With regards to the 'math knowledge in poker', good players are obviously going to be thinking about math/game theory/exploitative strategies, be it in a cognizant manner or innately. Reading dgirl's post, it's a really interesting subject to me- you look at a guy like Phil Ivey and realize "this guy doesn't know any of the true exact numbers of direct equities like we do"...but in reality, he's got a good idea just from sheer experience and thinking.

It's cool how in a game like poker, Phil Galfond can have a 10 page explanation why he's making a certain tough call on the river and Phil Ivey can just say "I think he's bluffing" and both come to the same conclusion in the end.

As Doyle said: "It wasn't the good week for Annette ..."

She has to shut up....I never liked her attitude anyway.

lighten up a little. she was just giving a candid opinion. im sure thousands of others have made simliar comments befor.

can't put my hate for this woman into words.

She seems real nice, always railed her on FTP and she was real chatty in the chat box, but she would always bring up the word haters, even when she was only being complimented. But I don't see her being the grandmother of poker in the future

I don't understand. If you happen to sit on a random poker table and you see female poker player, don't you think she is probably pretty bad, weak-tight & risk-adverse? If you don't you must be pretty bad at making required assumptions which are important for being good at poker.

Scandinavians are good at poker, Southern Europeans suck at poker. These are also general assumptions, ofcourse there are exceptions, but these are more often than not true on certain games. Yes, it is possible for a woman to get good at poker, but it's much easier for a man to do it. If we would take a man and a woman around same intelligence and work ethic level, i'm willing to lay odds that after same amount of study a man will be better player.

There's no way to set this up, but I'm equally confident that they would be roughly equal as players.

Go much misogyny it's sickening. If you make the assumption that every woman you say playing poker is "pretty bad, weak-tight, and risk averse", than the one making a mistake and who needs to learn how to play properly is you.

How do you explain that no woman is in like top 30 NLHE/PLO online cashgame players?

It's not misogyny, it's being realistic. If i'm seeing poker table full of 50+ years olds with gold watches i'm also thinking they are probably bad players, does it make me '50+ rich people hater' ?

I'm not sure what kind of game you have in mind, I had in mind something like up to $5K buy-in live tournaments. If you see a random woman sitting on your table, with no sponsor badges or anything, what goes through your mind? 'Probably LAG player, loves to bluff and balance her ranges' ?

Obviously i'm not thinking every woman is weak-tight, most just are and that's what i'm basing my assumption. Maybe in US player base is somehow different (I doubt though), in here that assumption is pretty spot-on at least. Vanessa Selbst, Annette etc would crush me in poker

Women are just as good in poker as men, lots of high stakes regular women in our live casino, Mabey they dont play so high on stars cause they are more careful than with their money, I'm no expert and correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure there is a better explanation as of why they don't play higher stakes on stars then men being better at poker, btw I see lots on women play high stakes on stars, the women poker field is just so much smaller then men.

I'm not even sure if you are a poker player, but if you are I'm going to make an educated guess that you are not a very good one. Because no decent player, with a decent amount a live and online experience, who has studied and analyzed a decent amount of time and understands simple math and odds would make such a fundamentally incorrect and baseless statement like this.

No disrespect, but someone who makes a remark like this just asks for it, imo.

It should not even be a educated guess, it's probly more a educated fact

Yes I am, not much live experience, probably around 200-300 hours, but have been playing midstakes heads-up online for few years.

Women tend to be more risk-adverse and have less experience in competitive gaming than men, both of these things are bad if you want to be successful in poker. You disagree?

Just FYI in case you don't understand - i'm talking about average man & average woman. Obviously there are women who crush 90% of men in taking risks and competitive gaming.

Great. Then it won't bother you when I point out that 90% of guys who hold ridiculous opinions like yours are misogynist neanderthals.

Anyone who is drawn to poker is probably less risk averse and more competitive than the "average" for their gender.

To be a successful poker player, yes, you must learn to be aggressive when necessary. Reckless aggression 100% of the time is not a winning strategy long-term, and therefore by default cannot favor males as the better poker player as you have indicated in your statement. The ability to learn and successfully apply aggression and risk-taking tactics is gender neutral because it is a cognitive activity. If you do not know this by now in 2012, perhaps you need to get out more and see the world.

"To be a successful poker player, yes, you must learn to be aggressive when necessary."

A true statement, one I am sure Codecci would not dispute.

"Reckless aggression 100% of the time is not a winning strategy long-term, and therefore by default cannot favor males as the better poker player as you have indicated in your statement."

This is argument ad absurdum, and is not a rebuttal of Codecci's argument. He has not claimed that men are "recklessly aggressive 100% of the time" and that that constitutes an advantage. A statement of equivalent relevance to yours would be,

"Throwing your chips hard at the table confers no advantage and therefore cannot favour males as the better poker player"

(This would be assuming you accept that as a group men are better, both on the average and at the extreme, at throwing hard)


"The ability to learn and successfully apply aggression and risk-taking tactics is gender neutral because it is a cognitive activity."

This because is wrong, as what follows is a statement that cognitive activities are intrinsically gender neutral. A quick pass through the most recent neuroscience research or even some popular science books would show you that this is simply not true. It is also the kind of lazy belief that gets many people into trouble assuming men and women are blank slates with different genitals, and that only "socializing" creates gender differences. Any reader who is troubled by this "modern" turn of affairs might want to look up the Frankfurt School to learn more about its origins.


"If you do not know this by now in 2012, perhaps you need to get out more and see the world. "

And capped off with an ad hominem. This is quite poisonous to any debate since it presumes that the person saying it "knows the real truth" and that the target is in some way inferior to them. The fact that you say "by now in 2012" suggests a march of progress line-of-thinking that might hinder your own open-mindedness to ideas different to your own.

I realize my post might upset some people, but I think Codecci is quite brave to even bother to post in this thread.

nice try, quad. But dismantling a paragraph and putting non-existant meanings to sentences that clearly combine to make a different point is useless in TWSS.
We get it, you think men are smarter than women and therefore are better poker players. Good luck with that, and good luck with the rest of your posts.

How about instead of arguing about stuff that's unprovable or based upon a bunch of claims none of which are proven yet, we start at the beginning?

Do people think that men are more competitive than women in general? I personally think they are based on experience (plus it kinda makes sense evolutionary) but it also makes sense that women drawn to poker would have extra competitiveness (is that a word?) because on top of them just being the most competitive of their gender they also probably often feel like they always have something to prove whereas it can be easier for males to get complacent especially in a live poker environment where results aren't posted and it's easy to be (or convince yourself that you are) one of the best players in your particular poker room. I mean there are a ton of guys who play 1/2, all the regs/dealers know them, and they have amazing egos thinking they are the next Ivey as soon as they amass a bankroll big enough. Those are typically the same ones posting on 2p2 asking why they can't beat 10nl online when they're a sick amazing poker player who crushes 1/2 at their local casino. Meanwhile a lot of females I've seen playing poker all seem to have a need to prove to other people they're good. Now personally I think that's a negative overall but the fact that they're trying to prove something means they're likely to be working on their game more and getting better. So although just being competitive/motivated on their own would be better than trying to prove something, getting competitive and trying to prove something is better than being complacent and not working to get better at all.

The other aspect mentioned was the ability to separate money from chips basically, if I understand what codecci is saying. Basically I think it's pretty obvious that if you think of poker as a math problem and simply determine the highest ev move, you will clearly be a better poker player. Is there any evidence at all that shows that females and males would be any different with regards to that? I know the stereotype is females would get more emotional and more results oriented, but I know a ton of males that are super results oriented and are terrible when it comes to separating money from the math, so it's not like you can talk about how many females do the same thing and draw any conclusions.

I would agree that men in general are more competitive then men.

I would also agree that women who want to take poker seriously are probably at the high end of competitiveness. IMO, this would cancel out any natural competitiveness advantage (LOL) you would expect men to have (in general) in poker, unless you for some reason think that poker draws the most competitive men by default.

I don't think there's any evidence to support that guys are better at separating chips from money. As you said, I've seen tons of guys that can't seem to make this distinction and tilt terribly.

Men probably have an analytical advantage (slight), but women have an interpersonal advantage (slight), so in live poker you could argue there's a wash since you have to be able to both do the math and read people. Men might have a slight advantage in online poker, but it's not huge, and the math in poker upper level calculus, so I think the advantage might not be statistically relevant.

The women that actually take poker seriously and study the game don't suck. It's the woman who don't that do...exactly like men.

No one who is good should have to tell anyone's else that they are good. Other people tell you if you are good at something. But there's a huge amount of 'ok' players out there ATM.

I've always thought one of the reasons that more women don't play is that a signficant proportion of women simply don't want to take part in an activity which is 95 percent men.That's seen pretty much everywhere in society. Fair enough, too.

Of course if suddenly we had a big increase in women playing then more women would be attracted to poker and we have a 'women's boom' of sorts. But TBH, I don't see it happening.

http://www.jiskha.com/social_studies...wing_girl.html

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Obviously when making these statements we need to consider that the stereotypes concerning competitiveness and ability etc. are all socialized characteristics. Like it or not, in this country at least (and virtually every nation throughout the world) women are socialized to be less competitive, less aggressive, more timid, etc. I think the women who are successful poker players take these considerations in self-reflection, and seek to augment them with their own decision making and experiences at the table. I understand what Annette is saying here, essentially "Look at me, I can be an aggressive maniac...if most women players had this even in their arsenal of moves, they could be more successful."

As a note, I am male and make many of the stereotypical assumptions when I sit at the poker table, but I am keenly aware when I sit with female players how they react in certain situations where their femininity is in the spotlight, and their ability to play competently. I would love to see more gender equality in tournaments and cash games, I get tired of making the same conversations with tables that are all-male or where the singular female player feels like her opinions/perspectives cannot be heard or respected.

Intertesting post. I have 3 comments, starting at the top of your post.

1. "Unless she's aiming for Tony G or Phil Hellmuth-like fame"--You hit on something important there. Tony G sits across from an amateur who's playing for more money that he's ever seen. Amateur has pictures of his family at the table. Tony is standing up and screaming at the guy, "I'LL TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY, AND YOUR CHILDREN WILL STARVE!" That just Tony being Tony.

Phil Hellmuth went off on half a continent (his rant about "idiots from Northern Europe") and everyone had a good laugh.

If Annette would scream at another player, you know that "PMS" or "bitch" is coming--maybe not on TV, but probably all over 2+2.

2. "she's 100% right about doyle (for nlhe anyway)"--Well, maybe. Doyle probably considers himself best at mixed games, and his 2009 bracelet was in stud. But I think I have a lot more respect for Doyle than either you or Annette.

A lot of very good players go three years (or more) without a bracelet. Doyle has spent his life being great at everything he does. He was a great athlete at 2 sports (state champion runner and pro basketball prospect until a career-ending injury). He also earned has a master's degree in business when it was much less common to have a graduate degree than it is now. And his poker legacy speaks for itself.

If Doyle has slowed down since he won his stud bracelet, I would suggest that's it due to age and stamina rather than ability, intelligence, or poker knowledge. Dan Harrinton has said that he (Harrington) probably doesn't have the stamina to win another Main Event, because he's too old.*

3. "So while I guess I just made the argument that women are LESS likely to suck than men, I also think they are less likely to actually be good as well."--You mentioned SAT scores, but the distribution of IQ scores could also be a factore in what you're suggesting.

The average man isn't smarter than the average woman because they are both, well, average. But female IQ scores are more clustered around the mean than are male scores. Another way to put that is that more men are going to have an IQ above 120, but also more men will have IQs below 80. (Visit any facility that cares for or houses the mentally challenged, and you will see more men than women.)

A logical implication is that more men than women are capable of being a poker genius, but also that more women that men would be capable of being winning grinders, because fewer women have subnormal IQs.

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*Not in those words, be he said on the 2+2 Pokercast that when Moneymaker won the Main Event, he (Harrington) and the other older players at the table were dead tired (Harrington said that he was having trouble counting his 25K chips top make a 75k bet!), but 26-year-old Moneymake was bouncing up and down in his chair.