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New players need to remember, though, that poker, like any other form of gambling, can be addictive. Amateurs, Hulbert warns, must be especially wary online. "Without the feel of the chips in your hands," she says, "money becomes an abstract concept, and it's easy to lose more than you can afford."
Jo Ransom, 56, learned that the hard way. A disabled former secretary from Bonham, Texas, she took up online poker with glee about a year ago. Lonely at home and hooked on the thrill of competing, she began playing $20 and $30 tables and losing too much. Then an online friend at the Women's Poker Club gave her some sisterly advice, which she took to heart. "Now I deposit only so much a month," she says, "and if I lose it, I just play free games until the next month." Borrowing to play is a sure sign of trouble, say addiction experts, but money issues aren't the only indicator. Ask yourself whether your playing interferes with your life--your work, your relationships.
But for women players who maintain realistic limits, poker can be invigorating socially and even professionally. Jennifer Nichols, 25, a San Francisco public relations executive, hosts a Texas Hold 'Em party for her girlfriends every Monday night. The players, ages 21 to 28, dress sloppy, eschew makeup and dish over Desperate Housewives. "Everyone's so busy," she says, "but at the games my girlfriends and I really get to talk. And because it's considered a male game, other women think it's cool that we do it."
Playing with the boys offers its own distinct advantages. Linda Norman, 33, president of a Web-design company in Dallas, recently began attending networking poker events for executives, typically male. "It's a social setting where they find out you're competitive and intelligent," she says. "They see you as someone they can do business with." Other card-playing businesswomen say poker can help sharpen business skills. It teaches how to think strategically and size up the competition and the risk- reward ratio of each situation swiftly and objectively.
Los Angeles documentary-film producer Babette Pepaj, 32, applies poker perspective to her life every day. "Many times in business," she notes, "we keep trying to fix something that isn't working simply because we've spent a lot of time and energy on the project. Admitting defeat is hard, but having the restraint to fold ultimately protects you and keeps you in the game--and this is a skill you don't necessarily learn in business school."
Can a card game really teach such profound life lessons? Poker-playing women say it's so, that knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em is more than just a hokey country-music sentiment--and it ain't just for cowboys.