and the bankrolls need to be present and accounted for at the larger tournaments. Those without the experience need to gain it and work their way up as their skill and understanding allows. If that is in women’s only events so be it. We all start somewhere and most women start in those events to get started and many continue to play in them while they grow into poker players in their own right.
We can learn a lot from the pioneers in poker. Barbara Enright, Susie Isaacs, Linda Johnson and the other women who paved and are still paving our way into poker. They did not get strapped into a cockpit and launched into poker. They started small, they worked and read and studied to make their games better. They prevailed through blind luck and trial and error until they got it right. We are fortunate to have the positive role models that we do. Instead of skyrocketing women into poker we need to take a step back…maybe more than a step.
Do we still need women’s only events? Of course we do. Thank goodness they exist. Without them we would still be stuck in the 70’s and dark back rooms with cigars and women frowned upon. Will we always need Women’s only events? I think so. There will always be new women coming into poker. We will always need forums and magazines and books that cater to women. They give us support. They give us skills and the “inside scoop” to the world of poker. I don’t want to demean everything that pertains to women in poker. There are some very useful tools out there. I just feel that creating a sub-world of poker is going in the opposite direction.
