would her winning or even making the November 9 help the game of poker?

do you think that her potentially winning would actually bring more women into the game of poker?

no it would be soul crushing for everyone, people would be jumping from buildings and the overall state of poker would decline due to lack of dinners/sandwiches being made, floors and windows everywhere would remain dirty.... total chaos!

I do think more chicks will start playing, itll be like the moneymaker effect for chicks

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That right there is funny i dont care who u r.

I think it can only be good for the game so I'm hoping she makes it to November.

I certainly don't think it can hurt! I've really enjoyed watching her play and think thus far she's a great representative for female poker players.

Can someone do the legwork and list all occasions where a female has finished top 30 in the Main Event?

She needs to WIN. Final table means nothing. Who really remembers people on the final table besides hard core poker nerds?

And I think it's a no-brainer that that would bring more women to poker....but also more men.

Just good for the game.

How is it a no-brainer that it would bring more women to the game? Seriously now. It's not as if all the women in the world would notice her victory and suddenly realize that they can compete as equals in poker. That's like saying that smokers will only realize cigarettes are bad for you now that the warning labels are really big.

Women have known for years and years that they can compete as equals in poker, they already have greater access than men do to poker, and greater access to satellites for big tournaments than men do, yet they still were a whopping 3.5% of the main event this year.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying "a woman winning will show women something is true that they already know to be true, thus bringing them out in droves" is hardly a slam-dunk no-brainer conclusion.

Not going to respond to the troll, but this one appears that it might actually be a serious post....

If you're going to paraphrase me me, at least get it sort of right. I never said anything about "all women" or "droves."

As already mentioned, do you not remember how popular Chris Moneymaker made poker after winning? People who didn't already play, started playing because they realized that if a guy like him could win big, so could they. Do you not see how this would translate?

I think that is a better comparison than the whole warning labels on cigarettes thing. LOL. I don't even know how that's even remotely analogous here.

Too bad she's out. I was really hoping she would have gone deeper.

I think pezbaby means that the general non-poker public will pretty much only remember the actual 1st place finisher. And I agree with this, and that it will bring a lot more people to the game if a woman wins.

However, I don't exactly think that 'poker nerd' is the right term, although I think I understand what you are trying to say, pezbaby. I think most professional players on the worldwide circuit recognize the final table players of the wsop ME from at least the last 5 years, and I wouldn't necessarily call them 'poker nerds' - I would simply say they are rightly aware of their peers' experience and success, which is pretty important in this industry.

I hereby change "poker nerd" to "poker enthusiasts" and FWIW, I consider myself a nerd, so I don't mean offense by it.

If a woman wins, lets say the amount of women playing doubles or triples....3.5%(bout tree fiddy) of the ME field was women so that means instead of 6700 players, itll go up to about 7200. Not really sure how many more will play in lower stakes games, but I still believe the 'boom' will not be nearly as signifigant as some people think.

baby steps are still steps!

I actually think that it was more interesting that it was the couple (Erika and Doc) who were left in the field of 30. Having a woman there is not/should not be surprising, as there are many very good female players out there who just have not had that one big notoriety score yet. I thought it was especially fun when they were seated at the same table right next to each other! I can only imagine the break-time conversations

They are a really cute couple too. (heh...this is TWSS!)

The cigarette comparison is perfectly valid. Warning labels on cigarette packages tell smokers something they already know to be true, but don't care about in any case.

Women already know they can compete as equals. Women play alongside men in open events right now, and they receive a statistically high amount of coverage. A woman won the heads-up championship on NBC one season, a format with a clearly evident element of skill, yet that didn't seem to do anything, as WSOP turnout was as low as ever. They already are being shown they can do it, yet they don't seem to care.

With regards to Moneymaker, until he won, it was not clear that someone could hit a double parlay and win the Main Event. The only other episode that was close was Hal Fowler, but his run, statistically, was much much less improbable.

As for Erika herself being a representative, the way she acted when getting busted by Epstein in the Ladies event ("storming out of the room" according to the official blog) suggests we could do with someone with a better attitude. If I could pick any one woman to win the WSOP next year, I would take Barbara Enright, as it would be an amazing story.

I think this is an important point that lots of people overlook, as illustrated by Adam pwning Mike on the podcast last year:

Mike: "OMG Final table is so important".
Adam: "Is it really though"?
Mike: "Yah, do you remember who finished 11th last year"?
Adam: "No...do you remember who finished 8th"?

In the case of a woman making the final table, however, I don't quite think the same logic applies. The collective poker media salivates every year at the prospect of a woman making the final table. Rest assured, if a woman finished 8th next year, people would remember.

I still remember Tiffany Michelle finished 16th

Not to bash women poker players, but if you're going to pick an event with "a clearly evident element of skill," this is probably not a good one to pick. A 64-person invitational field with a bunch of amateurs that plays best of 1 heads-up SNG crapshoots with a bad structure. It's a luckbox event.

I agree with the majority of the conversation in that I think a woman needs to win in order to be the Moneymaker for women's poker. People that are already in the poker industry remember people of the November Nine (I was rooting for Joseph Cheong to go far this year!), but we need someone that will be remembered by the general public to bring more women into poker that aren't already part of it.

spoiler alert Shame though, I was also really rooting for the couple to go far- they were so cute! Lol even though she can brag to him how she technically outlasted him, they still cashed the same...

Okay, I'm not qualified enough at poker to claim one way or another whether the variance in a standard "donkament" is higher or lower than a series of heads-up matches, but the real issue is that, to an observer, it LOOKS very much like a skilled event just from the association with single elimination events and virtually every sporting championship out there. Incidentally, the finals were best-of-3.

And if we are claiming that the Main Event "looks more like skill" than a single elim tournament, doesn't that just mean Duke's accomplishment was more impressive, given that she beat a Main Event winner (Yang), two runners-up (Seidel and Phillips) and a 3rd place finisher (Moon)?

I stand by my original point: There was huge television coverage (major network) of a very accomplished female poker player competing as an equal in, and winning, a competitive tournament featuring players known to the public as strong players, and what did it do to bring more women into the game?

Edit: If you are still unimpressed with the talent level of her win on NBC, though I would still claim that the extra exposure provided by being on a mainstream network FAR outweighs any public notion of "meh, these main event winners are hacks", how about her win at the WSOP Tournament of Champions in 2004. Stacked to the gills with the best players of the day. What did winning that all-star tourney do for women in poker?

Hey baby, remember that time you finished in the top 30 of the Main Event and I still beat you?

I'm not sure if you're seriously arguing this or just playing devil's advocate, but no, the fact that she beat an amateur ME winner (Yang), and an amateur ME runner-up (Moon) who have never done anything else in poker, along with a competent part-time player (Phillips) doesn't make her accomplishment any more impressive. If anything it makes it less impressive that she beat a handful of novice to intermediate players on the way to winning such a "prestigious" (lol) title. It speaks to a) the enormous variance in poker that these players finished in the top-3 of the Main Event, and b) the relative field strength of the "National Heads-Up Championship" which, as I said, includes a bunch of amateurs.

I'm not sure how valid your point is, because the Main Event receives so much more attention in the media and the public eye than the NBC Heads-Up. I'm a professional player and I don't watch the NBC Heads-Up, nor do I care who wins, nor could I tell you who has won previously. As far as televised tournaments go, it's not very important, so it shouldn't cause any change when a woman wins. The Main Event could (and I think would) cause that change.