Annie Duke was about to obtain her Doctorate Degree from prestigious University of Pennsylvania in the early ‘90’s, but she was experiencing a personal crisis. She was unsure that she really wanted a life as a professor and researcher. Just before securing her degree, Annie proposed marriage to her longtime friend, Ben Duke. The two moved into a humble abode in Montana as Annie attempted to find her way in life. Through the help of her poker-playing brother, Howard Lederer, she found the game of poker. Now a decade later, Annie is one of the most recognizable faces in poker. She has a WSOP bracelet, and she shocked the poker world by winning the ESPN/Harrah’s $2 million freeroll, the Tournament of Champions. Her wide smile and undeniable charisma allow her to shine on the TV screen. In this exclusive interview, Annie speaks with John Carlisle about her ups & downs, her future, and her dreams.
John: Why don’t you start off by telling us how you came into poker? Everybody seems to have a different track to get into serious poker playing. You came from a much different background to get into poker than most.
Annie: Yeah, basically I was going to graduate school at U Penn. My brother had gone to New York when he was 18 to become a chess master (he was really into chess) and he started to play poker while he was there. I would come down and see him play poker while I was at Columbia University. I didn’t really play myself, but I would watch him play. While I was at graduate school he flew me out to Las Vegas a couple of times while he was playing in the World Series because he thought it would be fun for me. He taught me starting hands -- it was limit back then. He sent me over with a little bit of money to play at Freemont and the Plaza. I did pretty well with that and it was fun, but then I would go back to my graduate school life. Basically what happened was that right at the end of graduate school I was heading out to start my job talks and that sort of thing, and I decided that it was not what I wanted to do. I was seriously at the last minute; I was ready to defend my PhD at the time but I didn’t want to do it. I had just gotten married and had moved to Montana. There were legal (poker) games in Montana and so I lived there with no money, living with my husband in a house that cost $125/month. It was an $11,000 house. We had basically no source of income at all. There were all these games in Billings and so I called my brother up and I was like ‘You are not so smart and you are doing well’ …actually I didn’t say that. I thought maybe I could try this too. I had done well in these little games, it was pretty delusional. So, he sent me some money and I started to play. I would call him up after every session and reconstruct the poker session. He taught me how to play and that is basically how it went. The first month that I played I was playing in the Crystal Lounge in Billings playing 10/20. I won $2800, which sounded like a lot of money at the time.
John: If you are paying $125 for your mortgage, it would!
Annie: At the end of that first year that I was playing, he told me to come down to the World Series, which I did. He put me in the first event, which at the time was a $1500 Limit Hold ‘Em event. I came in 13th and got like $13,000, and he was like ‘Oh, you did pretty well, why don’t you play some satellites and try to get into the $2500 limit event.’ I did. I played that and I came in 3rd. So, then he was like, ‘You should play in the main event.’ So, I played a bunch of super satellites. I won two of them and ended up in the main event, and I actually made money in that. So, he said ‘Move to Las Vegas, I think you could be a really great player.’ I told him I think you are out of your mind, but whatever, so I moved down to Las Vegas. It was 1994 and that is when I started playing professionally.
John: In the mid 90’s a woman playing poker was certainly not something you saw too often.
Annie: No, there were very few of us.
John: Yeah, what was the reaction from the male dominated poker community at the time?
Annie: Well, it depended on the person. Most of the pros were extremely friendly to me and very open, sharing a lot of information with me to help me along. Like TJ Cloutier or Eric Seidel, for example. The top level pros don’t look at you as if you are a man or a woman. They thought it was cute that Howard’s little sister was playing. They gave me help for that reason; they treated me well. The regular players, not so much. In Montana, while there were some players who were very friendly to me, Montana as it is, is a very masculine place … think of the Marlboro man riding around on his horse. They were not so happy about a girl in her 20’s coming in and taking their money. These were 50 or 60 year-old guys who had been playing their whole lives. They were pretty grizzled and I was coming in giggly and barefoot. So they could be pretty nasty to me. There was not a day that I played in that room where I didn’t get called the “C” word. I remember one time where a guy raised and I re-raised with an A-K suited, and he called and the board showed a King. Basically, he had King-nine and I remember that he started to yell at me and call me the “C” word and talk about how lucky I was. Saying ‘She is such a lucky bitch’ and how lucky I always was. I was like ‘I had A-K and you had K-9.’ I didn’t actually say this to him but I was thinking that is not lucky, I had a better hand than you! But, that was how it went, it didn’t matter if I had the best hand or the worst hand or whatever, they would still talk about how lucky I was. Lucky, Lucky, Lucky. Obviously, we all know that you cannot win month-in and month-out for a year in a game by just being lucky. But they were pretty resentful of that. There was one guy that was like ‘Don’t worry if you are losing baby, you can go to the hotel with me across the street and put your legs in the air and I’ll give you your money back.’ These are things that nobody would ever say to a guy, ever. I remember once I was playing at the Mirage and there was this guy ruthlessly hitting on me and I was trying to be nice about it. I wasn’t interested. He ended up screaming at the top of his lungs in the middle of the Mirage poker room that I was an F-ing frigid bitch. He got barred actually. But stuff like that happened to me all of the time. You know, you are sitting at a poker table and a lot of the social niceties that occur in the world when you are walking down the street don’t occur at the poker room. People think that you are giving up your right as a woman in some senses if you are willing to sit down in that environment in the first place. It is like if you can’t play with the boys and you can’t take this, then you shouldn’t be sitting here. If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Except if you can’t stand the abuse, get out of the poker room. But in the end, I never got upset about it. The way that I looked at it is that if they are getting that emotional towards me they are not going to be making good decisions. Because poker is a game where you have to make emotionless decisions based on the math and psychology of the situation, and game theory and probability, and all these things that don’t have anything to do with emotion. When people say to you sleep on it, or take 10 deep breaths before you decide or those kinds of things, what they are saying is don’t make a decision when you are emotionally stressed because you will make a worse decision. So, I figured if those people were that freaked out by my presence at the table, then they would probably not be playing well against me. They will probably play worse against me than they would against some guy who was sitting there, so it was probably advantage Annie. So if that was going to help me make more money, and that is what I considered my job to be, then I would put myself in the best situation for poker by having people pissed off at me. Men saying things like that to me is probably to my advantage. I just decided that instead of saying anything back to them my best revenge would be to just take their money.
John: You talk about some of that in your autobiography, How I raised, folded, bluffed, flirted, cursed and won millions at the World Series of Poker.
Annie: Yes. Yes.
John: You talk about people coming onto you, but have there been times that you used your womanly charm or flirted to gain an advantage at the table.
Annie: Well, you know, if someone is flirting with me I am more than happy to flirt back. I’ve done that a lot. Am I off the bat flirtatious with people? I don’t know, I guess sometimes I am. I am more of the ilk of if they want to be flirtatious with me then I will go and flirt back. I think it is probably the most to your advantage to have somebody angry with you. So my behavior at the table is probably more to get under somebody’s skin as opposed to get them to want to sleep with me, but certainly there were tons of people that are like that. I’ve had people show me their hole cards and because if they want to sleep with you they don’t want to take your money. Because they don’t want to create a contentious relationship with you. I’ve had a lot of people be like, ‘Don’t call I have a flush’ and they will flip their cards over for me. I’m always kind of willing to encourage that. With most people at the table if they are kind of pissy that I am there, I kind of try to make them pissier about it. And since they are male chauvinist pigs, they deserve me to get under their skin and take their money.
John: Let’s shift gears here. In 2004 you had a heck of a run, a bracelet in Omaha High/Lo and you scored 2 million in the ESPN tournament of champions. Can you differentiate between those two? Is the 2 million the career highlight?
Annie: I would have given up anything for the World Series bracelet, anything except for my children and my friends. It is funny because obviously the other one was much more money, but the World Series bracelet is much more meaningful to me. It is every poker players dream. It was the most incredibly happy moment for me. Not that I wasn’t excited to win the tournament of champions, I mean, I was extremely happy. But, I was happier about the World Series bracelet.
John: A lot of people do feel that Omaha is your best game. Do you feel that Omaha is your best game?
Annie: Umm. I am not sure that it is my best game, but I feel it’s the game where I have the biggest difference between the way I play and the way other people play. So, the thing about Omaha 8 or better is that other people don’t play it a lot. It is an extremely mathematically misunderstood game. And so I don’t necessarily know that I play it better than NL Hold ‘Em, but there are so many amazing NL Hold ‘Em players. I just think there are very few amazing Omaha 8 or better players.
John: You are a spokesperson for Ultimate Bet. Why did you choose to align yourself with Ultimate Bet?
Annie: Back in 2002, I think, Greg Pearson and Jon Karl founded IU Logic, which actually was developing software for Ultimate Bet and doing marketing for them. It is not the software provider for Ultimate Bet now because everything moved to Canada. At the time, they came to me and they were the founders of this software company. I just thought they were great people and the thing for me is that I will always make a choice that might make me less money or whatever as long as I think it is going to be fun and that there are good honest people to work with. That’s really what I made my decision on. It turned out to be a really good decision, because obviously Ultimate Bet did really, really well. But I would have rather worked with them than with a company that was established, because this company didn’t have live software yet when I aligned myself with them. I would have rather worked with them than a company that already had software running because I thought that they were just such wonderful people. Now that the company re-organized up to Canada, Jim Ryan is now the CEO of Excapsa software - who provides the software now for Ultimate Bet. He is just as amazing as Greg and Jon are; it is just a company of really wonderful people that I call my friends as well as the people that I work with in terms of endorsing their product.
John: Now, all of that poker playing, your endorsements, and all of the business end of poker and you are still a successful mother of 4 fairly young kids, if I remember correctly.
Annie: Yeah, ages 4 through 11.
John: Yeah, so you’ve got a handful at the house too. That has got to be a lot different than a lot of other poker players out there.
Annie: Well, you know, there are definitely male poker players who have a lot of kids, but it is different to be a mom than a dad. There aren’t any other women playing that have children the age of mine. And four of them. Clonie has 2, so she’s the closest, but Jennifer Harman doesn’t have kids. Kathy Liebert doesn’t have kids. Cindy Violette’s daughter is grown. Kristy Gazes doesn’t have kids. On the list of poker playing women, there are really none that have kids that they are raising right now. I mean, it’s a hard life and it does require some travel and quite a bit of time. It’s a hard life to feel stable enough in, in order to raise kids. I’ve always made it work. The way that I’ve made it work is I just play a lot less poker than everybody else. It is because I feel the need to be at home. That’s just the trade off that I make. I play enough poker to make me happy and enough poker to make a good living at it. I make sure that I am spending enough time at home with my kids. It really gives me a different challenge. It’s a challenge being a woman and playing poker in the first place. Raising four kids at the same time just adds a whole other layer.
John: Speaking of travel, you and Howard will be in Europe for the Poker Fantasy Camp soon.
Annie: Yes, Austria.
John: What can the participants expect to see and learn while they are there?
Annie: Well, my brother and I both have a series of DVD’s out and we are both very committed to sharing the knowledge that we have of this game with other people. Poker is an amazing game. No matter if you are a woman or a man you can still be great at it. It doesn’t matter if you are 21 or if you are 71, you can still be great at it. That is the really wonderful thing about this competition, because most competitive things that you do that is defiantly not the case. Like football - it helps to be young and male. The thing is the majority of people who play this game are recreational players. The vast majority are recreational players. Even if you are just playing the game for fun, if you are winning at it, it is going to be a lot more fun. So, we feel like poker has enriched our lives so much, and given us so much, that whatever we can give back to share our enjoyment of this game with other people is extremely important to do that. We share some of the knowledge that we have so that the game becomes more enjoyable to people who are doing it recreationally, and also to help people who are thinking about doing it professionally to find their way into a living that has been really great to me and to Howard. That is really what our motivation is. So we put these camps on and you come in and get a seminar that includes two hours with me, two hours with Howard, and two hours with two other players. The two other players change. Marcel Luske did the last camp with Phil Gordon. Marcel will be returning for the next camp. Chris Ferguson has given seminars. Eric Seidel has given seminars. So we get really great people giving these seminars. It is so unlike other fantasy camps where you are interacting with people who are retired players. Here you are interacting with people who are active in the game and who are at the top of their game. I am not sure if anybody had a better year last year than Chris Ferguson. People can say ‘I came and got a seminar from Chris Ferguson at the camp.’ That is incredible. The other thing is we have other pros who come and hang out and aside from the seminars, you get to play sit and go’s with us. We sit at the table and we play with you. We turn our cards over after every hand and we deconstruct every hand that happens at the table. We can say ‘Okay, here is what you did wrong with this hand.’ It is such an incredible hands-on learning experience. On top of that, you get to play in these freerolls. You get to play in a tournament and play for real money, you can actually win the buy-in for the camp. What is really nice about that is during the camp you get to apply what you’ve learned in these seminars. You start applying it to your play at these sit and go’s and in the tournaments and see how the strategies that you are able to incorporate work. We can’t teach you to be a great player in three days, but we can teach you a lot of the tools that will get you to be a good, winning player. We’ve had a lot of repeat customers. We’ve done three camps so far and we’ve had people who’ve come to all three.
John: It’s surprising to me how you, Howard, and some of the other pros have filled the role of teacher so very well.
Annie: Well, you have to remember that I was a teacher in grad school… My brother and I both have two parents who were teachers. That is what they did. I think that probably came innately to us that we are able to articulate our thoughts. You know, Howard and I are very blessed to be able to be articulate in that way and to be able to express what our strategic thinking is. We can get that across to players in a way that they understand. Again, I have no complaints about my life. Poker has given me a really wonderful, enjoyable life. I do something that is so fantastic and is such a learning experience every time that I play. I don’t want to keep that to myself. The more that I can share that with other people and show them what a great recreational pastime this is, the better for me. I am happy.
John: Tell us about some of the new stuff: a production company and a television show to talk about…all kinds of exciting stuff.
Annie: I have a poker show special that is airing on GSN on May 1st. It is called Annie Duke Takes on the World. It is a game show where 4 people come and they play a tournament. While they are playing I am critiquing their play. They win $1000 if they win that. Then the winner of that gets to play me heads up and try to turn that into $10,000 if they beat me. So, I am not going to tell you the outcome, whether they beat me or not. People really like it because it is funny, you get to watch poker on TV, and there is a huge educational component because it is a lot like the sit and go’s because I am deconstructing peoples’ hands right at the table while they are playing. Then they try to get to use all of that against me when they play me heads-up. That is really fun! Then I also have a production company and we have 3 feature films in production right now. We are really excited about that. We also have other game shows that we are pitching as well. The production company is new; I just formed it last summer. I have a horror movie in development and a comedy in development now. There is movie about my life that is in development. This summer we are going to start developing a ½ hour comedy for TV and an hour comedy also for TV. All of this is a long shot. For me it is so much fun to move into something that is so different for me creatively. Poker is a creative endeavor, but this is obviously flexing different creative muscles. I feel like I was really lucky to have somebody come along and film my job. I wasn’t looking to be famous. I wasn’t looking to get into this world, and they decided to film my job and I had a good story. And so through no fault of my own I became well known. It allowed me access to the kinds of people that you need access to in order to produce entertainment. I thought ‘I have this great opportunity, I have access to the right people now,’ completely by accident I might be able to do something that is really fun. I thought ‘You know, I am going to try it and see what happens.’ I’m crossing my fingers that it won’t completely fail!
John: You definitely have a magnet for that entertainment end of things. The last time I talked to you, you were working on a pilot for NBC for a sitcom.
Annie: Right. That didn’t get picked up, but it did get made into a pilot. The next project that I picked was Annie Duke Takes on the World and that is going to be airing. With the horror film, we just are finishing the script on right now and we are starting to attach talent. I created the story for that. The comedy I also created the story for, and we are right at the beginning of writing that script. It is seriously so much fun. I might fall flat on my face, but I would rather fall flat on my face doing something really kick-ass!
John: Many pro poker players that I know are taking time away from the tables to follow a dream or a hunch to venture into business. Most are things that may not even be poker related…
Annie: The really super successful poker players are all very smart and successful people. So, it doesn’t surprise me that they would want to stretch their wings a little when the opportunity presented itself.
John: You have been playing poker seriously for so long and now have the chance to spread your wings and venture out a bit and enjoy the success.
Annie: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.
John: I understand you have a new instructional DVD on the market.
Annie: Well on February 28th my instructional online poker DVD came out through Masters of Poker. You can find that on mastersofpoker.com. That is really exciting. My advanced DVD has been out since October and it is doing really well. Right now it is the best selling DVD on the market, not historically, because it has not been out that long. But it is selling the best of any DVD right now and I am really proud of the DVD. In addition to the advanced DVD, I have a beginners DVD and a girls’ guide to poker. Now I have the online poker DVD guide that came out. I also have the ESPN chip set that I endorse. I am a character in World Championship Poker 2 with Howard Lederer from Crave Entertainment. I am proud to say that the next version that gets released (comes out in August) I am going to move up to the same position as Howard. I’m not going to be just a character in Howard’s game; it is going to be Howard and Annie’s game. Howard and I are starting to do more co-branding. So, we have the fantasy camp together and the Crave Entertainment game. We are going to be doing a lot more stuff like that together. It is really exciting. I am about to send out my second book proposal as well.
John: Excellent.
Annie: Yeah. It’s a lot of stuff.
John: All of that, four children, and these interviews and other things, you are a busy, busy lady. I am glad that you are having fun and I am glad that we get a chance to watch you and root for you.
Annie: Well thank you so much.
John: Good luck to you this year in the World Series and we hope you get another bracelet or two.
Annie: Hopefully. I will be playing in almost every event. I am going to give myself a lot of chances.
John: I’ll see you there. Best of luck. Thank you so much for your time.
In addition to being a poker enthusiast, John is a certified Counselor in the state of Pennsylvania and a National Certified Counselor (NCC). He has a Master of Arts degree in Counseling from West Virginia University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from Lock Haven University. You can find out more about the psychology of poker from “the Poker Counselor” at carlisle14@hotmail.com.
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