Poker Queens (2020) - full transcript
I think
we're gonna have conflict
on this hand.
- All right, get 'em all in there.
Indeed, all 50,000 goes in.
Makes it $100,000 pot.
If Daniel wins this, he's
back in the running again.
- All right, brother.
I'm goin' all in.
- Okay, whaddya got?
He's got two queens
and Crandall just turned over two nines.
Only one card away
from being the world champion
and it's the 10 of diamonds.
Bobby Baldwin is world champion.
He got it!
He got it, he got it.
He's a shocked, amazed man.
He's the world champion
of poker, Jack Straus.
Stuey wins the tournament.
Stu Ungar has won three
World Series of Poker.
- Scotty's got a nine.
- Scotty's got a nine.
Scotty's our new world champion.
And there it is.
Hellmuth wins the championship.
So Phil gets the money.
Scott Blumstein
is the 2017 world champion.
That's the call and
that is the tournament.
John Cynn can now call
himself Main Event champion.
Martin Jacobson has his breakthrough win.
He has climbed the mountain
and is poker's world champion!
Sweden's
first Main Event champion
is a worthy one.
They say that the game of poker
takes five minutes to learn
and a lifetime to master.
But it only takes about
30 seconds to notice that
almost all poker players are men.
The biggest poker
competition in the world
happens every year in Las Vegas.
It's been going strong for
more than half a century.
It's called the World Series of Poker.
Winning a bracelet
in the WSOP Main Event
is the most prestigious prize in poker.
Using skill, mathematics, aggression,
creativity, intuition and luck,
players knock each other out of the game
until there's only one
table left: the final table.
Only one woman has ever
made it to the final table
of the Main Event at the
World Series of Poker
in all of its first 50
years: Barbara Enright.
Welcome to the
West here in Las Vegas, Nevada,
for the 1995 World Series of Poker.
- These six players, there
are five men and one woman
and this is the first time
that a lady has gotten to the finals.
Sitting at the final table
was a huge accomplishment
for Barbara Enright.
But when Barbara went all
in with her pocket pair.
Barbara's got two eights.
She was called
by a guy holding arguably
one of the worst hands in poker.
Brent has
a six three of diamonds.
Six three of diamonds.
Barbara is a huge favorite in this spot.
Oh boy, and how!
Then this happened.
- Now flop comes...
Six, three, queen.
- Queen.
- Flopped a sixes and threes.
- Oh my god.
Barbara was knocked out
and women have not
returned to a final table
at the World Series of
Poker Main Event since
even though there are so
many amazing female players:
Jennifer Harman, Liv
Boeree, Kristen Bicknell,
Loni Harwood, Kelly Minkin, Kathy Liebert.
These women have made millions
of dollars playing the game
and were poised to break the glass ceiling
and take home the coveted
bracelet at the WSOP.
As a woman and a poker player,
I wanted to be a part of it all
and as a filmmaker, I
wanted to document it.
I wanted to be there the first time
a woman took the bracelet
at the WSOP World Series
of Poker Main Event.
On my quest, I would meet
the most extraordinary women
in the game.
- I am a professional poker player.
I'm a cash grinder.
- Yeah for a long time, I was
just saying poker was a hobby.
And I guess now,
I'd be sort of considered
a professional, yeah.
- My name is Kelly Minkin.
I'm a professional poker player.
- You know, it's not something common
like you're a doctor, you're an engineer.
You're a poker player?
Excuse me, are you a poker player?
You know, it's like a little shocker.
- And for us as women,
it would be so amazing
and for the sport in general,
it would be so amazing for a woman to win
or at least come deep,
like at least deep in the final table
because it'll just open up the game.
There'll be more women in poker,
which makes poker a bigger sport,
which is good for everyone.
- I'd like to see a woman win a bracelet
and definitely see at least one woman
at the final table of
the Main Event this year.
- I mean what a dream to be
at, you know, the final table
of the Main Event if
we're thinking like that
at the World Series Main Event.
- I believe that in my
lifetime, we will definitely see
more women approach the
Main Event final table
and we've seen that already.
Like a lot of women getting down
to the final four, five, even two tables.
And so I definitely think
we're gonna see more women
reaching very far, final tabling
and hopefully eventually being a champion,
a Main Event champion.
- Ooh, my title would be poker enthusiast.
I never had any regrets
about being a poker player.
It's provided a nice lifestyle
for me, my family, my friends
and it's provided so many
wonderful adventures.
I love poker, can't wait to
play my next hand of poker.
- It's very hard to say what I do
or like explain a poker tournament.
My number one reference is golf.
It's so easy to understand in golf terms.
Like okay, all these really
good golfers come together.
They create this big purse or prize pool
and then they get paid out
based on their performance.
A lotta times, luck is a factor.
Your ball can hit a rock
on the side of the fairway.
You know, your swing could be off
by one little tiny thing, whatever.
So luck does play a huge factor.
But in the end and over the
course of 100 tournaments,
you're gonna see like, a
lot of the better players
be at the top a lot.
On the competitive side
of it, it's the same.
Everything is dependent on your own self.
You don't depend on anyone else.
Yes, you can depend on
your caddy, whatever.
But like, at the end of the day,
it's all in your own personal control.
So similar to poker and
the biggest thing is
I don't think there's ever a ceiling
for how good you can get.
- Most people who are
professional poker players
grew up playing poker.
I didn't, I never played a
hand of poker until I was 21.
But the first time I played,
I knew it was my thing.
I always say, "Everybody's
good at something."
I was good at poker from the beginning.
Poker is a game that can be beat.
And unlike roulette and
craps and things like that,
there's no professional craps
players or roulette prayers
'cause it can't be beat in the long run.
But poker, if you play
better than your opponents
and you make better
decisions than they do,
you can expect to win.
- I'm a professional poker player.
- I've been playing full-time
for about 10 years now.
I think women are getting
better every single day.
The game is getting tougher every day
and the women competitors are
just really, really strong.
I think a woman has just as
good of a chance as a man
to reach that final table.
- I believe than anyone can be
a winning player with study.
Like nowadays, there's just
so much information out there.
Back in the day before the Internet,
and before even the first books,
people didn't share the
information as openly
about how to beat the game.
But now, there's just so much information.
If you wanna become a winning player,
it just takes hard work
like anything else.
- Before I started playing
poker on a regular basis,
I had no idea but there's a whole world
built around the people
that love the game.
Today, poker has its own subculture
with so many resources for
education and entertainment.
There are poker magazines,
poker blogs on YouTube.
There are poker cruises, poker podcasts.
Lines of clothing just for poker players.
Poker even has its own coffee.
There are dozens of poker books
and poker tournaments all over the world,
many with their own TV shows.
This is
poker night in America.
There's even an
unofficial poker uniform
and generally includes
comfortable clothes,
a backpack filled with
things like energy drinks,
water and nutrition bars
and definitely Blue Shark sunglasses.
I gave these to a good
friend of mine as a gift
and she was pretty excited.
- What?
Oh my gosh, I was just saying to you
I was gonna start wearin'
glasses maybe to up my game.
I look like a poker star or what?
- Oh yeah, that's right.
- I got poker mojo.
These are my new shades.
There are poker tournaments
that benefit charities.
- Shuffle up and deal.
Let's play some cards, y'all.
Raise some money for Mickie's Miracles.
Poker is the number one way,
especially poker charity events,
to raise money for charities.
It used to be golf, right?
But golf is hard.
If you've never golfed,
like how do you do that?
With poker, just teach people.
You got two cards and
you like 'em, go all in.
It's for a good cause.
There's the Hendon
Mob, where you can keep track
of the trophies, titles, accomplishments
and earnings of every poker player.
There are online poker training sites
that teach you how to be a better player
using artificial intelligence.
We're the world's number
one poker training site.
We have virtual computerized poker players
that you play against.
They teach you to be a better poker player
while trying to beat you at the same time.
- That's the beauty of poker:
You can be as good as
you wanna be, you know?
Like could I go out and
do brain surgery tomorrow?
No, but I could get a start
on bein' a good poker player
just by picking up some books
and talking to some friends
and getting started.
- The beautiful thing about
poker and tournaments is
you don't have to be anything.
There's no requirement.
I've seen people play
that have had no hands.
I've seen people play that are blind.
I've seen people play
that physically cannot move their body.
They're paralyzed and they have a reader.
I've seen 90 year olds play.
I've seen 19 year olds play.
I've seen every race play, every religion.
Anybody can play a hand of poker.
That makes the profession really cool.
- This ecosystem is
mainly made up of males.
We know that 25% of our
TV viewers are females.
25% of our Club WPT
players are also women.
So we know that there's a real interest
from this demographic.
It's unfortunate that the live scene
tends to hover around 4%.
But I really believe that over time,
with support of the players
and all players, men and women,
I think that offline number
will hopefully mirror their digital
and online counterparts.
- You walk in in there
and there's all these guys
and they look like sort
of total degenerates;
like rough and tough and
they're wearing their
you know, hats and everything
and you sort of feel like ooh,
this is no place for a lady.
But once you sit down,
then you're really happy.
You're like oh, I know where I am.
- My mom's been great.
She's always been supportive of me.
When I first told her I was playing poker,
she was a little bit nervous for me.
She goes, "Isn't that addicting?"
You know, she was nervous.
But she always told me, "Do what you love.
"The money will follow".
This was my idea of a dream life:
making a living playing poker.
But poker was the last thing
I ever thought I'd fall in love with.
I didn't even discover the game
until pretty late in life.
I learned to play poker
on my cellphone using the Zynga app.
I picked a cartoon female avatar
and a name to represent me as a player
and took my free virtual poker chips
to the table of live online competitors.
We were each dealt two cards.
I had a limited understanding
of poker at this point.
At first, I thought if I
was dealt an ace or a king,
I had a winning hand.
That proved to be over-optimistic.
We're sorry,
please try again later.
- I actually learned cards from like,
playing with my family.
Like my grandma would play Gin with us
and like my mom and dad would play cards.
- I learned how to play poker
when I was probably about 12 years old,
12 or 13, from a family friend.
And he taught us to play cards one day
and he taught us Paul's game.
It was great, we learned Paul's game.
Well you know, fast-forward
about 10 or 12 years,
I realized that Paul's
game was seven card stud
and so we would sit in his
basement and play poker.
He'd have the penny jar and we would play
and then we'd put all the pennies back.
Nobody kept anything or put anything up.
- My mom and dad would have
little poker games at home.
I always loved it.
In fact, I even went out
and bought a poker book
when I was a kid and
studied the poker book.
And after I read the book,
I kept my results of the home games
in the inside cover of the poker book.
You know, I was like,
okay, I won $2 yesterday;
so even then, I took
it seriously actually.
The game of Texas Hold 'Em poker
is so simple, you can learn
it literally in a few minutes.
Each player is dealt two
cards for their eyes only.
The dealer spreads five cards:
Three at once, called the flop,
then another, called the turn card,
and then a final card called the river.
Players bet, check or fold
between each round of cards.
In the end, the player with
the best five card hand
wins the pot.
- Let's put 'em in order.
Maybe make it easier for you guys.
So four of clubs, six of
spades, eight of spades.
All right, mommy's dealin'.
It's your turn.
You can bet or you can check.
Bet means you wanna make people pay money
'cause you think you match up.
Maybe you have a pair.
Maybe you got two pair.
Maybe you got a straight
or you ain't got nothin',
so you're just gonna check.
Or maybe you want us to
think you got nothin'
so you're gonna check.
You can say, "I check."
So you bet or check?
- Check.
- Check.
- Good job.
- Check.
- Check.
Check!
- Check, check all around.
- We all check.
Free card.
- Whoo hoo!
Yeah.
- A 10 of diamonds!
So now, daddy--
- Back to you, daddy.
So maybe daddy,
if you're going for spades, that's good.
Maybe somebody's got a straight.
I don't know.
Azalea, same deal: check or bet?
- Check.
Okay this is called the river.
The river.
Who gets lucky on the river?
Me, me, me.
- Me me me.
- A king.
Wow.
- Okay.
- Oh yeah.
- So now it's on you.
- Oh yeah!
- Do you wanna bet or check?
- Check.
Check, check.
Check.
Okay,
go ahead and show what you got.
Flip 'em over.
You got a part of jacks.
- Pocket jacks.
- Beautiful.
So here is a pair of eights.
Does the pair of eights
beat a pair of jacks?
- No.
- No, so you lost.
So how 'bout daddy?
Does daddy beat a pair of jacks?
Nope.
Mommy's turn.
I ain't got nothin'.
Which means who won?
Last girl standin'.
Take your money.
- Well when I was in college,
my brother lived in LA at the time
and I was in town to visit him.
And he had taken me to the Bicycle Casino
'cause he played poker.
And so he had given me like $200
and I went and played like
one/two limit or something.
And it was just so fun
to be able to compete
with other people you don't know and
like be in that atmosphere.
He is the best player.
- I am the best player at the table.
There's not even a question.
- Shuffle up and deal.
- So I really enjoyed it and
then I kinda got hooked on it.
I won a little bit of money and
then I won a little bit more
and then I started going on
my own and then here I am now.
Some men have very firm ideas
about where women fit into poker.
Good job.
But these women
shatter those stereotypes.
- I wanted to take a year
off between some studies
before I you know, did a masters or a PhD
to just like figure out
about the world a little bit.
And during this time off,
I started applying for TV game shows
and one of the shows turned
out to be a reality show
that took five beginners and
taught them how to play poker.
And so my first time ever
on TV or playing poker
was on this show.
Real Baptism of Fire,
but I completely fell
in love with the game
like head-over-heels.
I was just like wow, there's
so many different skillsets
that it requires and it's
a game where men and women
can actually play against
each other on equal footing.
And yet, there's so few of us girls.
They underestimate us and
so I can beat the boys.
I call.
Let's see the river card.
- The river.
- River.
It's a blank.
Liv Boeree has done it!
Jakob Carlsson's the runner-up.
Liv Boeree is the champion of EPT Sanremo.
- Really really well played.
1.25 million euros.
- It ticked every single box for me.
Liv Boeree
is one of the most
respected women in poker.
A quick visit to her website
will show you so many impressive things
that she's already accomplished.
- I'm Liv Boeree
and my educational
background is in astrophysics
and I've been absolutely
fascinated with space
ever since I was a little girl.
Even though she first
learned to play the game
when she was a young adult,
she managed to make millions.
Jennifer Harman, who was inducted
into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2015,
got a bit of an earlier start.
- I had a great childhood.
I had a great mother.
She loved to play games,
so we were constantly playing games.
My mom taught me how to play poker
when I was eight years old.
She would deal to me and
my cousins and my sister
and teach us how to play the game right,
but I never thought that poker
would be my lifelong career.
I just loved playing poker.
I loved playing games.
I loved learning the game.
I loved seeing the people.
I love sound of the chips.
I love the riffle of the cards.
Just everything about it.
You know, the touch of the felt
and it just kinda kept me there
until you know, I was
gonna figure things out.
- Yeah, I found poker
when I was 18 years old.
Some friends said, "Do
you wanna play poker?"
I said, "I have no idea how to play."
They taught me the game.
I fell in love.
I played until noon the
next day, the whole night.
And I just couldn't get enough
and then I kept trying to find
like where the local games
were that I could play
and play in any game that I could find.
- I came to Hollywood
and I was dating an actor
and he used to have his
Monday night poker game.
And I'm very competitive
and that was the one game
I didn't know how to play.
So once, I was on a
little getaway with him
and a couple other of our friends
and we asked him to teach
us how to play poker.
And then once I learned how to play,
I said, "I wanna come to
your Monday night games."
And he let me come like once or twice
and then I wasn't allowed to come anymore
because it was his guy game,
like poker was for guys.
They wanna do guy things
and smoke cigarettes
and talk about chicks.
- The first time I ever went
and played a proper live tournament,
I was the only woman in the whole thing
and everyone turned and stared at me.
- How you doin', little lady?
- You know, there I was 21
wearing tiger-print pants.
Fortunately I was certainly
back then a huge extrovert
and kinda liked attention, so
it fit my personality type.
I was like, oh cool.
All right, I can handle this.
- You definitely do get
like an added attention.
You know, you're not just
like one of the boys.
You're the girl in the
boys' you know, league
or whatever it might be.
- I know people see me on TV
and I wear the low-cut dress
and the false eyelashes and everything.
But that's because like
television is different
like on TV, I'm putting on a show.
Just from way back whenever
I would go on talk shows
or whatever, I would always try to dress
in an interesting way.
Like I'd dress like I was going to a party
because I thought I wanted to
create a fun, exciting visual
for the people at home.
But when I'm playing in
regular poker tournaments,
I try to dress as much to fit in.
Like I'll wear oversized
t-shirts and a hat,
you know, down low?
I try to dress more like a guy
because I do not want to attract
that sort of unwanted attention to myself.
- I remember the first time playing.
My parents actually drove
me across state lines
'cause in the province beside us,
you're allowed to gamble at 18.
And so they drove me there.
It had this casino, the
poker room had all glass,
so they sat behind the
glass and watched me.
And I sat down and I was maybe
the only female in the room.
I'm not positive, but for sure
the only female at the table
and I was so intimidated.
The first time I ever played poker
in a real poker room, I have to admit,
I was a little surprised.
I was literally the only woman in the room
competing in the tournament
and it didn't take me long to see
that guys definitely seem to play
a little bit differently towards
me because I was a woman.
But I had studied hard
and I knew that there
was a right way to play.
I could possibly become a great player.
Unfortunately, some hands
you just don't forget
and they change everything.
I was in a tournament
in Southern California
with about 60 other players.
I'd folded crap hands all night long
and my starting stack was
evaporating right before my eyes.
And then suddenly, playable cards.
Everybody at the table limped in,
placing the minimum bet
needed to play their cards.
I knew enough about poker to know that
even with pocket aces if
everybody's playing in the hand,
your chances of taking
the pot are diminished.
I needed to narrow this field
down to just a couple of players.
I raised big: 10 times the big
blind, 10 times minimum bet.
The player on my left called,
but the rest started to
topple over like dominoes.
The guy on my right
thought about it for a bit,
then decided to call.
Great, much better.
We're ready to see the first three cards.
This was a great flop for me.
My queens were still top pair
and both players checked to me.
I decided to bet big again.
First player folded,
but the player on my right
just stared at me and then--
- All in.
His bet made no sense.
Unless he overestimated
the value of his hand,
I still had top pair.
With my low stack, I had no choice.
Call.
At odds of 1,100 to one,
roughly your chances of
being caught in a house fire,
he had flopped a full house.
And when I asked him, "Why in the world
"would you have called my huge raise
"with such a horrible hand?"
He said.
- It was ego.
I'll never forget that hand.
It made me realize that because of ego
or pride or maybe because
they wanted to be alpha,
it was gonna be very difficult
to play regular poker against men.
I had to be creative.
- In general, I'd say with poker
you always wanna do what people
don't think you're gonna do
or you always wanna do the
opposite of what they're doing.
I had to find a way
to beat these guys at their own game.
I had to think completely out-of-the-box
and do something unexpected.
I don't think that guy
would've called my huge
raise if I was a man.
I felt like I had a target on my back.
- Playin' with men in the old days
was really kind of a pain in the ass.
I mean you just weren't welcome
and a lot of 'em resented that
you were coming into their space
and invading their pokerdom of manhood.
It was I guess their man cave
and they didn't want women to be in it
and they made it quite clear.
- And you just kinda get the like,
"What is she doing here?"
Or you know like, "Does she
know how to play or whatever?"
And, "Who gave you money?"
"Who are you bleeping?"
You know, to be in this tournament.
Those exact words before and I just laugh
because A: Why do you care?
Like if you think I'm such a bad player,
like why do you care where
the money came from, you know?
- Boys don't like being beat by girls,
so it takes a strong you know,
guy to be able to do that.
So you definitely do have
a little bit of tension.
- I think you definitely have a situation
that some men struggle
to play against women
or they don't like it if
a lady takes their stack
and they seem to take more
offense to that in some way.
And I think what that means is
it's quite likely ladies will
be played against differently
by a lot of players who
struggle with that situation.
So I think if you are a lady
who's playing a lot of poker,
start to see that as
something that you exploit.
You exploit the insecurities of the man
who doesn't want to lose his chips to you
because he's gonna adjust
his game because of that.
And instead of feeling attacked,
see that as a weakness that
you can take advantage of.
And I think that's one of the key things
that women should be aware of
if they're at the poker table
is you know, this is a benefit.
This isn't a cost.
That's Elliot Roe.
He's one of the most successful
mind coaches in poker.
He personally works with
some of the best players
in the world.
His techniques help great
players become legendary.
Elliot retools the mind using hypnosis,
meditation and other guidance techniques
to help people overcome
their hidden weaknesses.
- Usually someone will be aware
that there's something
holding them back in some way.
So nearly everyone I'm working with
is probably sort of top 100 in the world
looking to break top 10
or top 10 in the world
looking to become number one.
So they're not people who
are really struggling,
but they're aware that there's
some fine tuning they can do,
something going on in their mindset
that's not abling them to be
in a flow state the whole time.
- Maybe you're playing at a poker table
and someone's really
getting under your skin
and you're tryin' to figure
out why is that, you know?
And I think that this isn't my experience,
but I've heard this a lot
that people who were bullied as a kid,
when they get to a poker table
and they start to experience like,
"Is this person bullying me?"
Then all of a sudden it's hitting buttons.
And you know, that's a common theme
that I've heard that happens.
For me, well I'm a perfectionist.
So if I play a hand badly,
I will hate myself for days.
You know, it is April now.
And there's a hand I played in September
that I still go to bed
and wake up thinking about
and think why did I do that?
- So what my work is
is helping them to understand
what might be holding them back,
the subconscious issues in the background;
perhaps things that have
happened in childhood,
to then work through those issues.
So when it comes to performance,
be it poker or the Olympics
or whatever else it might be,
they can actually perform
to their potential.
- I genuinely believe wholeheartedly
that women have an advantage
sitting at a table,
significant advantage.
If you take you know,
you take five random
guys, five random women.
I teach them both how to play poker.
First of all, women
typically listen better.
That might be sexist
to say, but it's true.
And I feel like are more
studious and serious
and also underestimated
at the poker table,
which is super important
to capitalize on, right?
So if people are adjusting
to women playing differently,
you can really take advantage of that.
Okay, let's be real:
If you were to talk to a
professional poker player,
they would tell you Daniel
Negreanu is 100% right.
But I was just learning to play poker
and the idea of exploiting a man's biases
along with playing my regular game,
it just seemed like 3D chess to me.
Until I was able to
someday be lucky enough
to sit down with somebody like Elliot Roe
to overcome my insecurities,
I was gonna need to be
creative and unconventional
to keep myself in the game.
We are going to be transforming
you into a man.
Starting poker
kind of late in life,
I didn't really think I had time
to ever become as amazing a player
as someone like Jennifer
Harman or Liv Boeree.
But at least in the very
moment I was at right now,
I could level the playing field.
- And this is a full-human
hair, hand-ventilated beard,
so it's gonna look the most realistic.
Once that's glued on,
I think that one actually
will be really good.
- Do you like that one?
- Yeah.
- Okay, let's do that one.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- Perfect.
- Do you think we should do a mustache?
- Yeah, for sure.
- Okay, okay.
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- Of course.
- Well there's definitely
a different dynamic
if you're playing at a table all women
or you're playing at a table all men.
If you're playing at a table
with two women and all men,
it's a different dynamic.
The more estrogen at the table,
the more the dynamic shifts a little bit.
- Okay, here we go.
Goodbye, Sia.
- Goodbye.
- Hello Sam.
- Can't say for sure,
but I think that there's
probably some men out there
that really don't wanna lose to a woman
and that would really upset them
if they felt that a woman
had got the better of them
at the poker table.
They feel like it's a man's game
in that they get kinda offended
that women are playin' their game
and especially if
they're better than them.
Yup, that's me.
Before I got the idea
of dressing as a guy,
I wanted to see what it
was like to play poker
as a cute girl called Sia.
Well as cute as I could muster up.
- You're so pretty.
Take a picture.
- Thank you.
- Just come here.
I'm tryin' to flirt, baby.
I'm tryin' to flirt, baby.
And it turned out
guys do treat you pretty nicely
when you take the time to dress up.
That was something I could
use to my advantage too.
- I've seen women get edges many times
and it's almost unfair
what edges they can get
if they do wanna pursue
them, such as bein'...
I mean the easiest one is
be friendly with everybody
and they're less likely to bluff you;
they're more likely to
soft-play you as a woman.
- What I have noticed is
guys do tend to soft-play me a little bit.
Like I cannot tell you so many times
when a guy has said you know,
"Sweetheart, don't bet anymore.
"I've got you beat."
And I'm not asking for that.
- I don't wanna knock out
the woman at the table.
You know, they're nice to look at.
They're friendly.
I've heard numerous times you know,
the one woman at the table loses,
old guy says, "Why'd you knock her out?
"She's pretty."
Ooh, I took you from this table.
I'm wrong.
But I didn't wanna be pretty;
I wanted to play poker
just like one of the guys.
- Full transformation.
You're about to erase
every feature I have.
Is he working tomorrow?
Thursday.
- So what time is your tournament?
- Four.
- I've actually thought
about going in disguise,
being dressed as a man to see
how they play me differently
than as a woman.
They do.
You know, even if you play online
and you have a woman avatar
as opposed to a man avatar,
they play you different.
It's a subconscious thing.
- Just a bunch of degens'.I
don't know what Katie pictures.
She says "no talking to girls"
but it is an infinite sausage
fest. Should not be, but
that is what poker is.
- If it is just a random
email sitting there,
there's no way that they don't naturally
just play differently against you.
They'll just try to like
you know, run you over,
intimidate you and they
usually don't think that
you even have any idea what's going on.
- I'm not PC.
I'm not afraid to stereotype or whatever.
But you play for a few hours,
you'll pick up more
info on your opponents.
But as a slate, you gotta get a read.
If you're in a dark alley and
you see a guy with a hoodie
and he's comin' towards you,
you might be in trouble.
If you see a woman with sparkly slippers
and you know, a tiara, they're
probably not gonna rob you.
I don't know.
Probably not politically
correct, but it's true.
So what gave
you the idea to do this?
- The whole reason I started
dressing as a guy to play
is because when I played online,
I noticed that if I played as a woman,
I would get like all these weird comments
and guys would send like a little flower
or they'd send me a donkey
or they would just call
me down with whatever.
And I thought I'm so sick of this.
I'm just gonna pretend I'm a man.
So online, I started
playing as a guy named John
from San Diego, who's a big Padres fan.
What I noticed right away is
that I was taken more seriously
and I thought wow, what a great
social experiment would be
if I actually disguised
myself as a guy, right?
- You guys see that?
- Had a makeup artist disguise me as a guy
and showed up at the table as a guy
and what would that be like?
And so that's where it all started.
Just for the record:
dressing up as a man
was not my first idea.
I started off realizing that
men rarely respected my raises,
so I started limping into the
pot meaning I would not raise
even I was holding a monster
hand like pocket kings
and that's where my nickname
Black Widow came from.
The male spider
is much smaller than the female
and is not considered to be dangerous.
The male vibrates the
web to attract the widow.
Usually she does not attack the male
as he tries to secure her
with his own ineffective web.
I decided I
would start limping in
or just pretending I was weak
when I was really strong.
Whether I was holding pocket
aces or pocket queens,
I was going to act weak
and let the men come in
and try to bully me around and then--
She encases
her victims with silk
and then kills with poison from her fangs.
Turn over my monster hand
and take all their chips.
A lotta things came out of me
dressing up as a man for the first time.
I ended up writing a
book about my experiences
under the penname Sia Layta.
And this documentary in some ways ended up
coming right out of that first
experience playing as a dude.
Because even though I
was winning more often
when I disguised myself as a man,
the guys are folding when I raise
I would say four times as often
as when I raise as a woman.
I wanted to find out how to
be good at poker as a woman.
I wanted to learn more about
how the best women in poker
were winning as women.
I started my journey by reading up
on some of the women in poker history.
Although a rare sight in poker rooms,
women were not new to the game.
Poker had its share of
professional female players.
Eleanor Dumont, Maria Gertrudis
Barcelo and Lottie Deno
used their looks and charm
to bring male players to the table
and then send them home empty-handed.
One of the most famous female
poker players of the Old West
was Alice Ivers, better
known as Poker Alice.
She was an attractive
woman in her younger days.
And in a movie based on her life,
she was portrayed by the beautiful
actress Elizabeth Taylor.
Born in 1851 to an
upper-class British family,
she attended boarding school
and was well-educated.
As a young woman, she
married a mining engineer
and followed him west to Colorado.
She learned to play poker with her husband
at the local gambling hall.
She liked to dress in fine clothes
but also smoke cigars, drink whiskey,
cursed when she lost a
hand and carried a gun.
The Old West was a rough-and-tumble time.
Bets were taken seriously
and cheaters, if exposed,
might even pay with their lives.
In poker when a player
declares they have the nuts,
it means they have an
unbeatable poker hand,
the best possible hand given
the five cards on the table.
According to many poker experts,
the term the nuts
originated in the Old West.
When a player was out of money
but believed he had the best hand,
he might bet his horse and wagon.
He would then be required
to remove the nuts
from his wagon wheels
and place them in the pot
so that he could not
flee if he lost the bet.
It's assumed that he would
never make such a bet
unless he was sure to win.
Poker Alice and her husband
fit right into the
culture of the Old West.
Unfortunately, Alice was
widowed at a young age
when her husband was killed
in a mining accident.
With few career options,
she chose to support herself
by dealing and playing poker.
It has also been written that
she disguised herself as a man
to sell bootlegged whiskey on the side.
She eventually owned her
own gambling establishment
called the Poker Palace in
Fort Mead, South Dakota.
Alice claimed she won $250,000
in poker during her lifetime,
an amount equivalent to millions
and millions of dollars today.
The more I learned about poker,
the more I fell in love with the game
and I decided it was time
I went to my first World
Series of Poker event.
Besides, I had a secret weapon.
This is a version of me I call Sam.
I go with the name Sam
because it's very similar to my real name,
so I can pass when I use my ID
to register for tournaments as a man.
Traveling in my motor
home gave me the freedom
to go from one casino to the next,
practicing before I went to the big event.
Heads: I dress as a man;
tails: I dress as a woman.
Don't forget to take off your nail polish.
Raise, raise, raise.
Call, call, call, call.
Raise, raise.
500.
All right, hopefully I don't
get busted for videotapin' it.
It's hard sometimes playin' a man
because you gotta remember
not to do things like a girl.
Like when they brought me my Coke,
you know, I'm grabbin'
my straw like a girl.
Another thing I did too:
As we're walkin' up to the
door to leave for our break,
I paused and let the guy in front of me
open the door for me, right?
'Cause that's what I'm used to.
That was weird.
I'm like, oh shit.
Now don't apologize or you'll
sound more like a girl.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
What the fuck are you doing?
You can't
back out if that's what.
- I know, it's like be brave.
Just do it, just do it.
- So for the Black Widow out there,
you can show up dressed as a man.
You can show up dressed as a woman.
You can dress up as a fuckin' elephant.
I don't give a fuck what you look like
as long as you got these fuckin' nuts
and you got that fuckin' cash.
- You know what's so funny?
I was playin' poker the other day
and I was playing at the table
and the dealer and players
were talking about me.
They're like, "There's this chick
"and she dresses like
a dude, and you know,
"She played here once."
"I heard she played here once,"
and all this stuff.
What actually happened was
once I was playing at Morongo as a guy
and a cop came up behind me at the table
and tapped me on the
shoulder and I was like.
He's like, "Excuse me, sir."
And I was like, "Oh, great."
"Can I see your ID?"
And I was like, "Great."
I was like great.
I have this full beard on.
I had to turn around at the table
and we're in a tournament,
everybody's looking.
So I pull out my ID and
of course it's female.
And he's like, "Uh."
I go, "Yeah, you know what?
"I'm writing a book and I
did this for investigating."
He goes, "Exactly why are
you dressing as a man?"
And I said, "This is social experiment."
And he gave me back my ID,
he's like, "Okay, fine."
And the reason they stopped me
is because I was actually videotaping
a little video blog in their main room
and so they were wondering
what are you videotaping?
So it turned out it wasn't
because my costume was bad,
it was just because.
That was weird.
Anyway, so as I'm sitting at
Morongo like six months later,
they're still talking
about that.
I was winning a
lot more playing as a man,
so I had big plans.
I wanted to play the World
Series of Poker as a guy.
I even had a fantasy if I
made it to the final table,
it would be so amazing
to pull off my beard,
pull off my jacket and show underneath
I was actually a woman.
Okay, headed out of Home
Springs and to Las Vegas.
And then I
heard this on a podcast.
A woman
selling a book wants to play
in one or more World Series
events dressed as a man.
You have been quoted as saying
that the World Series of
Poker is opposed to this
and will stop it if it can.
What I tried to
explain to her and her people is
she's gonna lose her $10,000 buy-in.
- The World Series of
Poker let me know that
if I showed up playing as a guy,
they would kick me out
and I would lose $10,000.
I didn't go to the WSOP
in order to do publicity for my book.
I did not plan to dress as a man
and play the World Series
of Poker Main Event as a man
to promote my book.
I wrote the book so that I
could take a tax write-off
for all my tournament losses.
Unfortunately, once they
threaten me with $10,000 penalty
and throwing me outta the tournament,
I couldn't afford to take the chance.
I talked to a couple
lawyers and they told me
I really didn't have a case.
But I am a filmmaker and that
didn't stop me from going back
to the World Series of
Poker the following year
to do a documentary about
the best women in poker.
I made my way to Las Vegas
and I rented a room at the Rio
for 30 nights to span most of the time
that the World Series of Poker
events would be going on.
I got a huge room with lots of extra beds
and we called it the Poker Palace
and set it up so that
women had a place to relax
and take a break from the
poker room downstairs.
A lotta people don't realize this,
but poker tournaments can
be extremely exhausting.
Not only do you have to sit
for maybe 12 or 14 hours per day;
but as the tournament goes on,
you return day after day
to do the same thing.
And while you're sitting there,
you have to focus so intently.
- The poker lifestyle can be
a bit harmful for your health
because we sit there hour
after hour without moving
and you know, eating
crap because it's easier
to get at the poker
table than a good meal.
- Sometimes I try to compare it to
for people that don't understand,
to what it's like to be on an airplane
going to New York City and back.
Anybody who's ever gone
long distance on an airplane
sitting in one seat in one
position for all those hours,
it is physically exhausting.
- You know, to like be
on the top of poker,
you have to be willing to
just like be so mono-focused.
- What are the other players doing?
How is their body language?
What kind of cards are they holding?
- Or maybe you think that I have this.
But I know that you think that,
so I think I'm going to do this
and you know, make you think this.
- And casinos are notoriously cold,
which is one of the reasons
I wear fingerless gloves
when I'm sitting at the table.
Having my hands up there
in temperatures that are below average
gets extremely uncomfortable
after a long period of time.
So it is a real endurance race
to get to the finish line
of a poker tournament.
And so I wanted the Poker
Palace to be a place
where women could rejuvenate.
Women could come up to
visit, have a cup of coffee,
grab a protein bar, get
free physical therapy,
discuss hands and even spend the night.
It was just gonna be a place
to support women in poker.
- Come with me now.
Two seats are empty on.
The World Series of Poker
was an exciting environment,
but I had no idea how
exciting it was about to get.
This is California,
it ain't over yet.
I didn't feel
it the last couple days.
It was a
magnitude 7.1 earthquake
felt as far away as Los Angeles.
- On the air, we're experiencing
very strong shaking.
- Wow.
- I think we need to get under the desk.
- All right, we're gonna go to break.
- We'll be right back.
- We'll be right back
after this.
- We'll be right back.
- Wow.
And then this happened.
I don't know what happened.
He shoves all in blind.
He turns around.
He's got a Pittsburgh Pirates shirt on.
Now he decides I'm gonna drop my pants.
He pulls his pants down.
That's right, his actual dick is out
in the middle of the Pavilion Room
at the World Series of Poker on day one.
- I always say a documentary will tell you
what the movie's about.
You do not tell the
documentary what it's about.
So it started out as a
movie about women in poker.
There's a lot more drama than I expected.
Okay, so you're saying that
you won't do the documentary
if is in it?
But she's a big part of poker.
I'm pretty sure she has to be in it.
- Whenever there's women involved,
there's drama, isn't there?
You know, first I have
who basically said yes
that she would do an interview with me.
Next thing you know, she's too busy.
She's too busy, she's too busy.
Then it was, "Well are you
offering compensation?"
I was like, "No."
'Cause we're supposed to be a documentary.
"You have 24 hours to take
her off your website."
Well done.
Was gonna do this really nice package
about and how
wonderful she is and now here.
Now here look where we are.
Good job.
She invited the whole cast to a party.
15 minutes before the
party calls me and says,
"They're disinvited."
That was like 15 minutes
before the party started.
So yeah, she said she
would do an interview,
so I was excited.
Yay, I wrote that too.
Didn't say she was producing
it, anything like that.
So she ends up backing out.
And believe me, that
wasn't an easy back out.
That was a no-lube,
I-have-the-longest-dick-in-the-world
back out.
And now here I am
shooting a video of myself
because I don't have a fucking movie.
I do not wanna tape this,
but what am I gonna do?
I don't have a story.
Hey, sweetheart.
And then I received a letter.
Come on, really?
Seriously?
I'm tryin' to make a movie
about women in poker.
I'm tryin' to help women.
"Don't use our logo and blah blah."
"We'll take your money away, blah blah."
I was so down and then
I remembered something
that Daniel Negreanu used
to say in his video vlogs.
Well actually Sylvester
Stallone originally said it
and then Daniel Negreanu said it.
I think I needed to channel
my inner Daniel Negreanu
channeling his inner Rocky.
- You just gotta take the
beat to keep on comin'.
It's not how hard you hit, it's how hard--
- You get hit and keep movin' forward,
how much you can take
and keep movin' forward.
That's how winnin' is done.
- In poker, you just gotta
roll with the punches.
You gotta be one of the guys
and especially if you're
playing in a home game.
If you're there and you're
like, "Oh, my delicate ears.
"Oh, don't talk about
you know, this or that,"
you're not gonna get invited back.
And I feel like I've
succeeded when I show up
and I'm one of the guys.
And you know, in the home game situation,
there's always like a lot of massage girls
and they're wearing like lucite high heels
and hot pants and you know?
You can't come and say,
"This is disgusting.
"Oh, how could they
have these kinda girls?"
You know, you just have to be like
this is the way that it is.
These are things that
make these guys happy
where they wanna come and
put $100,000 on the table.
There's another place
that women are always welcome
in poker: strip poker.
- Strip poker?
How do you play that?
- Just regular poker.
Only instead of the bets,
the loser has to take off some garment.
It's lots of fun.
And Hollywood
is more than happy
to capitalize on this.
- Well c'mon, let's go.
Strip poker is fair
game even for advertising.
- I got nothing.
- What's goin' on?
Get back to bed.
Feel young again.
Centrum Silver.
- Okay Loni, I'm curious.
What were you like as a kid?
- I was definitely a
troublemaker as a kid.
I stirred the pot quite a bit.
I definitely got myself in trouble.
I was the class clown always making jokes.
I had a great childhood.
Me and my brother, we
grew up as best friends
and I was definitely a tomboy.
I played so many different sports.
I just chased my brother around.
He was three years older than me
and I felt like I had to
do everything that he did.
We would play football outside.
We played basketball.
I played soccer, swimming.
I even did dance.
I mean, I really just
tried to do everything.
Me and my brother, we were in karate.
We did a lotta sports.
My mom made sure that I
had a great childhood.
Loni Harwood is definitely
one of my favorite poker players.
She's amazingly skilled
and has countless awards
and one of the best poker
faces I have ever seen.
That is not a photograph.
That is a real-time video of Loni Harwood
staring down the competition.
She was also one of the
most gentle, generous
and fun-loving women I had
the opportunity to meet
while making this movie.
Do you have a boyfriend?
Yeah.
I do have a boyfriend.
Oh really?
Tell me about him.
What's his name?
You gotta
since you told me you did.
- All right, his name is Phillip Hui.
And is he inspiring to you?
- He is inspiring to me.
He's on day three of the 50k right now,
so hopefully he wins that one.
Loni Harwood lives,
breathes and loves poker.
- My dad was actually
a poker player himself.
He played online before Black Friday.
Black Friday was obviously
when the government
shut down poker.
My dad was pretty
successful on Poker Stars.
I would just watch him
play online all the time
and you know, I would see
him win with a horrible hand.
And I'm like, "Wow, you
could win with nothing,"
like people just fold.
- Whoever comes up to me and says
that you know poker is gambling,
I tell them, "Have you ever
played poker yourself?"
So they always say no, they
never tried it themselves.
They've never ever competed
in a competition before.
This is a mind sport
and not just gambling.
That's the
great thing about poker:
Unlike slot machines or roulette,
you can actually win
a huge amount of money
without holding the winning hand at all.
But it takes time to learn
how to do it just right
and it takes a lot of courage.
- I sometimes think poker is
like a big game of Chicken
and it's sort of like it's
a dick measuring contest.
And whoever has the big dick wins
because you know as well as I do
a lotta times nobody
has anything in poker.
- So I just put all of my
energy and focus studying.
You know, doing everything I can
to learn in talking with people.
Getting on shows like "Live at the Bike!"
for you know, exposure and
being able to watch how I play.
A poker player can
win all the money in the pot
by simply convincing others at the table
that she's holding the winning cards.
That's famously called a bluff.
Bluffing is a huge part of poker.
Here's a classic example
of a successful bluff.
At all times in this hand,
Jean in the red dress with pocket nines
is holding the winning cards.
But watch what Wino does
in order to win the pot.
All the cards that come out
so far are pretty small,
so Jean's probably pretty
sure she has top pair.
Of course Wino has two over cards.
So if she hits a queen or a jack,
she's gonna be doing better than Jean.
She also has a flush draw with her spades.
Jean bets again with top pair,
hoping that Wino gets off
of whatever she's chasing.
Wino thinks carefully
and then continues to call.
At this point, Jean has gotta be thinking
why are you still calling my bets?
Do you have sixes?
Do you have an ace?
She checks.
Sort of a sign of surrender.
Her hand's not that great
and at this point, Wino has a choice.
She can turn her cards over and lose
or make a big bet pretending
she has something amazing.
Very large bet.
Jean in the tank.
That means she's thinking
really hard about this hand.
450 and about 700.
And she's gotta be wondering
why would Wino stick around?
She has got to have something good.
Maybe a straight, maybe an ace.
Wino's pretty much
only repping an ace here.
Wow, Jean is gonna lay it down I think.
But the truth
is Wino has nothing.
Nope, not yet.
Wino could have like the
ace high spade draw too
and just hit an ace.
She missed
hitting any of her high cards
and she missed her flush draw.
And Jean, is left to her
own imagination wondering.
Jean's, I think she hears
that eight seven got counterfeit.
How much is she about to lose?
Don't
know if she follows Wino--
Oh my god,
Wino gets the bluff through.
Look at that little smile.
Oh Jean's like oh my god, but is friendly.
- I'm a self-proclaimed wino.
I live in Temecula and there's
a ton of wineries there,
so I really like wine.
I never proclaimed to be
like the best poker player.
I just wanna have a good
time and make people laugh.
And I really do enjoy the game.
I don't know why but guys
happen to like to bluff girls.
They think they can get away with it.
I learned that really quickly
and that's honestly why I do pretty well.
- I think men makes this
assumption about women.
They feel like they, number one,
they don't have the balls
or they're not capable
of constructing very complicated bluffs
like, you know, doing the float,
the check raise, the three barrel all in,
that sort of thing.
They feel like, you
know, oh women really are
the gentler sex and if they're
doing that sort of thing,
they probably have it.
- So I've taken on this like kind of like
trappy style of play only
because if I show weakness,
I feel like I don't even wanna
give this information away
because I don't them to
get smarter.
It's like they're a different species.
They're gonna get smarter,
they're gonna outgrow me.
- When I graduated high
school, I told my parents like,
"I don't wanna go to college.
"I just wanna do poker."
And they were like, "No, you're crazy.
"Like, you have to go to college."
I went to college to graduate
so that my dad would
start me off in poker.
He says if I graduate,
he'll start off my bankroll;
so that was what I did.
I went to college and
then once I graduated,
two weeks later, I packed up my car
and drove out to Florida
to live with my dad and pursue my dream.
- I thought my sweatshirt came,
but I guess maybe it didn't.
Cool.
- It's cute.
- What I love most about
what poker's taught me
over the years is how to
take risks in life and love.
So it's taught me a lot over the years.
- My dad builds race cars
and he's a race car driver,
so I grew up with kind of a weird life
in the sense that my parents
were working 'til midnight.
Every weekend was spent at the race track
which you know, I sometimes
wonder if being in poker,
which is such a male-dominated
industry, is similar to me
the fact that I grew up
around the race track,
which is very male-dominated,
and I used to race go-karts myself.
- One thing I noticed about these women
is that as kids, they operated
outside of gender boundaries.
I believe that that's
because so many of them
had parents that encouraged
them to follow their passions
regardless of their gender.
- I was always outside.
I was always dirty, climbing trees,
that kind of thing.
And so yeah, I definitely grew up
with a big love for nature and animals.
And then as I got a bit older,
my competitive streak started to emerge
and I was just insanely competitive.
Whenever there was like, awful,
like exams, sports, running, you name it,
I always wanted to be the best.
Even if I wasn't, I
still wanted to be that
and I would like, strive my
hardest to come out on top.
- My dad had always been a minister
and when I became a
poker player in my 20s,
it was a lot of explaining
to do.
- I was kind of a tomboy.
I was into sports and very
competitive from a young age.
- When I was a kid, I was
teacher's pet.
You know, I excelled at school.
If I got a B, I was absolutely devastated.
- As I kid, I was
actually always interested
in playing cards.
I was never interested
in playing or doing like,
what the usual kids do.
- I mean I remember like they were like,
"Don't you like the doll?"
And I'd rip that doll's head off
and run over it with my car
and they were like, "Okay,
she's into cars; that's fine."
- I did the ballet and
I did the horse riding
and you know, I was the
school monitor on the bus.
- I was very competitive as a kid.
I was always involved in sports
and you know, whatever we did, it was
who gets to the elevator
first to push the button.
It was all a competition.
- I remember I used to be very competitive
and I used to be the
best in my neighborhood.
The fastest runner and hit
the home runs and everything.
And then puberty happened
and all of a sudden my home run
would barely get me to second base.
- Soccer I actually
played on an all-boys team
because they felt like I
wasn't getting challenged
on the women's team, so they
put me on all-boys team.
The parents of the boys
weren't happy that a woman
or a girl at the time was
coming on to their team
and taking spots away from their kids.
And I remember the first
time I played, they booed me.
Like I personally, as a kid,
I didn't really think anything of it.
But my parents were so hurt by it.
But then right away, I
think I scored a goal
'cause I played center man
and right away I scored a goal
and apparently they all shut up.
And then they're okay.
Like winning was all
that mattered in the end.
- I was adopted when I was two,
so I came over from Korea.
The first two years of my life
are a little bit of a mystery
because my story was
that I was actually like,
abandoned at a train station.
And then I was found
and then I was you know,
sent to an orphanage and then adopted;
so those first two years
are kind of like a mystery.
I think that played a
huge part on why I was so
just I guess introverted
and shy and a little bit
intimidated by my surroundings.
My dad used to always say
I didn't even like really
come out of my shell
until like sixth grade.
But then once I finally
did in sixth grade,
I guess I couldn't shut up.
- My mom's name was Alisa.
She was the greatest woman ever
and she always told me to
pursue my dreams in poker.
She was there for me when
I won my first bracelet.
I always think about her
because she would always
tell me to fold jacks.
So I laugh all the time when I see 'em
and I lose with 'em
'cause I'm like she would
have told me to fold them.
But yeah, she was so proud of me
and she was really an amazing woman.
She did everything for us.
She worked you know two, three jobs.
She cooked dinner for us every night.
She drove us everywhere.
She made sure that me and my
brother were her whole life.
- There's no time in the world for poker
better than the World Series.
Like the World Series is
when you make all your money.
- It's a lot of stress.
It's a lot of competition.
It's a lot of testosterone.
- I think everybody has a dream
of like coming to Las Vegas,
to the World Series of
poker and having success.
Welcome back to Las Vegas
for continuing coverage of
the World Series of Poker.
Right now everyone chasing Gaelle Baumann,
a woman on top of the Main Event.
What is this, the 21st century?
- The highs are super high.
So if you do get to have that success,
if you do get to be in that 10%
that gets success this summer,
you're just like, I mean,
you're just walkin' like,
you know, like untouchable.
- We are outnumbered in
the Main Event for sure,
but there are incredibly good
female poker players out there
and even up-and-coming.
Incredible players.
And I feel that they
have a really good shot
of getting there too.
- It requires being in
people's face, being aggressive
and not shying away from confrontation.
And I know at least for me,
I grew up thinking
women are supposed to be
demure,
maybe a little bit shy,
at least in relationships and in person.
But luckily for me, competition,
I always knew that you're
supposed to crush the competition.
Vanessa
Selbst always finds ways
to accumulate chips.
Another woman?
What is the world coming to?
- See how fierce she
is on the table, right?
How awesome she is like
looking into your soul
and three bet and you called
while she rakes those chips.
- Vanessa's very successful
because she's got a lot of testosterone.
She amps up the aggressiveness.
So obviously doing something right.
I think it's best to err on
the side of aggressiveness
as opposed to erring
on the side of caution.
- All in.
- Massive bet.
- I call.
Oh my god.
- This is a very volatile game.
It is.
- All in, baby.
We're all in again.
Look how big this pot is.
Whoa!
He needs runner runner clubs.
It's not comin'.
- I think that women are a
little bit more plugged into
sort of this psychic energy at the table.
Whereas men, I think if I'm
gonna make a generalization
about the difference between men.
What men have is a lotta testosterone.
So men love to go into battle.
Like obviously poker
is kind of like a war.
- Guys just like to I don't know,
it's something genetic.
Because we're not allowed
to get into fist fights
with the people on the streets,
so we have to you know,
resort to chess and poker.
- So the ideal mixture
of a man and a woman
is to have a lot of testosterone,
but also be able to do
that sort of delicate
knowing what the other person has
or knowing what's gonna
tip 'em over the edge.
- Oh my god.
- She turns quads!
Four aces for Kristen Bicknell.
- There's just this feeling
that you know that's something's shifting.
That you know, women
are having this success
and it's not just some fluke.
- As far as what it takes
to be a great poker player,
women absolutely have it.
Loni Harwood with the call
and he is beat and just mucks his cards.
Loni Harwood is the
2015 national champion.
Well
Loni can go celebrate.
- If you can play your best game
and not have too much bad
luck, you have a chance.
- It's one of those viewer
discretion is advised
as a profession.
It's something that's great as a hobby,
great to even play with your kids
and teach them math skills.
But in terms of making a living out of it,
you better be ready to devote your life
and realize that even if you do,
you still might not make it.
This project
has been an adventure.
And like poker, it has been
filled with unexpected turns,
tricky situations
and occasional good luck.
I went into it following the
most well-known, talented women
I felt had the best chance for
winning the WSOP Main Event.
But as we've all learned
poker is unpredictable.
In the year that I was there,
the only woman to win a bracelet
in a co-ed World Series
tournament turned out to be
an accountant from Mint Hill,
North Carolina: Susan Faber.
- I'm here with the latest
World Series of Poker
bracelet winner Susan Faber
who just took down the Salute
to Warriors for over $100,000.
Susan, congratulation.
How do you feel?
- I feel really excited and really happy
that I was able to win a bracelet
and happy that I'm a woman.
Never won the bracelet.
I would encourage any
woman regardless of age
to give it a try, see if
they're any good at it.
- I definitely encourage women
to play poker these days.
I think it can be a good living for them.
I think the conditions are very favorable
to women these days.
- There's quite a few of us
who are being consistent with our results.
We're showing up, we're
confident, we're ready to win.
I tried
playing poker as myself.
I tried playing poker as a girly-girl.
I even tried playing poker as a man.
But one thing I found out
having talked to all these
professional poker players,
the best women in the world,
is that you really have to study.
You have to dedicate yourself to the game
and there's no shortcut.
Women are strong.
Women are rising to the
top in so many ways today.
We've seen more women
than ever in Congress
and leading in politics than ever before.
Women are winning awards
for the first time
that typically go to men.
They're uniting for change
and speaking truth to power.
Women are entering
male-dominated competitions
and they're excelling.
Six left
for Fallon Sherrock.
Game, set!
And Fallon Sherrock
smashes the glass ceiling
and wins at the World Darts Championship.
Even the girls
are doing their part.
- If you agree, register to vote.
Contact your local Congress people
and give them a piece of your mind.
They are superheroes.
It
should be two-nil and is.
What a World Cup for Megan Rapinoe.
While in the process
of finishing this movie,
I took a break to play poker
with a few of my neighbors.
I looked up at the TV
and there was Kristen
Bicknell at the final table
of the $25,000 Poker Masters event.
No woman had ever won this
prestigious tournament until now.
Kristen Bicknell is the
first female player ever
to win a Poker Masters title.
With so many amazing
poker tournaments ahead,
the only question left is:
who's next?
One of the things that
impressed me the most
about the women I interviewed
is that they were so much more
than amazing poker players.
They were also extraordinary women.
Jennifer Harman, she's survived
two kidney transplants.
Her sister and her mother
died of the same illness
when she was young.
She's a single mom of
two very talented boys
and has worked to raise awareness
about the importance of organ donation.
Kelly Minkin earned her
bachelor of science degree
in molecular and cellular biology
and she's also a medical-malpractice
defense attorney.
She is currently part of a legal team
that is working to bring justice
to players who were
cheated in the poker room.
Loni Harwood has a finance degree.
Her boyfriend and world-renowned
poker player, Phillip Hui,
did in fact win the
$50,000 WSOP tournament
for a prize of more than
one million dollars.
After celebrating, they
got engaged to be married.
Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher
helped to create the original
Tournament Directors Association, the TDA,
which sets common rules for tournaments.
They've been partners
at card player cruises
for more than 25 years
and travel the world
with poker players who
wanna combine a vacation
with their love of the game.
Liv Boeree earned her
first-class honors degree
in physics and astrophysics at
the University of Manchester.
Her YouTube channel and Ted Talk videos
explore the applications
of scientific thinking
to everyday life.
She co-founded the charity,
Raising for Effective Giving,
that helps poker players find
the right place to give back.
Let's just take a soundcheck
on spelling your name
first and last.
- Check one two, check one two.
KMCD bringin' it to you live
with a D-A-N-I-E-L N-E-G-R-E-A-N yo.
Yeah, that's what's up.
we're gonna have conflict
on this hand.
- All right, get 'em all in there.
Indeed, all 50,000 goes in.
Makes it $100,000 pot.
If Daniel wins this, he's
back in the running again.
- All right, brother.
I'm goin' all in.
- Okay, whaddya got?
He's got two queens
and Crandall just turned over two nines.
Only one card away
from being the world champion
and it's the 10 of diamonds.
Bobby Baldwin is world champion.
He got it!
He got it, he got it.
He's a shocked, amazed man.
He's the world champion
of poker, Jack Straus.
Stuey wins the tournament.
Stu Ungar has won three
World Series of Poker.
- Scotty's got a nine.
- Scotty's got a nine.
Scotty's our new world champion.
And there it is.
Hellmuth wins the championship.
So Phil gets the money.
Scott Blumstein
is the 2017 world champion.
That's the call and
that is the tournament.
John Cynn can now call
himself Main Event champion.
Martin Jacobson has his breakthrough win.
He has climbed the mountain
and is poker's world champion!
Sweden's
first Main Event champion
is a worthy one.
They say that the game of poker
takes five minutes to learn
and a lifetime to master.
But it only takes about
30 seconds to notice that
almost all poker players are men.
The biggest poker
competition in the world
happens every year in Las Vegas.
It's been going strong for
more than half a century.
It's called the World Series of Poker.
Winning a bracelet
in the WSOP Main Event
is the most prestigious prize in poker.
Using skill, mathematics, aggression,
creativity, intuition and luck,
players knock each other out of the game
until there's only one
table left: the final table.
Only one woman has ever
made it to the final table
of the Main Event at the
World Series of Poker
in all of its first 50
years: Barbara Enright.
Welcome to the
West here in Las Vegas, Nevada,
for the 1995 World Series of Poker.
- These six players, there
are five men and one woman
and this is the first time
that a lady has gotten to the finals.
Sitting at the final table
was a huge accomplishment
for Barbara Enright.
But when Barbara went all
in with her pocket pair.
Barbara's got two eights.
She was called
by a guy holding arguably
one of the worst hands in poker.
Brent has
a six three of diamonds.
Six three of diamonds.
Barbara is a huge favorite in this spot.
Oh boy, and how!
Then this happened.
- Now flop comes...
Six, three, queen.
- Queen.
- Flopped a sixes and threes.
- Oh my god.
Barbara was knocked out
and women have not
returned to a final table
at the World Series of
Poker Main Event since
even though there are so
many amazing female players:
Jennifer Harman, Liv
Boeree, Kristen Bicknell,
Loni Harwood, Kelly Minkin, Kathy Liebert.
These women have made millions
of dollars playing the game
and were poised to break the glass ceiling
and take home the coveted
bracelet at the WSOP.
As a woman and a poker player,
I wanted to be a part of it all
and as a filmmaker, I
wanted to document it.
I wanted to be there the first time
a woman took the bracelet
at the WSOP World Series
of Poker Main Event.
On my quest, I would meet
the most extraordinary women
in the game.
- I am a professional poker player.
I'm a cash grinder.
- Yeah for a long time, I was
just saying poker was a hobby.
And I guess now,
I'd be sort of considered
a professional, yeah.
- My name is Kelly Minkin.
I'm a professional poker player.
- You know, it's not something common
like you're a doctor, you're an engineer.
You're a poker player?
Excuse me, are you a poker player?
You know, it's like a little shocker.
- And for us as women,
it would be so amazing
and for the sport in general,
it would be so amazing for a woman to win
or at least come deep,
like at least deep in the final table
because it'll just open up the game.
There'll be more women in poker,
which makes poker a bigger sport,
which is good for everyone.
- I'd like to see a woman win a bracelet
and definitely see at least one woman
at the final table of
the Main Event this year.
- I mean what a dream to be
at, you know, the final table
of the Main Event if
we're thinking like that
at the World Series Main Event.
- I believe that in my
lifetime, we will definitely see
more women approach the
Main Event final table
and we've seen that already.
Like a lot of women getting down
to the final four, five, even two tables.
And so I definitely think
we're gonna see more women
reaching very far, final tabling
and hopefully eventually being a champion,
a Main Event champion.
- Ooh, my title would be poker enthusiast.
I never had any regrets
about being a poker player.
It's provided a nice lifestyle
for me, my family, my friends
and it's provided so many
wonderful adventures.
I love poker, can't wait to
play my next hand of poker.
- It's very hard to say what I do
or like explain a poker tournament.
My number one reference is golf.
It's so easy to understand in golf terms.
Like okay, all these really
good golfers come together.
They create this big purse or prize pool
and then they get paid out
based on their performance.
A lotta times, luck is a factor.
Your ball can hit a rock
on the side of the fairway.
You know, your swing could be off
by one little tiny thing, whatever.
So luck does play a huge factor.
But in the end and over the
course of 100 tournaments,
you're gonna see like, a
lot of the better players
be at the top a lot.
On the competitive side
of it, it's the same.
Everything is dependent on your own self.
You don't depend on anyone else.
Yes, you can depend on
your caddy, whatever.
But like, at the end of the day,
it's all in your own personal control.
So similar to poker and
the biggest thing is
I don't think there's ever a ceiling
for how good you can get.
- Most people who are
professional poker players
grew up playing poker.
I didn't, I never played a
hand of poker until I was 21.
But the first time I played,
I knew it was my thing.
I always say, "Everybody's
good at something."
I was good at poker from the beginning.
Poker is a game that can be beat.
And unlike roulette and
craps and things like that,
there's no professional craps
players or roulette prayers
'cause it can't be beat in the long run.
But poker, if you play
better than your opponents
and you make better
decisions than they do,
you can expect to win.
- I'm a professional poker player.
- I've been playing full-time
for about 10 years now.
I think women are getting
better every single day.
The game is getting tougher every day
and the women competitors are
just really, really strong.
I think a woman has just as
good of a chance as a man
to reach that final table.
- I believe than anyone can be
a winning player with study.
Like nowadays, there's just
so much information out there.
Back in the day before the Internet,
and before even the first books,
people didn't share the
information as openly
about how to beat the game.
But now, there's just so much information.
If you wanna become a winning player,
it just takes hard work
like anything else.
- Before I started playing
poker on a regular basis,
I had no idea but there's a whole world
built around the people
that love the game.
Today, poker has its own subculture
with so many resources for
education and entertainment.
There are poker magazines,
poker blogs on YouTube.
There are poker cruises, poker podcasts.
Lines of clothing just for poker players.
Poker even has its own coffee.
There are dozens of poker books
and poker tournaments all over the world,
many with their own TV shows.
This is
poker night in America.
There's even an
unofficial poker uniform
and generally includes
comfortable clothes,
a backpack filled with
things like energy drinks,
water and nutrition bars
and definitely Blue Shark sunglasses.
I gave these to a good
friend of mine as a gift
and she was pretty excited.
- What?
Oh my gosh, I was just saying to you
I was gonna start wearin'
glasses maybe to up my game.
I look like a poker star or what?
- Oh yeah, that's right.
- I got poker mojo.
These are my new shades.
There are poker tournaments
that benefit charities.
- Shuffle up and deal.
Let's play some cards, y'all.
Raise some money for Mickie's Miracles.
Poker is the number one way,
especially poker charity events,
to raise money for charities.
It used to be golf, right?
But golf is hard.
If you've never golfed,
like how do you do that?
With poker, just teach people.
You got two cards and
you like 'em, go all in.
It's for a good cause.
There's the Hendon
Mob, where you can keep track
of the trophies, titles, accomplishments
and earnings of every poker player.
There are online poker training sites
that teach you how to be a better player
using artificial intelligence.
We're the world's number
one poker training site.
We have virtual computerized poker players
that you play against.
They teach you to be a better poker player
while trying to beat you at the same time.
- That's the beauty of poker:
You can be as good as
you wanna be, you know?
Like could I go out and
do brain surgery tomorrow?
No, but I could get a start
on bein' a good poker player
just by picking up some books
and talking to some friends
and getting started.
- The beautiful thing about
poker and tournaments is
you don't have to be anything.
There's no requirement.
I've seen people play
that have had no hands.
I've seen people play that are blind.
I've seen people play
that physically cannot move their body.
They're paralyzed and they have a reader.
I've seen 90 year olds play.
I've seen 19 year olds play.
I've seen every race play, every religion.
Anybody can play a hand of poker.
That makes the profession really cool.
- This ecosystem is
mainly made up of males.
We know that 25% of our
TV viewers are females.
25% of our Club WPT
players are also women.
So we know that there's a real interest
from this demographic.
It's unfortunate that the live scene
tends to hover around 4%.
But I really believe that over time,
with support of the players
and all players, men and women,
I think that offline number
will hopefully mirror their digital
and online counterparts.
- You walk in in there
and there's all these guys
and they look like sort
of total degenerates;
like rough and tough and
they're wearing their
you know, hats and everything
and you sort of feel like ooh,
this is no place for a lady.
But once you sit down,
then you're really happy.
You're like oh, I know where I am.
- My mom's been great.
She's always been supportive of me.
When I first told her I was playing poker,
she was a little bit nervous for me.
She goes, "Isn't that addicting?"
You know, she was nervous.
But she always told me, "Do what you love.
"The money will follow".
This was my idea of a dream life:
making a living playing poker.
But poker was the last thing
I ever thought I'd fall in love with.
I didn't even discover the game
until pretty late in life.
I learned to play poker
on my cellphone using the Zynga app.
I picked a cartoon female avatar
and a name to represent me as a player
and took my free virtual poker chips
to the table of live online competitors.
We were each dealt two cards.
I had a limited understanding
of poker at this point.
At first, I thought if I
was dealt an ace or a king,
I had a winning hand.
That proved to be over-optimistic.
We're sorry,
please try again later.
- I actually learned cards from like,
playing with my family.
Like my grandma would play Gin with us
and like my mom and dad would play cards.
- I learned how to play poker
when I was probably about 12 years old,
12 or 13, from a family friend.
And he taught us to play cards one day
and he taught us Paul's game.
It was great, we learned Paul's game.
Well you know, fast-forward
about 10 or 12 years,
I realized that Paul's
game was seven card stud
and so we would sit in his
basement and play poker.
He'd have the penny jar and we would play
and then we'd put all the pennies back.
Nobody kept anything or put anything up.
- My mom and dad would have
little poker games at home.
I always loved it.
In fact, I even went out
and bought a poker book
when I was a kid and
studied the poker book.
And after I read the book,
I kept my results of the home games
in the inside cover of the poker book.
You know, I was like,
okay, I won $2 yesterday;
so even then, I took
it seriously actually.
The game of Texas Hold 'Em poker
is so simple, you can learn
it literally in a few minutes.
Each player is dealt two
cards for their eyes only.
The dealer spreads five cards:
Three at once, called the flop,
then another, called the turn card,
and then a final card called the river.
Players bet, check or fold
between each round of cards.
In the end, the player with
the best five card hand
wins the pot.
- Let's put 'em in order.
Maybe make it easier for you guys.
So four of clubs, six of
spades, eight of spades.
All right, mommy's dealin'.
It's your turn.
You can bet or you can check.
Bet means you wanna make people pay money
'cause you think you match up.
Maybe you have a pair.
Maybe you got two pair.
Maybe you got a straight
or you ain't got nothin',
so you're just gonna check.
Or maybe you want us to
think you got nothin'
so you're gonna check.
You can say, "I check."
So you bet or check?
- Check.
- Check.
- Good job.
- Check.
- Check.
Check!
- Check, check all around.
- We all check.
Free card.
- Whoo hoo!
Yeah.
- A 10 of diamonds!
So now, daddy--
- Back to you, daddy.
So maybe daddy,
if you're going for spades, that's good.
Maybe somebody's got a straight.
I don't know.
Azalea, same deal: check or bet?
- Check.
Okay this is called the river.
The river.
Who gets lucky on the river?
Me, me, me.
- Me me me.
- A king.
Wow.
- Okay.
- Oh yeah.
- So now it's on you.
- Oh yeah!
- Do you wanna bet or check?
- Check.
Check, check.
Check.
Okay,
go ahead and show what you got.
Flip 'em over.
You got a part of jacks.
- Pocket jacks.
- Beautiful.
So here is a pair of eights.
Does the pair of eights
beat a pair of jacks?
- No.
- No, so you lost.
So how 'bout daddy?
Does daddy beat a pair of jacks?
Nope.
Mommy's turn.
I ain't got nothin'.
Which means who won?
Last girl standin'.
Take your money.
- Well when I was in college,
my brother lived in LA at the time
and I was in town to visit him.
And he had taken me to the Bicycle Casino
'cause he played poker.
And so he had given me like $200
and I went and played like
one/two limit or something.
And it was just so fun
to be able to compete
with other people you don't know and
like be in that atmosphere.
He is the best player.
- I am the best player at the table.
There's not even a question.
- Shuffle up and deal.
- So I really enjoyed it and
then I kinda got hooked on it.
I won a little bit of money and
then I won a little bit more
and then I started going on
my own and then here I am now.
Some men have very firm ideas
about where women fit into poker.
Good job.
But these women
shatter those stereotypes.
- I wanted to take a year
off between some studies
before I you know, did a masters or a PhD
to just like figure out
about the world a little bit.
And during this time off,
I started applying for TV game shows
and one of the shows turned
out to be a reality show
that took five beginners and
taught them how to play poker.
And so my first time ever
on TV or playing poker
was on this show.
Real Baptism of Fire,
but I completely fell
in love with the game
like head-over-heels.
I was just like wow, there's
so many different skillsets
that it requires and it's
a game where men and women
can actually play against
each other on equal footing.
And yet, there's so few of us girls.
They underestimate us and
so I can beat the boys.
I call.
Let's see the river card.
- The river.
- River.
It's a blank.
Liv Boeree has done it!
Jakob Carlsson's the runner-up.
Liv Boeree is the champion of EPT Sanremo.
- Really really well played.
1.25 million euros.
- It ticked every single box for me.
Liv Boeree
is one of the most
respected women in poker.
A quick visit to her website
will show you so many impressive things
that she's already accomplished.
- I'm Liv Boeree
and my educational
background is in astrophysics
and I've been absolutely
fascinated with space
ever since I was a little girl.
Even though she first
learned to play the game
when she was a young adult,
she managed to make millions.
Jennifer Harman, who was inducted
into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2015,
got a bit of an earlier start.
- I had a great childhood.
I had a great mother.
She loved to play games,
so we were constantly playing games.
My mom taught me how to play poker
when I was eight years old.
She would deal to me and
my cousins and my sister
and teach us how to play the game right,
but I never thought that poker
would be my lifelong career.
I just loved playing poker.
I loved playing games.
I loved learning the game.
I loved seeing the people.
I love sound of the chips.
I love the riffle of the cards.
Just everything about it.
You know, the touch of the felt
and it just kinda kept me there
until you know, I was
gonna figure things out.
- Yeah, I found poker
when I was 18 years old.
Some friends said, "Do
you wanna play poker?"
I said, "I have no idea how to play."
They taught me the game.
I fell in love.
I played until noon the
next day, the whole night.
And I just couldn't get enough
and then I kept trying to find
like where the local games
were that I could play
and play in any game that I could find.
- I came to Hollywood
and I was dating an actor
and he used to have his
Monday night poker game.
And I'm very competitive
and that was the one game
I didn't know how to play.
So once, I was on a
little getaway with him
and a couple other of our friends
and we asked him to teach
us how to play poker.
And then once I learned how to play,
I said, "I wanna come to
your Monday night games."
And he let me come like once or twice
and then I wasn't allowed to come anymore
because it was his guy game,
like poker was for guys.
They wanna do guy things
and smoke cigarettes
and talk about chicks.
- The first time I ever went
and played a proper live tournament,
I was the only woman in the whole thing
and everyone turned and stared at me.
- How you doin', little lady?
- You know, there I was 21
wearing tiger-print pants.
Fortunately I was certainly
back then a huge extrovert
and kinda liked attention, so
it fit my personality type.
I was like, oh cool.
All right, I can handle this.
- You definitely do get
like an added attention.
You know, you're not just
like one of the boys.
You're the girl in the
boys' you know, league
or whatever it might be.
- I know people see me on TV
and I wear the low-cut dress
and the false eyelashes and everything.
But that's because like
television is different
like on TV, I'm putting on a show.
Just from way back whenever
I would go on talk shows
or whatever, I would always try to dress
in an interesting way.
Like I'd dress like I was going to a party
because I thought I wanted to
create a fun, exciting visual
for the people at home.
But when I'm playing in
regular poker tournaments,
I try to dress as much to fit in.
Like I'll wear oversized
t-shirts and a hat,
you know, down low?
I try to dress more like a guy
because I do not want to attract
that sort of unwanted attention to myself.
- I remember the first time playing.
My parents actually drove
me across state lines
'cause in the province beside us,
you're allowed to gamble at 18.
And so they drove me there.
It had this casino, the
poker room had all glass,
so they sat behind the
glass and watched me.
And I sat down and I was maybe
the only female in the room.
I'm not positive, but for sure
the only female at the table
and I was so intimidated.
The first time I ever played poker
in a real poker room, I have to admit,
I was a little surprised.
I was literally the only woman in the room
competing in the tournament
and it didn't take me long to see
that guys definitely seem to play
a little bit differently towards
me because I was a woman.
But I had studied hard
and I knew that there
was a right way to play.
I could possibly become a great player.
Unfortunately, some hands
you just don't forget
and they change everything.
I was in a tournament
in Southern California
with about 60 other players.
I'd folded crap hands all night long
and my starting stack was
evaporating right before my eyes.
And then suddenly, playable cards.
Everybody at the table limped in,
placing the minimum bet
needed to play their cards.
I knew enough about poker to know that
even with pocket aces if
everybody's playing in the hand,
your chances of taking
the pot are diminished.
I needed to narrow this field
down to just a couple of players.
I raised big: 10 times the big
blind, 10 times minimum bet.
The player on my left called,
but the rest started to
topple over like dominoes.
The guy on my right
thought about it for a bit,
then decided to call.
Great, much better.
We're ready to see the first three cards.
This was a great flop for me.
My queens were still top pair
and both players checked to me.
I decided to bet big again.
First player folded,
but the player on my right
just stared at me and then--
- All in.
His bet made no sense.
Unless he overestimated
the value of his hand,
I still had top pair.
With my low stack, I had no choice.
Call.
At odds of 1,100 to one,
roughly your chances of
being caught in a house fire,
he had flopped a full house.
And when I asked him, "Why in the world
"would you have called my huge raise
"with such a horrible hand?"
He said.
- It was ego.
I'll never forget that hand.
It made me realize that because of ego
or pride or maybe because
they wanted to be alpha,
it was gonna be very difficult
to play regular poker against men.
I had to be creative.
- In general, I'd say with poker
you always wanna do what people
don't think you're gonna do
or you always wanna do the
opposite of what they're doing.
I had to find a way
to beat these guys at their own game.
I had to think completely out-of-the-box
and do something unexpected.
I don't think that guy
would've called my huge
raise if I was a man.
I felt like I had a target on my back.
- Playin' with men in the old days
was really kind of a pain in the ass.
I mean you just weren't welcome
and a lot of 'em resented that
you were coming into their space
and invading their pokerdom of manhood.
It was I guess their man cave
and they didn't want women to be in it
and they made it quite clear.
- And you just kinda get the like,
"What is she doing here?"
Or you know like, "Does she
know how to play or whatever?"
And, "Who gave you money?"
"Who are you bleeping?"
You know, to be in this tournament.
Those exact words before and I just laugh
because A: Why do you care?
Like if you think I'm such a bad player,
like why do you care where
the money came from, you know?
- Boys don't like being beat by girls,
so it takes a strong you know,
guy to be able to do that.
So you definitely do have
a little bit of tension.
- I think you definitely have a situation
that some men struggle
to play against women
or they don't like it if
a lady takes their stack
and they seem to take more
offense to that in some way.
And I think what that means is
it's quite likely ladies will
be played against differently
by a lot of players who
struggle with that situation.
So I think if you are a lady
who's playing a lot of poker,
start to see that as
something that you exploit.
You exploit the insecurities of the man
who doesn't want to lose his chips to you
because he's gonna adjust
his game because of that.
And instead of feeling attacked,
see that as a weakness that
you can take advantage of.
And I think that's one of the key things
that women should be aware of
if they're at the poker table
is you know, this is a benefit.
This isn't a cost.
That's Elliot Roe.
He's one of the most successful
mind coaches in poker.
He personally works with
some of the best players
in the world.
His techniques help great
players become legendary.
Elliot retools the mind using hypnosis,
meditation and other guidance techniques
to help people overcome
their hidden weaknesses.
- Usually someone will be aware
that there's something
holding them back in some way.
So nearly everyone I'm working with
is probably sort of top 100 in the world
looking to break top 10
or top 10 in the world
looking to become number one.
So they're not people who
are really struggling,
but they're aware that there's
some fine tuning they can do,
something going on in their mindset
that's not abling them to be
in a flow state the whole time.
- Maybe you're playing at a poker table
and someone's really
getting under your skin
and you're tryin' to figure
out why is that, you know?
And I think that this isn't my experience,
but I've heard this a lot
that people who were bullied as a kid,
when they get to a poker table
and they start to experience like,
"Is this person bullying me?"
Then all of a sudden it's hitting buttons.
And you know, that's a common theme
that I've heard that happens.
For me, well I'm a perfectionist.
So if I play a hand badly,
I will hate myself for days.
You know, it is April now.
And there's a hand I played in September
that I still go to bed
and wake up thinking about
and think why did I do that?
- So what my work is
is helping them to understand
what might be holding them back,
the subconscious issues in the background;
perhaps things that have
happened in childhood,
to then work through those issues.
So when it comes to performance,
be it poker or the Olympics
or whatever else it might be,
they can actually perform
to their potential.
- I genuinely believe wholeheartedly
that women have an advantage
sitting at a table,
significant advantage.
If you take you know,
you take five random
guys, five random women.
I teach them both how to play poker.
First of all, women
typically listen better.
That might be sexist
to say, but it's true.
And I feel like are more
studious and serious
and also underestimated
at the poker table,
which is super important
to capitalize on, right?
So if people are adjusting
to women playing differently,
you can really take advantage of that.
Okay, let's be real:
If you were to talk to a
professional poker player,
they would tell you Daniel
Negreanu is 100% right.
But I was just learning to play poker
and the idea of exploiting a man's biases
along with playing my regular game,
it just seemed like 3D chess to me.
Until I was able to
someday be lucky enough
to sit down with somebody like Elliot Roe
to overcome my insecurities,
I was gonna need to be
creative and unconventional
to keep myself in the game.
We are going to be transforming
you into a man.
Starting poker
kind of late in life,
I didn't really think I had time
to ever become as amazing a player
as someone like Jennifer
Harman or Liv Boeree.
But at least in the very
moment I was at right now,
I could level the playing field.
- And this is a full-human
hair, hand-ventilated beard,
so it's gonna look the most realistic.
Once that's glued on,
I think that one actually
will be really good.
- Do you like that one?
- Yeah.
- Okay, let's do that one.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- Perfect.
- Do you think we should do a mustache?
- Yeah, for sure.
- Okay, okay.
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- Of course.
- Well there's definitely
a different dynamic
if you're playing at a table all women
or you're playing at a table all men.
If you're playing at a table
with two women and all men,
it's a different dynamic.
The more estrogen at the table,
the more the dynamic shifts a little bit.
- Okay, here we go.
Goodbye, Sia.
- Goodbye.
- Hello Sam.
- Can't say for sure,
but I think that there's
probably some men out there
that really don't wanna lose to a woman
and that would really upset them
if they felt that a woman
had got the better of them
at the poker table.
They feel like it's a man's game
in that they get kinda offended
that women are playin' their game
and especially if
they're better than them.
Yup, that's me.
Before I got the idea
of dressing as a guy,
I wanted to see what it
was like to play poker
as a cute girl called Sia.
Well as cute as I could muster up.
- You're so pretty.
Take a picture.
- Thank you.
- Just come here.
I'm tryin' to flirt, baby.
I'm tryin' to flirt, baby.
And it turned out
guys do treat you pretty nicely
when you take the time to dress up.
That was something I could
use to my advantage too.
- I've seen women get edges many times
and it's almost unfair
what edges they can get
if they do wanna pursue
them, such as bein'...
I mean the easiest one is
be friendly with everybody
and they're less likely to bluff you;
they're more likely to
soft-play you as a woman.
- What I have noticed is
guys do tend to soft-play me a little bit.
Like I cannot tell you so many times
when a guy has said you know,
"Sweetheart, don't bet anymore.
"I've got you beat."
And I'm not asking for that.
- I don't wanna knock out
the woman at the table.
You know, they're nice to look at.
They're friendly.
I've heard numerous times you know,
the one woman at the table loses,
old guy says, "Why'd you knock her out?
"She's pretty."
Ooh, I took you from this table.
I'm wrong.
But I didn't wanna be pretty;
I wanted to play poker
just like one of the guys.
- Full transformation.
You're about to erase
every feature I have.
Is he working tomorrow?
Thursday.
- So what time is your tournament?
- Four.
- I've actually thought
about going in disguise,
being dressed as a man to see
how they play me differently
than as a woman.
They do.
You know, even if you play online
and you have a woman avatar
as opposed to a man avatar,
they play you different.
It's a subconscious thing.
- Just a bunch of degens'.I
don't know what Katie pictures.
She says "no talking to girls"
but it is an infinite sausage
fest. Should not be, but
that is what poker is.
- If it is just a random
email sitting there,
there's no way that they don't naturally
just play differently against you.
They'll just try to like
you know, run you over,
intimidate you and they
usually don't think that
you even have any idea what's going on.
- I'm not PC.
I'm not afraid to stereotype or whatever.
But you play for a few hours,
you'll pick up more
info on your opponents.
But as a slate, you gotta get a read.
If you're in a dark alley and
you see a guy with a hoodie
and he's comin' towards you,
you might be in trouble.
If you see a woman with sparkly slippers
and you know, a tiara, they're
probably not gonna rob you.
I don't know.
Probably not politically
correct, but it's true.
So what gave
you the idea to do this?
- The whole reason I started
dressing as a guy to play
is because when I played online,
I noticed that if I played as a woman,
I would get like all these weird comments
and guys would send like a little flower
or they'd send me a donkey
or they would just call
me down with whatever.
And I thought I'm so sick of this.
I'm just gonna pretend I'm a man.
So online, I started
playing as a guy named John
from San Diego, who's a big Padres fan.
What I noticed right away is
that I was taken more seriously
and I thought wow, what a great
social experiment would be
if I actually disguised
myself as a guy, right?
- You guys see that?
- Had a makeup artist disguise me as a guy
and showed up at the table as a guy
and what would that be like?
And so that's where it all started.
Just for the record:
dressing up as a man
was not my first idea.
I started off realizing that
men rarely respected my raises,
so I started limping into the
pot meaning I would not raise
even I was holding a monster
hand like pocket kings
and that's where my nickname
Black Widow came from.
The male spider
is much smaller than the female
and is not considered to be dangerous.
The male vibrates the
web to attract the widow.
Usually she does not attack the male
as he tries to secure her
with his own ineffective web.
I decided I
would start limping in
or just pretending I was weak
when I was really strong.
Whether I was holding pocket
aces or pocket queens,
I was going to act weak
and let the men come in
and try to bully me around and then--
She encases
her victims with silk
and then kills with poison from her fangs.
Turn over my monster hand
and take all their chips.
A lotta things came out of me
dressing up as a man for the first time.
I ended up writing a
book about my experiences
under the penname Sia Layta.
And this documentary in some ways ended up
coming right out of that first
experience playing as a dude.
Because even though I
was winning more often
when I disguised myself as a man,
the guys are folding when I raise
I would say four times as often
as when I raise as a woman.
I wanted to find out how to
be good at poker as a woman.
I wanted to learn more about
how the best women in poker
were winning as women.
I started my journey by reading up
on some of the women in poker history.
Although a rare sight in poker rooms,
women were not new to the game.
Poker had its share of
professional female players.
Eleanor Dumont, Maria Gertrudis
Barcelo and Lottie Deno
used their looks and charm
to bring male players to the table
and then send them home empty-handed.
One of the most famous female
poker players of the Old West
was Alice Ivers, better
known as Poker Alice.
She was an attractive
woman in her younger days.
And in a movie based on her life,
she was portrayed by the beautiful
actress Elizabeth Taylor.
Born in 1851 to an
upper-class British family,
she attended boarding school
and was well-educated.
As a young woman, she
married a mining engineer
and followed him west to Colorado.
She learned to play poker with her husband
at the local gambling hall.
She liked to dress in fine clothes
but also smoke cigars, drink whiskey,
cursed when she lost a
hand and carried a gun.
The Old West was a rough-and-tumble time.
Bets were taken seriously
and cheaters, if exposed,
might even pay with their lives.
In poker when a player
declares they have the nuts,
it means they have an
unbeatable poker hand,
the best possible hand given
the five cards on the table.
According to many poker experts,
the term the nuts
originated in the Old West.
When a player was out of money
but believed he had the best hand,
he might bet his horse and wagon.
He would then be required
to remove the nuts
from his wagon wheels
and place them in the pot
so that he could not
flee if he lost the bet.
It's assumed that he would
never make such a bet
unless he was sure to win.
Poker Alice and her husband
fit right into the
culture of the Old West.
Unfortunately, Alice was
widowed at a young age
when her husband was killed
in a mining accident.
With few career options,
she chose to support herself
by dealing and playing poker.
It has also been written that
she disguised herself as a man
to sell bootlegged whiskey on the side.
She eventually owned her
own gambling establishment
called the Poker Palace in
Fort Mead, South Dakota.
Alice claimed she won $250,000
in poker during her lifetime,
an amount equivalent to millions
and millions of dollars today.
The more I learned about poker,
the more I fell in love with the game
and I decided it was time
I went to my first World
Series of Poker event.
Besides, I had a secret weapon.
This is a version of me I call Sam.
I go with the name Sam
because it's very similar to my real name,
so I can pass when I use my ID
to register for tournaments as a man.
Traveling in my motor
home gave me the freedom
to go from one casino to the next,
practicing before I went to the big event.
Heads: I dress as a man;
tails: I dress as a woman.
Don't forget to take off your nail polish.
Raise, raise, raise.
Call, call, call, call.
Raise, raise.
500.
All right, hopefully I don't
get busted for videotapin' it.
It's hard sometimes playin' a man
because you gotta remember
not to do things like a girl.
Like when they brought me my Coke,
you know, I'm grabbin'
my straw like a girl.
Another thing I did too:
As we're walkin' up to the
door to leave for our break,
I paused and let the guy in front of me
open the door for me, right?
'Cause that's what I'm used to.
That was weird.
I'm like, oh shit.
Now don't apologize or you'll
sound more like a girl.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
What the fuck are you doing?
You can't
back out if that's what.
- I know, it's like be brave.
Just do it, just do it.
- So for the Black Widow out there,
you can show up dressed as a man.
You can show up dressed as a woman.
You can dress up as a fuckin' elephant.
I don't give a fuck what you look like
as long as you got these fuckin' nuts
and you got that fuckin' cash.
- You know what's so funny?
I was playin' poker the other day
and I was playing at the table
and the dealer and players
were talking about me.
They're like, "There's this chick
"and she dresses like
a dude, and you know,
"She played here once."
"I heard she played here once,"
and all this stuff.
What actually happened was
once I was playing at Morongo as a guy
and a cop came up behind me at the table
and tapped me on the
shoulder and I was like.
He's like, "Excuse me, sir."
And I was like, "Oh, great."
"Can I see your ID?"
And I was like, "Great."
I was like great.
I have this full beard on.
I had to turn around at the table
and we're in a tournament,
everybody's looking.
So I pull out my ID and
of course it's female.
And he's like, "Uh."
I go, "Yeah, you know what?
"I'm writing a book and I
did this for investigating."
He goes, "Exactly why are
you dressing as a man?"
And I said, "This is social experiment."
And he gave me back my ID,
he's like, "Okay, fine."
And the reason they stopped me
is because I was actually videotaping
a little video blog in their main room
and so they were wondering
what are you videotaping?
So it turned out it wasn't
because my costume was bad,
it was just because.
That was weird.
Anyway, so as I'm sitting at
Morongo like six months later,
they're still talking
about that.
I was winning a
lot more playing as a man,
so I had big plans.
I wanted to play the World
Series of Poker as a guy.
I even had a fantasy if I
made it to the final table,
it would be so amazing
to pull off my beard,
pull off my jacket and show underneath
I was actually a woman.
Okay, headed out of Home
Springs and to Las Vegas.
And then I
heard this on a podcast.
A woman
selling a book wants to play
in one or more World Series
events dressed as a man.
You have been quoted as saying
that the World Series of
Poker is opposed to this
and will stop it if it can.
What I tried to
explain to her and her people is
she's gonna lose her $10,000 buy-in.
- The World Series of
Poker let me know that
if I showed up playing as a guy,
they would kick me out
and I would lose $10,000.
I didn't go to the WSOP
in order to do publicity for my book.
I did not plan to dress as a man
and play the World Series
of Poker Main Event as a man
to promote my book.
I wrote the book so that I
could take a tax write-off
for all my tournament losses.
Unfortunately, once they
threaten me with $10,000 penalty
and throwing me outta the tournament,
I couldn't afford to take the chance.
I talked to a couple
lawyers and they told me
I really didn't have a case.
But I am a filmmaker and that
didn't stop me from going back
to the World Series of
Poker the following year
to do a documentary about
the best women in poker.
I made my way to Las Vegas
and I rented a room at the Rio
for 30 nights to span most of the time
that the World Series of Poker
events would be going on.
I got a huge room with lots of extra beds
and we called it the Poker Palace
and set it up so that
women had a place to relax
and take a break from the
poker room downstairs.
A lotta people don't realize this,
but poker tournaments can
be extremely exhausting.
Not only do you have to sit
for maybe 12 or 14 hours per day;
but as the tournament goes on,
you return day after day
to do the same thing.
And while you're sitting there,
you have to focus so intently.
- The poker lifestyle can be
a bit harmful for your health
because we sit there hour
after hour without moving
and you know, eating
crap because it's easier
to get at the poker
table than a good meal.
- Sometimes I try to compare it to
for people that don't understand,
to what it's like to be on an airplane
going to New York City and back.
Anybody who's ever gone
long distance on an airplane
sitting in one seat in one
position for all those hours,
it is physically exhausting.
- You know, to like be
on the top of poker,
you have to be willing to
just like be so mono-focused.
- What are the other players doing?
How is their body language?
What kind of cards are they holding?
- Or maybe you think that I have this.
But I know that you think that,
so I think I'm going to do this
and you know, make you think this.
- And casinos are notoriously cold,
which is one of the reasons
I wear fingerless gloves
when I'm sitting at the table.
Having my hands up there
in temperatures that are below average
gets extremely uncomfortable
after a long period of time.
So it is a real endurance race
to get to the finish line
of a poker tournament.
And so I wanted the Poker
Palace to be a place
where women could rejuvenate.
Women could come up to
visit, have a cup of coffee,
grab a protein bar, get
free physical therapy,
discuss hands and even spend the night.
It was just gonna be a place
to support women in poker.
- Come with me now.
Two seats are empty on.
The World Series of Poker
was an exciting environment,
but I had no idea how
exciting it was about to get.
This is California,
it ain't over yet.
I didn't feel
it the last couple days.
It was a
magnitude 7.1 earthquake
felt as far away as Los Angeles.
- On the air, we're experiencing
very strong shaking.
- Wow.
- I think we need to get under the desk.
- All right, we're gonna go to break.
- We'll be right back.
- We'll be right back
after this.
- We'll be right back.
- Wow.
And then this happened.
I don't know what happened.
He shoves all in blind.
He turns around.
He's got a Pittsburgh Pirates shirt on.
Now he decides I'm gonna drop my pants.
He pulls his pants down.
That's right, his actual dick is out
in the middle of the Pavilion Room
at the World Series of Poker on day one.
- I always say a documentary will tell you
what the movie's about.
You do not tell the
documentary what it's about.
So it started out as a
movie about women in poker.
There's a lot more drama than I expected.
Okay, so you're saying that
you won't do the documentary
if is in it?
But she's a big part of poker.
I'm pretty sure she has to be in it.
- Whenever there's women involved,
there's drama, isn't there?
You know, first I have
who basically said yes
that she would do an interview with me.
Next thing you know, she's too busy.
She's too busy, she's too busy.
Then it was, "Well are you
offering compensation?"
I was like, "No."
'Cause we're supposed to be a documentary.
"You have 24 hours to take
her off your website."
Well done.
Was gonna do this really nice package
about and how
wonderful she is and now here.
Now here look where we are.
Good job.
She invited the whole cast to a party.
15 minutes before the
party calls me and says,
"They're disinvited."
That was like 15 minutes
before the party started.
So yeah, she said she
would do an interview,
so I was excited.
Yay, I wrote that too.
Didn't say she was producing
it, anything like that.
So she ends up backing out.
And believe me, that
wasn't an easy back out.
That was a no-lube,
I-have-the-longest-dick-in-the-world
back out.
And now here I am
shooting a video of myself
because I don't have a fucking movie.
I do not wanna tape this,
but what am I gonna do?
I don't have a story.
Hey, sweetheart.
And then I received a letter.
Come on, really?
Seriously?
I'm tryin' to make a movie
about women in poker.
I'm tryin' to help women.
"Don't use our logo and blah blah."
"We'll take your money away, blah blah."
I was so down and then
I remembered something
that Daniel Negreanu used
to say in his video vlogs.
Well actually Sylvester
Stallone originally said it
and then Daniel Negreanu said it.
I think I needed to channel
my inner Daniel Negreanu
channeling his inner Rocky.
- You just gotta take the
beat to keep on comin'.
It's not how hard you hit, it's how hard--
- You get hit and keep movin' forward,
how much you can take
and keep movin' forward.
That's how winnin' is done.
- In poker, you just gotta
roll with the punches.
You gotta be one of the guys
and especially if you're
playing in a home game.
If you're there and you're
like, "Oh, my delicate ears.
"Oh, don't talk about
you know, this or that,"
you're not gonna get invited back.
And I feel like I've
succeeded when I show up
and I'm one of the guys.
And you know, in the home game situation,
there's always like a lot of massage girls
and they're wearing like lucite high heels
and hot pants and you know?
You can't come and say,
"This is disgusting.
"Oh, how could they
have these kinda girls?"
You know, you just have to be like
this is the way that it is.
These are things that
make these guys happy
where they wanna come and
put $100,000 on the table.
There's another place
that women are always welcome
in poker: strip poker.
- Strip poker?
How do you play that?
- Just regular poker.
Only instead of the bets,
the loser has to take off some garment.
It's lots of fun.
And Hollywood
is more than happy
to capitalize on this.
- Well c'mon, let's go.
Strip poker is fair
game even for advertising.
- I got nothing.
- What's goin' on?
Get back to bed.
Feel young again.
Centrum Silver.
- Okay Loni, I'm curious.
What were you like as a kid?
- I was definitely a
troublemaker as a kid.
I stirred the pot quite a bit.
I definitely got myself in trouble.
I was the class clown always making jokes.
I had a great childhood.
Me and my brother, we
grew up as best friends
and I was definitely a tomboy.
I played so many different sports.
I just chased my brother around.
He was three years older than me
and I felt like I had to
do everything that he did.
We would play football outside.
We played basketball.
I played soccer, swimming.
I even did dance.
I mean, I really just
tried to do everything.
Me and my brother, we were in karate.
We did a lotta sports.
My mom made sure that I
had a great childhood.
Loni Harwood is definitely
one of my favorite poker players.
She's amazingly skilled
and has countless awards
and one of the best poker
faces I have ever seen.
That is not a photograph.
That is a real-time video of Loni Harwood
staring down the competition.
She was also one of the
most gentle, generous
and fun-loving women I had
the opportunity to meet
while making this movie.
Do you have a boyfriend?
Yeah.
I do have a boyfriend.
Oh really?
Tell me about him.
What's his name?
You gotta
since you told me you did.
- All right, his name is Phillip Hui.
And is he inspiring to you?
- He is inspiring to me.
He's on day three of the 50k right now,
so hopefully he wins that one.
Loni Harwood lives,
breathes and loves poker.
- My dad was actually
a poker player himself.
He played online before Black Friday.
Black Friday was obviously
when the government
shut down poker.
My dad was pretty
successful on Poker Stars.
I would just watch him
play online all the time
and you know, I would see
him win with a horrible hand.
And I'm like, "Wow, you
could win with nothing,"
like people just fold.
- Whoever comes up to me and says
that you know poker is gambling,
I tell them, "Have you ever
played poker yourself?"
So they always say no, they
never tried it themselves.
They've never ever competed
in a competition before.
This is a mind sport
and not just gambling.
That's the
great thing about poker:
Unlike slot machines or roulette,
you can actually win
a huge amount of money
without holding the winning hand at all.
But it takes time to learn
how to do it just right
and it takes a lot of courage.
- I sometimes think poker is
like a big game of Chicken
and it's sort of like it's
a dick measuring contest.
And whoever has the big dick wins
because you know as well as I do
a lotta times nobody
has anything in poker.
- So I just put all of my
energy and focus studying.
You know, doing everything I can
to learn in talking with people.
Getting on shows like "Live at the Bike!"
for you know, exposure and
being able to watch how I play.
A poker player can
win all the money in the pot
by simply convincing others at the table
that she's holding the winning cards.
That's famously called a bluff.
Bluffing is a huge part of poker.
Here's a classic example
of a successful bluff.
At all times in this hand,
Jean in the red dress with pocket nines
is holding the winning cards.
But watch what Wino does
in order to win the pot.
All the cards that come out
so far are pretty small,
so Jean's probably pretty
sure she has top pair.
Of course Wino has two over cards.
So if she hits a queen or a jack,
she's gonna be doing better than Jean.
She also has a flush draw with her spades.
Jean bets again with top pair,
hoping that Wino gets off
of whatever she's chasing.
Wino thinks carefully
and then continues to call.
At this point, Jean has gotta be thinking
why are you still calling my bets?
Do you have sixes?
Do you have an ace?
She checks.
Sort of a sign of surrender.
Her hand's not that great
and at this point, Wino has a choice.
She can turn her cards over and lose
or make a big bet pretending
she has something amazing.
Very large bet.
Jean in the tank.
That means she's thinking
really hard about this hand.
450 and about 700.
And she's gotta be wondering
why would Wino stick around?
She has got to have something good.
Maybe a straight, maybe an ace.
Wino's pretty much
only repping an ace here.
Wow, Jean is gonna lay it down I think.
But the truth
is Wino has nothing.
Nope, not yet.
Wino could have like the
ace high spade draw too
and just hit an ace.
She missed
hitting any of her high cards
and she missed her flush draw.
And Jean, is left to her
own imagination wondering.
Jean's, I think she hears
that eight seven got counterfeit.
How much is she about to lose?
Don't
know if she follows Wino--
Oh my god,
Wino gets the bluff through.
Look at that little smile.
Oh Jean's like oh my god, but is friendly.
- I'm a self-proclaimed wino.
I live in Temecula and there's
a ton of wineries there,
so I really like wine.
I never proclaimed to be
like the best poker player.
I just wanna have a good
time and make people laugh.
And I really do enjoy the game.
I don't know why but guys
happen to like to bluff girls.
They think they can get away with it.
I learned that really quickly
and that's honestly why I do pretty well.
- I think men makes this
assumption about women.
They feel like they, number one,
they don't have the balls
or they're not capable
of constructing very complicated bluffs
like, you know, doing the float,
the check raise, the three barrel all in,
that sort of thing.
They feel like, you
know, oh women really are
the gentler sex and if they're
doing that sort of thing,
they probably have it.
- So I've taken on this like kind of like
trappy style of play only
because if I show weakness,
I feel like I don't even wanna
give this information away
because I don't them to
get smarter.
It's like they're a different species.
They're gonna get smarter,
they're gonna outgrow me.
- When I graduated high
school, I told my parents like,
"I don't wanna go to college.
"I just wanna do poker."
And they were like, "No, you're crazy.
"Like, you have to go to college."
I went to college to graduate
so that my dad would
start me off in poker.
He says if I graduate,
he'll start off my bankroll;
so that was what I did.
I went to college and
then once I graduated,
two weeks later, I packed up my car
and drove out to Florida
to live with my dad and pursue my dream.
- I thought my sweatshirt came,
but I guess maybe it didn't.
Cool.
- It's cute.
- What I love most about
what poker's taught me
over the years is how to
take risks in life and love.
So it's taught me a lot over the years.
- My dad builds race cars
and he's a race car driver,
so I grew up with kind of a weird life
in the sense that my parents
were working 'til midnight.
Every weekend was spent at the race track
which you know, I sometimes
wonder if being in poker,
which is such a male-dominated
industry, is similar to me
the fact that I grew up
around the race track,
which is very male-dominated,
and I used to race go-karts myself.
- One thing I noticed about these women
is that as kids, they operated
outside of gender boundaries.
I believe that that's
because so many of them
had parents that encouraged
them to follow their passions
regardless of their gender.
- I was always outside.
I was always dirty, climbing trees,
that kind of thing.
And so yeah, I definitely grew up
with a big love for nature and animals.
And then as I got a bit older,
my competitive streak started to emerge
and I was just insanely competitive.
Whenever there was like, awful,
like exams, sports, running, you name it,
I always wanted to be the best.
Even if I wasn't, I
still wanted to be that
and I would like, strive my
hardest to come out on top.
- My dad had always been a minister
and when I became a
poker player in my 20s,
it was a lot of explaining
to do.
- I was kind of a tomboy.
I was into sports and very
competitive from a young age.
- When I was a kid, I was
teacher's pet.
You know, I excelled at school.
If I got a B, I was absolutely devastated.
- As I kid, I was
actually always interested
in playing cards.
I was never interested
in playing or doing like,
what the usual kids do.
- I mean I remember like they were like,
"Don't you like the doll?"
And I'd rip that doll's head off
and run over it with my car
and they were like, "Okay,
she's into cars; that's fine."
- I did the ballet and
I did the horse riding
and you know, I was the
school monitor on the bus.
- I was very competitive as a kid.
I was always involved in sports
and you know, whatever we did, it was
who gets to the elevator
first to push the button.
It was all a competition.
- I remember I used to be very competitive
and I used to be the
best in my neighborhood.
The fastest runner and hit
the home runs and everything.
And then puberty happened
and all of a sudden my home run
would barely get me to second base.
- Soccer I actually
played on an all-boys team
because they felt like I
wasn't getting challenged
on the women's team, so they
put me on all-boys team.
The parents of the boys
weren't happy that a woman
or a girl at the time was
coming on to their team
and taking spots away from their kids.
And I remember the first
time I played, they booed me.
Like I personally, as a kid,
I didn't really think anything of it.
But my parents were so hurt by it.
But then right away, I
think I scored a goal
'cause I played center man
and right away I scored a goal
and apparently they all shut up.
And then they're okay.
Like winning was all
that mattered in the end.
- I was adopted when I was two,
so I came over from Korea.
The first two years of my life
are a little bit of a mystery
because my story was
that I was actually like,
abandoned at a train station.
And then I was found
and then I was you know,
sent to an orphanage and then adopted;
so those first two years
are kind of like a mystery.
I think that played a
huge part on why I was so
just I guess introverted
and shy and a little bit
intimidated by my surroundings.
My dad used to always say
I didn't even like really
come out of my shell
until like sixth grade.
But then once I finally
did in sixth grade,
I guess I couldn't shut up.
- My mom's name was Alisa.
She was the greatest woman ever
and she always told me to
pursue my dreams in poker.
She was there for me when
I won my first bracelet.
I always think about her
because she would always
tell me to fold jacks.
So I laugh all the time when I see 'em
and I lose with 'em
'cause I'm like she would
have told me to fold them.
But yeah, she was so proud of me
and she was really an amazing woman.
She did everything for us.
She worked you know two, three jobs.
She cooked dinner for us every night.
She drove us everywhere.
She made sure that me and my
brother were her whole life.
- There's no time in the world for poker
better than the World Series.
Like the World Series is
when you make all your money.
- It's a lot of stress.
It's a lot of competition.
It's a lot of testosterone.
- I think everybody has a dream
of like coming to Las Vegas,
to the World Series of
poker and having success.
Welcome back to Las Vegas
for continuing coverage of
the World Series of Poker.
Right now everyone chasing Gaelle Baumann,
a woman on top of the Main Event.
What is this, the 21st century?
- The highs are super high.
So if you do get to have that success,
if you do get to be in that 10%
that gets success this summer,
you're just like, I mean,
you're just walkin' like,
you know, like untouchable.
- We are outnumbered in
the Main Event for sure,
but there are incredibly good
female poker players out there
and even up-and-coming.
Incredible players.
And I feel that they
have a really good shot
of getting there too.
- It requires being in
people's face, being aggressive
and not shying away from confrontation.
And I know at least for me,
I grew up thinking
women are supposed to be
demure,
maybe a little bit shy,
at least in relationships and in person.
But luckily for me, competition,
I always knew that you're
supposed to crush the competition.
Vanessa
Selbst always finds ways
to accumulate chips.
Another woman?
What is the world coming to?
- See how fierce she
is on the table, right?
How awesome she is like
looking into your soul
and three bet and you called
while she rakes those chips.
- Vanessa's very successful
because she's got a lot of testosterone.
She amps up the aggressiveness.
So obviously doing something right.
I think it's best to err on
the side of aggressiveness
as opposed to erring
on the side of caution.
- All in.
- Massive bet.
- I call.
Oh my god.
- This is a very volatile game.
It is.
- All in, baby.
We're all in again.
Look how big this pot is.
Whoa!
He needs runner runner clubs.
It's not comin'.
- I think that women are a
little bit more plugged into
sort of this psychic energy at the table.
Whereas men, I think if I'm
gonna make a generalization
about the difference between men.
What men have is a lotta testosterone.
So men love to go into battle.
Like obviously poker
is kind of like a war.
- Guys just like to I don't know,
it's something genetic.
Because we're not allowed
to get into fist fights
with the people on the streets,
so we have to you know,
resort to chess and poker.
- So the ideal mixture
of a man and a woman
is to have a lot of testosterone,
but also be able to do
that sort of delicate
knowing what the other person has
or knowing what's gonna
tip 'em over the edge.
- Oh my god.
- She turns quads!
Four aces for Kristen Bicknell.
- There's just this feeling
that you know that's something's shifting.
That you know, women
are having this success
and it's not just some fluke.
- As far as what it takes
to be a great poker player,
women absolutely have it.
Loni Harwood with the call
and he is beat and just mucks his cards.
Loni Harwood is the
2015 national champion.
Well
Loni can go celebrate.
- If you can play your best game
and not have too much bad
luck, you have a chance.
- It's one of those viewer
discretion is advised
as a profession.
It's something that's great as a hobby,
great to even play with your kids
and teach them math skills.
But in terms of making a living out of it,
you better be ready to devote your life
and realize that even if you do,
you still might not make it.
This project
has been an adventure.
And like poker, it has been
filled with unexpected turns,
tricky situations
and occasional good luck.
I went into it following the
most well-known, talented women
I felt had the best chance for
winning the WSOP Main Event.
But as we've all learned
poker is unpredictable.
In the year that I was there,
the only woman to win a bracelet
in a co-ed World Series
tournament turned out to be
an accountant from Mint Hill,
North Carolina: Susan Faber.
- I'm here with the latest
World Series of Poker
bracelet winner Susan Faber
who just took down the Salute
to Warriors for over $100,000.
Susan, congratulation.
How do you feel?
- I feel really excited and really happy
that I was able to win a bracelet
and happy that I'm a woman.
Never won the bracelet.
I would encourage any
woman regardless of age
to give it a try, see if
they're any good at it.
- I definitely encourage women
to play poker these days.
I think it can be a good living for them.
I think the conditions are very favorable
to women these days.
- There's quite a few of us
who are being consistent with our results.
We're showing up, we're
confident, we're ready to win.
I tried
playing poker as myself.
I tried playing poker as a girly-girl.
I even tried playing poker as a man.
But one thing I found out
having talked to all these
professional poker players,
the best women in the world,
is that you really have to study.
You have to dedicate yourself to the game
and there's no shortcut.
Women are strong.
Women are rising to the
top in so many ways today.
We've seen more women
than ever in Congress
and leading in politics than ever before.
Women are winning awards
for the first time
that typically go to men.
They're uniting for change
and speaking truth to power.
Women are entering
male-dominated competitions
and they're excelling.
Six left
for Fallon Sherrock.
Game, set!
And Fallon Sherrock
smashes the glass ceiling
and wins at the World Darts Championship.
Even the girls
are doing their part.
- If you agree, register to vote.
Contact your local Congress people
and give them a piece of your mind.
They are superheroes.
It
should be two-nil and is.
What a World Cup for Megan Rapinoe.
While in the process
of finishing this movie,
I took a break to play poker
with a few of my neighbors.
I looked up at the TV
and there was Kristen
Bicknell at the final table
of the $25,000 Poker Masters event.
No woman had ever won this
prestigious tournament until now.
Kristen Bicknell is the
first female player ever
to win a Poker Masters title.
With so many amazing
poker tournaments ahead,
the only question left is:
who's next?
One of the things that
impressed me the most
about the women I interviewed
is that they were so much more
than amazing poker players.
They were also extraordinary women.
Jennifer Harman, she's survived
two kidney transplants.
Her sister and her mother
died of the same illness
when she was young.
She's a single mom of
two very talented boys
and has worked to raise awareness
about the importance of organ donation.
Kelly Minkin earned her
bachelor of science degree
in molecular and cellular biology
and she's also a medical-malpractice
defense attorney.
She is currently part of a legal team
that is working to bring justice
to players who were
cheated in the poker room.
Loni Harwood has a finance degree.
Her boyfriend and world-renowned
poker player, Phillip Hui,
did in fact win the
$50,000 WSOP tournament
for a prize of more than
one million dollars.
After celebrating, they
got engaged to be married.
Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher
helped to create the original
Tournament Directors Association, the TDA,
which sets common rules for tournaments.
They've been partners
at card player cruises
for more than 25 years
and travel the world
with poker players who
wanna combine a vacation
with their love of the game.
Liv Boeree earned her
first-class honors degree
in physics and astrophysics at
the University of Manchester.
Her YouTube channel and Ted Talk videos
explore the applications
of scientific thinking
to everyday life.
She co-founded the charity,
Raising for Effective Giving,
that helps poker players find
the right place to give back.
Let's just take a soundcheck
on spelling your name
first and last.
- Check one two, check one two.
KMCD bringin' it to you live
with a D-A-N-I-E-L N-E-G-R-E-A-N yo.
Yeah, that's what's up.