The Female Factor at the Poker Table

Twenty years ago, you could count professional female poker players on two hands. Today, they are equal contenders for the biggest prizes in poker. Women like Annie Duke, Cyndy Violette, Barbara Enright, Jennifer Harman, Mary Jones, Jennifer Tilly, and Evelyn Ng are not only winning tournaments but are shaping how the game is played, too. Men can no longer dismissively say to the women of poker, “If you win the World Series of Poker you can take a dull knife and cut my throat!” as Amarillo Slim did 30 years ago to a leading female contender. Today, he would find himself a cranial amputee. Anyone who says a woman can’t win major tournaments does so at his own financial peril and with glaring ignorance.

Those who have followed these articles or have read the book Read ’em and Reap will know that I prefer to explain behavior at the tables by understanding how the brain works; and comparison of the brains of both sexes suggests that females are, in fact, biologically better equipped than males to play poker. Guys, before you go full tilt, read on.

First, women are better at reading nonverbals than men. Over the last three decades researchers have definitively established this female superiority, and it is universal across cultures. In part, it has to do with the female biological role of bringing up babies, which, for at least a year or more, communicate all their needs nonverbally, not verbally. While women are adept at determining the baby’s needs, most males are usually clueless (as I was). Some scientists think that women are more adept at perceiving and assessing nonverbals because the architecture of the female brain is slightly different from a male’s. A woman’s corpus callosum, a callus-like structure that interconnects both hemispheres of the brain and the limbic system (of which I have written previously), is larger and more expansive in women. Neurologists believe this gives women a tremendous advantage in assessing behavior and reading nonverbals, as more areas of the brain are interconnected. What is often referred to as “women’s intuition,” is, in fact, their capacity to “read” people better. In every culture studied, women have demonstrated this nonverbal superiority. Put to use at the poker table, where reading tells is so important, this gives women a tremendous advantage in their ability to spot subtle changes in behavior.

Secondly, women don’t engage in a lot of the testosterone-driven behaviors men often display at the tables: Female players don’t exhibit the same level of blustering, challenging verbal taunting, and aggressive eye behaviors that men use against their opponents. Women are not aroused by this type of behavior, which, in part, explains why there are more male than female criminals. There is a bit of folk wisdom that goes to the heart of the matter: “When men are challenged, we retort; when women are challenged, they resolve.” Because women don’t engage in aggressive, blustering behaviors, I believe this makes them better players and more successful competitors. Aggressive play at the tables is, in fact, a cognitive distraction, making it difficult to concentrate and play one’s best game. There are very few people who can act like a Mike Matusow; able to pursue very aggressive behavior, while at the same time keeping focus and a very level head as to what’s going on at the table.

Neurology teaches us that when we are emotionally aroused, neural activity is diverted from the frontal areas of the brain, where we conduct high-order thinking, to the more primitive areas of the brain, such as the limbic system (which is why we forget things when we are upset). This emotional hijacking can throw the best player, the cleverest bracelet winner, on tilt, with the kind of negative results we have witnessed in televised tournaments. Thus, during tournament play, while men are committing fratricide in testosteronic and, at times, sophomoric warfare – snarling and staring – the ladies are saving their energy to play poker, using their unencumbered intellectual prowess to take down the pots.

Another factor to consider as to why women are such formidable contenders comes from the research done on females in furtherance of the US space program. NASA found that women tend to stress less than males in critical, high-pressure situations, and that they actually have a higher capacity for endurance. This implies that, during tournament play, they should be able to outlast their male competitors and suffer less performance deterioration from the twin forces of stress and fatigue.

The entry of women into the world of poker has already begun and I believe female participation at the tables will increase as the game continues to gain social acceptance. I look at my friend Annie Duke as a prime example of this phenomenon. Annie is, first and foremost, a mom, and secondly, a successful businesswoman who makes a living playing a terrific game of poker. I am convinced many other women will be following her lead in the years to come.

As their numbers grow, so will their influence and success, requiring, I believe, a paradigm shift in the thinking of male players who will be forced, by bankroll reality, to recognize the “fairer sex” as formidable opponents whose less aggressive behaviors they might want to emulate. Along the way, the skilled player – male and female – will discover that women poker players not only bring different biological strengths to the table but also different nonverbal tells. Learning what these tells are can enhance a player’s bottom line performance, and I’ll be exploring these female-specific tells in next month’s column.

Joe Navarro served as a Special Agent with the FBI for 25 years. You can read his book Phil Hellmuth Presents Read ’em and Reap (HarperCollins) available at all major online and brick and mortar booksellers. Joe welcomes readers’ questions at his navarropoker.com website. Dr. Marvin Karlins holds a PhD in Psychology from Princeton University and is currently Professor of Management at the University of South Florida’s School of Business Administration. An avid poker player, Professor Karlins enjoys answering inquiries at mkarlins@aol.com.