the math is definitely more complicated than most think

people seem think it's just "what are the odds of x hand beating y hand" and pot odds, but it goes way way beyond that (like you know)

but they're right that as far as academic mathematics goes, it's pretty basic stuff

the thing about the math is, as relatively simple as it is, that's made up for by the fact that you usually have to do it in your head all compressed into a small time frame

so i'd say it's both fairly simple and extremely demanding

So are 90% of the men I play with live.

Overall there's no reason to believe that women are worse than men at poker, or that if you look at the percentages of bad women players to total women players it would exceed the percentage of bad male players to total male players.

It was a completely sexist comment - saying that "women suck at poker" implies that you believe that women suck even worse than everyone else sucks. Which you are free to believe if you wish, but a) there's zero proof that this is true, and b) without such proof you have to recognize that such a statement is sexist.

Your own personal experience, BTW, doesn't count as proof.

fwiw I forget exactly what I was figuring out but I remember using multivariable calc to determine optimal bet sizing in a spot at some point although I think I coulda just used a much simpler method. Obviously this was away from the table and not while I was timebanking.

I'm doing my best to specifically state every time that I'm not being sexist at all and that it has nothing to do with anyone that posts here (most likely the women posting here > women in the general poker population) but if there were a way to verify it I'd put money on the percentage for women being way higher assuming bad is defined well (and most likely the way annette was using "suck"). Like someone who folds every hand but the nuts and is able to win at $5/hr at 1/2 live is bad at poker imo. In fact let's just use the definition that the definition of bad is unable to beat the average 5/10nl live games (and equivalent would probably be beat the average 1/2nl online games). It's going to be super subjective where we put the line because there are a lot of people who beat 5/10 live who some would say suck and there's a lot of people who couldn't beat 5/10 live who some people may think are good.

Anyway I would bet a lot of money that the percentage of male poker players that are good by that definition is higher than the percentage of female poker players that are good by that definition. I could definitely be wrong and I admit it's my opinion but I think I've explained pretty thoroughly above why I think it's true. It's nothing against women and there are plenty of women I've played with who were very good, we're talking percentages.

Oh I'd also bet on a higher percentage of blacks vs. whites sucking at poker although I'm not dumb enough to make a statement that blacks suck at poker and I can't really substantiate it other than my personal experience so I probably should just delete this before people take it the wrong way but eh I'd bet money on that too.

Interesting definition. I don't necessarily believe this is true (and it's not like we could prove it anyway), but surely experience has to count for something here too, don't you think? All things being equal, no matter what game you sit at, the more hands worth of experience you have, the less likely you are to just flat out suck. But a complete donkey can sit at a 1/2 game or a 100/200 game, if he's rich enough, so that alone doesn't necessarily work as a substitute for something like hands played.

Perhaps the general belief that women suck at a higher percentage than men is based on lack of overall experience? I think most people would agree that women are a relative rarity in poker rooms - if even the women that play do so with less frequency than men, they are going to improve at a slower rate as far as months/years played but not necessarily in regards to hands played.

But then any player, male or female, who puts in a serious effort to improve is probably going to do so, whether they suck at math or not. I'm not disregarding the necessity of math in poker (and was a decent math student myself, so I don't find the math involved in poker that difficult to at least ball park when sitting in live play), but even relatively poor math players may be able to compensate in other ways, particularly in live play where so many other bad players may be spewing and/or giving off such blatant tells that being able to calculate pot odds or equity becomes moot.

women are more likely to have yeast infections

is that statement sexist?

would annette's statement be sexist if it was true, or only if it isn't?

if it wasn't true, would that make annette sexist, or would it just make her mistaken?

I think experience, especially in live play, is actually not as important as experience and then other people to bounce ideas off and thinking. Just the fact that you get so few hands in live poker and that the feedback is so messed up. So for example you shove a flop get called by a gutshot they hit and you think that you want them to fold. In the future you decide your lines based on how to get them to fold and just let you win the pot when you think you have the best hand. Other things like preflop play can also be super impossible without tracking software to know how big a leak is. So someone starts flatting 83s to 3-bets routinely and only remembers the time they flopped a flush and won a 200bb pot rather than all the small pots they lost because they had to fold the flop.

Actually that's a decent point I never thought about before too. It's a lot easier for males to make friends with other poker players that are slightly better than them and talk strat/learn from them. I assume there's a similar thing with older people as well. Just socially poker is generally thought as something the guys do for a social activity and although most social poker games probably don't have a lot of good players at all there are probably at least a few with brains and they get to know each other meet friends of friends etc. and it's probably a lot easier for 18-30 year-old males to meet/talk to each other than females or older people in a young male dominated field. And like on 2p2 I play mostly FR and pretty much the small and the mid-high regs threads are pretty much all males 95% of which are 18-30. I'm assuming the 6m/HU forums are similar but just in general it's hard to break into a group where basically everyone is different from you. I mean hell how many people who post in TWSS regularly didn't post much on 2p2 until they had a section where they could feel a lot more comfortable and realize they weren't alone?

i don't know about that

remember Yugless?

set up a female facebook account with fake pictures and acted like he was a girl online, became friends with some PokerStars 25/50+ regs

he had LiquidPoker celebrity status just because people thought there was a vagina on the other end of the keyboard

he was just some 50 or 100nl grinder at the time, there's no way he secures those IM contacts without acting like a girl

Did you just compare playing poker to getting a yeast infection?

Your example is the classic illustration of a straw man argument and is de facto absurd. Of course women are more likely to get yeast infections; we're the ones carrying around the yeast, as it were. How the hell do you think that has any bearing on whether or not stating that women in general are worse poker players when there's no inherent reason for them to be so? Even IF you believe that men have a slight but distinct advantage in logical/abstract thought and mathematics (and I would agree with this in principle), its equally defensible that women have a slight but distinct advantage in other areas such as creativity, intuition, and the type of "right brain" activities that bring other advantages to the poker table, particularly live play.

So yes, I do think it's inherently sexist to say that women poker players, all other things being equal (experience, general intellect) are inferior to male players. I fully agree that most poker players of both genders suck, but to single females out as sucking worse is currently unsupported by any facts and smacks of the type of elitism that makes women in general uncomfortable in entering any male dominated sport or arena.

And speaking as both a female and an ex-cop/soldier, I have A TON of experience with both covert and overt sexism.

As to your questions, yes, her statement is only sexist if she's wrong; if it could be proven that women in general are inherently weaker poker players than her statement would be fact, not opinion. Much like saying "women are slower than men"; while there are women that are faster than many men, on average men are stronger and faster than women, and I don't consider saying this sexist. However given that there is no such proof as it stands now, to state that women are inherently inferior to men strikes me personally as sexist.

As others have pointed out, there are certainly advantages to being perceived as weak, but overall I think it's just another example of the still prevalent idea in society in general that women are inferior to men in a lot of ways, including ways for which there is no actual basis to believe so.

the post wasn't really about yeast infections, you can replace that with any statement that's more true about women than men, i just chose it because it's scientific and non-controversial

i can see you're very touchy about this but consider the possibility that you throw accusations of sexism around a little too loosely

that's a really strong word

you can say she's wrong, but to say her comment (and to some degree her by extension) is sexist unless she can prove that it's correct is a bit much

I admit that I might be hasty in ascribing a sexist motive, but get real, your example had zero relevance. No one said that women and men were equal in all things, but it's a classic straw man technique to say that since women are worse than men at X, then they may also be worse at Y when X and Y have zero logical correlation. Much like you comparing playing poker with ****ing yeast infections.

But sexism isn't the only possible cause of her or anyone else claiming women are worse poker players (and not adding "I believe" or "IMO"). Ignorance and foolishness rank right up there with sexism as possible causes, I guess.

Most people, when they have an opinion or believe something to be true that they recognize (or should recognize) is likely to be contentious or attacked as invalid, have the common sense to keep their mouth shut, at least in public.

my example had nothing to do with the argument that women are or aren't worse poker players, it was addressing your characterization of her comments as being sexist (i don't think they are), and i wasn't comparing yeast infections to playing poker

also you're misusing the term "straw man" and it's ironic, because you're mischaracterizing my post as being a comparison between playing poker and yeast infections which it obviously isn't, and that's actually a shining example of a straw man

Let me break down how I interpreted your statement; whether nor not this is how you intended it, IDK.

What if Annette had said "women get more yeast infections, is that sexist?"

The original question being, Annette stated that women are bad at poker, and the general debate being is that sexist of her (or anyone) to say so.

You used an example that isn't sexist because it's a biological fact.

Ergo I drew the conclusion that you were comparing something that is a biological fact (women get more yeast infections - and damn, man, you couldn't have picked something less overall disgusting, like women are on average slower and weaker than men?) and therefore cannot be considered sexist to the main argument/question of the thread. In order for the comparison to be valid, there would have to be a biological reason that women are weaker poker players. But there isn't (at least not generally agreed upon or proven AT ALL).

That's why your argument made no sense to me. Apples and oranges. Straw man.

It seems like you are saying that your argument was basically just saying something like "women are better/worse than men at X" is not, by itself, a sexist comment. And that I will concede. There is nothing inherently sexist in saying "Men are taller than women" or "women live longer than men" because both are biological fact. What I fail to understand is why you think that applies to the discussion at hand, since playing poker is not a biological process.

Its easier for many women to get help if they are serious about poker, no doubt.

Point about women being generally weaker at math sats is invalid EVEN IF math sats are correlated with poker play. First its not a logical implication. But then more concretely, the real point is that it is so irrelevant compared to practice.

To explain why I will use the following example from track and field just to make the discussion on firmer ground. Women on average have slightly worse times at the 100m dash than men. Suppose it is proven there is a small correlation between 100m dash times and javelin throwing ability. So you might conclude that women are weaker at the javelin throw. First, that's not even accurate.. while its true that women are weaker at the javelin throw too, there actually isn't any logical implication where we can deduce this.

And this isn't just some random theoretical talk, it's reality; there are plenty of things where there is a correlation but the correlation is so small that compared to other factors, a woman could be much better at poker. For example, just to make a point, suppose poker was 99% about reading people and 1% about math skills, and suppose women were weaker at math but better at reading people. Then the correlation would hold but your conclusion would be wrong.

But the most important factor about why it is stupid to even talk about this correlation is this: even if you assume women are weaker at poker naturally, its such a moot point. Because basically practice and study is such a tremendous factor compared to this natural disadvantage. Like even if women were weaker at poker naturally, it is literally so slight that if a random man and a random woman spent the same 2000 hours working at becoming better at poker, they would be indistinguishable from equal.

Basically it's like this: any professional runner can murk an average runner, so who cares if top women are running the mile 25 seconds slower than top men on average? A professional runner male or female is still running the race 750 seconds faster than the average person.

Is it possible that the very good female players are at about the same level as the better men, but there are very few of them in ratio? I don't see much difference between bad or semi bad players (almost all of us) due to gender. I do know that many male players think they are better as guys at poker, and sometimes get exploited.

Yep, agreed. But people are obsessed with talking about it cause there is so much women-hating in the culture (among women and men) and there's nothing more fun than making fun of women who are bad at poker. I.e- It's always such a trip watching female professional players go OFF on twitter during women's events about how bad their opposition is.

If there is any aptitude difference between gender in intellectual activities, I think it's most likely show itself at the beginning of the process (when someone is JUST getting into an activity) and the end (when someone is trying to become a true master). But i think one of the keys to getting good at an activity is to sublimate your personality/personal biases/gender etc. and become an instrument of said activity. competence before style!

(This is all pretty abstract-obv even very casual female poker players can use knowledge of their image as a female to their advantage in live events. )

Pretty much this. And this is really the only way to "prove" equality between the sexes as well. Given the same training, they should be pretty close to equal. One difference that I think could aid one person over the other is his or her acceptance to making aggressive plays, as most people believe a more aggressive style is generally more effective than a passive one. And regardless of sex, 2000 hours of significant study should make both men and women kick the crap out of the average poker player.

ive played a ******ed amount of live cash and the number of solid women players ive seen is shockingly low.

i mean most guys are bad too, and i guess given that not many women play poker to start like 90/10, so i guess my statement doesnt really say much.

Maybe part of the problem, too, is confirmation bias.

As you say, the number of solid players you've seen is shockingly low, but given that probably 95%+ of the people you've played against have been men, it's possible that the bad women players stand out more simply because they are more novel, rather than because they are worse on average than male players.

For instance, I've never played against a Native American - while I have no bias assuming they would be better or worse, if I only played against 4, and three were bad, this might stand out more than the 199 out of 200 white men I've played against who were bad.

That might not be the best example, but given the relative novelty of female players and the general image of female players as weak/tight, the times you play against a woman who happens to fit this image will stand out more and confirm the weak/tight reputation of women more than the one or two aggressive, solid female players will disprove it.

To kind of bring this thread back on the rails.

A couple of things to keep in mind.

First Annette is young to be on a public stage. She just doesn't have the experience in dealing with the media, so she's going to say some stuff that with some time she'd learn not to verbalize. It takes time to learn that the media will twist anything you say to make it more sensational.

Next, she played a lot of internet poker and didn't have a lot of live poker experience when she said this. One thing live players are aware is that when you bash someone, they are going to be in close proximity to you at some point. That tends to make live players more circumspect in what they say, because they can't be an ITG (internet tough guy or girl) and escape any consequences. While it is a surprise to many posters including mods, the two main live forums do enforce higher standards of behavior because it is actually a reflection of the desire of the regulars of those forums.

Finally, there was a marketing advantage in saying this. If she knocks her female competition, it was more likely she could get picked up as a sponsored pro and have a higher value.

If poker was a team sport, the manager would have assigned someone like Crash Davis to mentor her in how to behavior to insure a fruitful career.

The fact that she was primarily an internet player makes her statement even more idiotic, IMO. It's not like she ever had any idea of the gender of her opponents; while it would be safe to assume MOST were male, she had no way of knowing whether a particularly skilled opponent was male or female.

But I guess she could have been saying it to gain a potential edge in gaining a pro contract. Seems unnecessary given the relative dearth of female professionals, but certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

im sure your talking outa your ass.

Seems like pretty standard fare for a poker player. Just like a lot of the men in poker, she is immature, condescending, and arrogant. I mean, she would probably say that most poker players in general suck, but went for the more controversial statement when the question was asked specific to female players.

10 thousand hour rule applies.Men, generally speaking are more interested in games of logic so they are inherently better at those games because of that.This is because games of this nature are in their comfort zone mentally speaking and gives them the drive to practice the game more and get better at it.I think that if you give a man and a woman of equal intelligence 10 thousand hours of poker play they will both be great at it.It's just that woman, for either social or genetic reasons are not attracted to things that involve math.This is why you should never argue with a woman because she will not let a little thing like logic get in the way of winning an argument,jj.If you look at the articles I posted below you will see that men, statistically speaking are better at math but when both parties show the same interest and have the same amount of hours dedicated to solving whatever math problem they are presented with (in the article below it is chess and in this example it is poker) there is no deference in skill at all.That being said if you don't look use gender as one way of reading a players ability than you are probably missing value.I will give you an example of this.Lets say we go into a room filled with 50 random males and 50 random females and you do not recognize anyone as being a pro or even having seen them before.Someone says to you "I will give 1000 dollars for every person you can beat heads up but you can only choose 50 people and you can't talk to them or find out any information about them first".If you did not choose to bet 1000 dollars on all 50 woman you are clearly loosing a ton of value IMO.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...953389,00.html
http://marginalrevolution.com/margin...e_men_bet.html

First off you need to learn what a straw man is, because I'm not sure you get it. Comparing apples to oranges is not a strawman. However claiming he is comparing apples to oranges when he really is not actually is a strawman so it's actually super ironic when you say that. I've agreed with most of your posts on the actual topic here but your logic needs a bit of work.

He was simply trying to come up with something non-controversial and non-demeaning to either gender to prove his point. The statement could be that they're more stubborn, get more yeast infections, run slower, run faster, live longer, etc. The bottom line is, Annette made a statement that women are x compared to men (in this case it was "worse at poker", at least we can assume that's what she meant). So when you make a claim that's at least somewhat provable (we have to find out what definition of suck she meant but theoretically it is a provable statement) that's not really racist. Now actually this is where I disagree with aa because it's like the definition of sexist just in the way she phrased it. She took something that may or may not be true about a group and applied it to each individual member of that group, and that imo is sexist.

However if she had made the statement "the average woman is far worse than the average man" that would not be sexist whether it is true or not. This is the other point aa was trying to make with the yeast infection analysis. If I claim women are x compared to men, and in reality men are x compared to women, is that sexism? If I claim that the average sat score of a woman is lower than the average sat score of a man and I'm wrong (I honestly don't know which way it is) is that sexism? I don't think so, I think it's just being wrong. If I say "men are slower than women on average", is that sexist? It's clearly wrong but I'm not being sexist in the slightest.

ok I'm going to try my best not to offend anyone here, but I think you're just so far off base and I'm assuming you don't really play poker at a decent level if you honestly think math isn't a large part of poker. Poker is literally a game of math, logic, and psychology, and I consider logic a branch of math. Like if you think "reading people" actually plays more than a 5%, let alone a 99% I think you have a bit of work to do in poker. Every decision is generally broken down to "what is his range? What will he do with various portions of his range given what he thinks my range is? How do I exploit this and make the most money with my range in the long run?". Now while 2 of those questions were psychological the first one is by far the easiest in most cases and the 2nd involves math as well because usually your opponent is thinking about ranges and you have to consider how to balance well sometimes as well as consider the 3rd question and how he will answer it in constructing his range. Unless someone is either inexperienced at live poker or just a super amateur "reading" a player is not going to end up being a major part of most good poker players' decision process.


eh I don't think it has to do with people enjoying women-hating at all. I think gender differences in general are actually a really interesting subject and the only people afraid of looking into them are the ones who are afraid of what they might find. It's pretty much proven that male brains and female brains generally work in different ways. On the other hand my brain doesn't work the same way as all other male brains work and your brain doesn't work the same way as all other female brains work. So we're just looking at an overall average.

I played an insane amount of hours of 5/10 live this summer and probably around 40 hours of 10/20 and 10/25 (**** you black friday). I ran into exactly two females who I thought had brains, one at 5/10 and another at 10/20. The one at 5/10 actually put me in a ton of tough spots and I thought was actually really good. The one at 10/20 was pretty nitty but used her image well and was clearly a winning player. I can't tell for sure but I'm pretty sure the winning male players out-numbered the females in terms of proportion, but obviously could have been bias because it's not like there were a ton of female fish either, but there were definitely a good amount (also I consider females or males who do stuff like limp/raise me 5x my iso then fold KK face up to a 4b fish).


Actually your last sentence isn't true at all. In general you actually remember the people who stand out in general. You even proved it by saying you would remember all 4 of the Native Americans you played against. In general I remember the very good men and women, I think both because they are rare but also because they make me think a lot. Like for example I could snap recognize that 5/10 lady I thought was really good even on the street as well as the best male players I've played with and could also point out the most epic fish I played with. But ask me about a weak/passive nitreg of either gender that I've played many more hands with (the lady I thought was really good at 5/10 I only played one session with for maybe 10 hours) and I might not even recognize them at all. Because there's a lot of those at those stakes.