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Cyberspace play offers other advantages, which can quickly turn beginners into practiced players. Online games are fast, and you can play far more hands in a month than would be possible in person. Also, without faces and bodies to read for tells--psychological clues to what's in an opponent's hand--players can concentrate on percentages and betting. They can take notes on how others bet and when they bluff. A click on most sites lets players set up opponent profiles. Players can also search all their own previous hands, comparing stats, for example, on the percentages of hands folded compared with hands won. Onscreen boxes list how many chips each player has, and dialogue boxes let players chat.
In cyberspace, women can disguise their gender. At InterPoker.com six months ago, says site spokesman Peter Marcus, many women took on male identities, fearing they would be easy targets. Having gained confidence, many are now requesting changes to female user names. "Poker is the great equalizer," asserts Duke. "Whether you are 70 or 20, man or woman, there is no physical limitation." Still, the champ believes that to succeed at high-level poker, most women must overcome cultural conditioning against being aggressive.
Although no generalizations based on gender can be universal, insiders say that women tend to play less aggressively than men but that women have certain advantages. "Poker requires patience, discipline and good intuition," says Ron Burke, president of EmpirePoker.com "which women are strong in." His company's research shows that female players tend to be more cautious--tighter, in poker parlance--more patient and more disciplined. Women do bluff but generally with more attention to the odds. Women make more online notes about opponents' playing styles, and over time they show more improvement than men.
Women are often seen as more emotional than men, but in poker the reverse seems to be true. Because guys tend to invest their egos in winning--especially in beating a girl--they often shove their chips into the pot even if their cards don't warrant the bet. Moreover, women seem to be more familiar with the male mind than the other way around. "From the time we're teens, we wonder, 'Will he call? What's he thinking?'" observes poker pro Hulbert. "Women have their intuition more honed." For savvy women, especially in live play, it's easy to pick up on male opponents' attitudes--biased, patronizing, flirtatious or fatherly--and exploit them, she says.
Las Vegas entrepreneur Valerie Bent, 36, for example, capitalizes on the male belief that women don't bluff to bluff big time. Bent partly financed the founding of her new clothing company, Big Feet Pajama, with her winnings at the casino tables. "I'd go with my husband on Friday and Saturday nights, dressed to the nines in my stilettos," she relates. "The guys would look at me like dead money--sure to lose. They flirt with you to keep you at the table--until you start winning. Then they get very quiet."
Female pros maintain that playing your femininity against male opponents is just good strategy. Whether you taunt a man into betting a bad hand too aggressively or take advantage of his wish to be fatherly and help you out, you're playing within the rules. Poker is in part about psychology, fooling your opponents into making bad decisions.