women tend not to like the gambling scene imo, casinos, degens, alcohol, drugs etc.

well most of them dont like it

Nobody has said there is not a risk of a stack going in, but your earlier post made it sound as though EVERY pot is a stacked pot, and the reality of live poker is that such simply is NOT the case.

And, to be honest, I won't sit at the table if the big stack was only $200. That tells me it is a dead table full of people who won't even buy-in for table max (which is $300 most places I have played in the States). Far better from MY (still female) perspective are the tables in places where C-notes play and there is no cap (even at baby stakes).

Lastly...massive LOL at the comment that 'women don't like the gambling scene.' Makes me wonder how many actual casinos sheriffSC has been in. Females may not be at the poker table, but there has been no shortage of women in the pits or at the slots. My last trip to Vegas saw FAR more women in the high-limit areas of multiple casinos than males...and that was for both slots and pit games. Even more LOL about women not liking alcohol...

eh, i think it's more that nobody, man or woman, or whatever, wants to do a social thing that they're terrible at. i'd guess most guys from my high school have played 100bb cash at some point whether then or since, while most women haven't. the ratio would move towards evening out if community feeder games (micro stakes poker clubs) existed.

The answer is simple. Many women do not have the competitive spirit or ego to play poker. This is why at low LHE games you will see far more women and senior citizens. They are there to do a little passive mindless gambling without employing much strategy much akin to playing slots.

At higher stakes or NLHE games, you need to have a more competitive spirit to sit at a table with 8 others who are aggressively trying to take each others' money. The players who don't have a competitive spirit at these games are usually wealthy, and that's the main reason why they don't sit at the low stakes LHE instead. These players are becoming rare these days as they get skinned alive quickly by all the young pros.

Additionally, the wealthy women who can afford to play higher stakes or NLHE games probably feel intimated or put off to sit at a table full of young guys, unless she was an attention loving stripper or a cougar. Those get skinned alive quickly too.

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This should be obviously false to anyone who has walked into almost any part of a casino that isn't the poker room.


The notion that women are not competitive seems to me pretty thoroughly refuted by watching an hour of pretty much any reality TV show.

But even if this were true, aren't the players (of both genders) who "are there to do a little passive mindless gambling without employing much strategy" the exact players that we would want to attract into poker?

This is think is totally true. People don't want to compete at an activity they believe they are bad at. That's why I suggested promoting limit games. In these games you can feel much more competent simply by know the rules and customs of the game, rather than the minutia of strategy. These games are also much more forgiving to newer or recreational players, both financially and psychologically, as it is much less frequently obvious when one has made a bad play.

But additionally, I think people don't want to engage in social activities where they feel out of place. Even if treated completely courteously and equally, many women will feel out of place playing poker when they are consistently the only woman at the table. Which is why I suggested hiring female prop players to assure that this doesn't happen.

I don't watch reality TV shows, but I assume the women who compete on there are driven by fame and fortune. I also assume the women did not have to pay to compete on the shows? Women are capable of being competitive when they are given the opportunity (a free entry on to a show where she can make $$$, proving herself on public TV and to earn fame), but not too many women would seek out the challenge in poker where she has to risk her own money, especially when the game/gambling in general is deemed as seedy by some. There are easier ways for women to make money when she wants to be competitive.

The passive mindless gambling crowd stay at the low limits, especially LHE. I don't think we have trouble attracting those players into low limit poker. I've seen plenty of them in Florida, Vegas, and LA playing regularly in the 2/4 LHE. Many of them are older women. We have trouble attracting those players into higher stakes or NLHE. I think it's because they don't stand a chance against the sharks and they quickly realize that. Most women who try to play those games give up quickly, and then the lack of presence of women in those games make it more intimidating for new women to enter.

Can't think of a better way to celebrate my return to 2+2 after a long absence (occasionally lurking, but not posing), than voicing my support for this totally definitive statement from the always awesome and never afraid to say how it is or how it's gonna be, 2+2 super-mod, SGT RJ. Gotta love this woman!!

laso im pretty sure some women do not feel secure in the after hours in a casino.

There are subtle differences to how women are treated at the table. The biggest, most obvious one is when a woman wins (as in a competent, winning player) she is viewed as a witch whereas when a man wins, he is viewed as a hero.

Frankly, some guy's egos cannot take it when a woman consistently wins from them. The pain is much greater to lose a pot to a woman than to another man. It's like they feel less of a man. This effect is significantly more pronounced when the guy losing against a woman treats poker as a serious hobby but is a semi-bad or break-even player. It hurts their egos.

Women players sense these attitudes. If the woman is a 'losing' player, they sense that people are licking their chops, staring at them or counting their chips, waiting to take advantage of them. If they are a 'winning' player, they are given less credit and viewed as less deserving of their wins. "She's so lucky", "does she think she's good?"

It's not that women don't enjoy playing poker - they do. It's the subtle attitudes and 'reads' they get from the people at the table that diminishes the enjoyment of the game.

i cant stop laughing....omfg epic first post.

In regards to competent women player being viewed as "witches", this is going be anecdotal.

In my regular poker room at 2/5 NL+ stakes, I can name 4 competent female regulars.

Two of them are young (under 30) and decent looking. They are generally respected for their game, although some men will always underestimate them such as attributing a great play they made to luck. Some men don't like playing with them at all because they don't want to win or lose to a young attractive female, but that hasn't interfered with their ability to play in the games regularly.

There is a 40's Asian woman player who plays recreationally but takes the game seriously. She is extremely well-liked because she is simply a really cool, nice, and down-to-earth person with great humor and social skills, in spite of being overweight and not that attractive. She is very aggressive and a winning player, yet I've rarely seen anyone view her as a witch. Occasionally I've seen out-of-towners or newcomers treat her with disdain after she takes their money because it hurts more to lose to a woman, but the regulars always jump to her defense.

There is another woman who is in her 50's and she is viewed as a witch/b!tch by some of the regulars. The word is she's a narcissistic spinster. She's loud and obnoxious, two-faced, and self-centered. She constantly boasts about her winning sessions and thinks she's much better than she really is. This lady is the only female regular that is generally disliked by the other players.

I'm not sure how much this lady being viewed as a witch is due to her age or her off-putting personality, but I'm gonna say it has more to do with her personality.

The point of my anecdote is that if you're a cool female who can hang with the guys, you won't be viewed as a witch. The guys will treat you well. But if you're a nasty witch, young or old, you will probably be treated like a witch. It will be harder for your bad personality to go unnoticed and unscrutinized as a female at the poker table.

To the anecdote about the woman in her 50's who is loud, boasts about her winning sessions and thinks she is much better than she really is - How many guy poker players do you know who are like this? I'm willing to say a hell of a lot. At least one per table. But this is considered acceptable and overlooked by others - it is a guy being a guy. However, it is unacceptable for a woman and she will start gathering disdain for thinking she is good or boasting or that she is not nice enough. We are much quicker to outwardly show negative judgment of women then men.

I think there is another element, which is that since not many women play poker, people are genuinely surprised if a woman is actually good. Then there that element of 'she's weird' why does she play poker line of thinking. I would say that the more 'normal' or 'classier' a woman looks/is, the more pronounced this line of thinking.

There could be fireworks if the aforementioned player types, The Cougar and The Narcissistic Spinster were to sit at an all male table.

Some woman play poker if they want, but some woman don't play mostly because they don't want to play.

Profound. Thank you

No, I made it sound like you have $200 at stake every time you play a hand. It's true that unlike staking $1 in a slot machine, you don't lose the whole stake on the majority of hands you play - my point is that it £200 a hand poker isn't an obvious cross-sell to the woman playing dollar slots.