Paul Phua looks at the recent heads-up Hold ’Em contest between Cate Hall and Mike Dentale that was billed as a “Battle of the Sexes”.
“Are men always better poker players than women?” It might seem strange that we are even asking this question. There are so many talented and successful female poker players: from the States, there’s Vanessa Selbst, Kathy Liebert, Annie Duke, Vanessa Rousso and Jennifer Harman, to name just five. From the UK, there’s Liv Boeree, who also has a first-class degree in Astrophysics, and Victoria Coren Mitchell, a successful newspaper columnist and TV presenter who became the first woman to win the European Poker Tour, then the first person – male or female – to win it twice. From Canada, there’s Xuan Liu, and Isabelle “No Mercy” Mercier. From Norway, Elisabeth Hille, and Annette Obrestad before her. From France, Gaelle Bauman, the bubble girl for the final table of the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event who this month final-tabled the Winamax Poker Tour Final Main Event.
Most of these formidable women have millions of dollars in tournament winnings to their names, and none is a player I would be confident of taking money from at the tables.
But not everyone is convinced. Recently, veteran poker pro Mike Dentale and rising star Cate Hall played a heads-up Texas Hold ’Em grudge match at the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia. Though the Twitter feud which started the conflict was not initially about gender, the contest between the two quickly became pitched as a Battle of the Sexes.
The proportion of regular female players is thought by some to be as low as 5%. I am often struck, as I look around me at a big tournament, by how few women are in the room. There are usually no more than one or at most two on any given table. Some say this shows women are no good at poker. But an alternative explanation is that a poker room is not always the most female-friendly environment.
Victoria Coren Mitchell, in her poker memoir For Richer, For Poorer, has a memorable description of being drawn to the game by its wonderful “secret” language of flops, trips and rivers, and by its intricate strategy. Yet when she first tried to enter the very male world of the poker room, it was like in those saloons in old Western movies where the piano music stops and everyone turns to stare at the stranger in town. She turned on her heel, and it was months before she summoned up the courage to return.
Cate Hall herself has written that “in an average session I probably receive at least 10 comments, ranging from innocuous to outrageous, that call attention to my gender… the routine never ceases to be taxing.”
We all have a responsibility to be respectful of others at the table. Poker is a hard game, a competitive game, an expensive game at times. But it can and should also be fun, a pleasant way of passing the hours in convivial company. Women should be treated with the same respect as any other player.
Apart from anything else, it’s good for the game. Having more people who feel comfortable with playing poker is beneficial to all: it swells the prize pools in tournaments, and brings in fresh faces who, until they gain more experience, are likely to be the ones donating to the table rather than raking it in.
And even if you do believe you can make generalisations about the differences between men and women, differences that might affect their playing styles, some of these are positive advantages at the table. You might think women tend to be more cautious and patient, with an emotional intelligence that makes them good at reading people. You might think that men tend to be more aggressive, risk-taking, and apt to dominate and become “table captain”. Perhaps, if so, each gender has something to respect and to learn from the other.
So are men always better poker players than women? Of course not. When the heads-up contest finally took place, the result was decisive: in a best-out-of-three-games format, Cate Hall won 2-0.
Paul Phua