Poker Stats and women

I urge you to read the entire article, great poker stories and the sisters are doing it for themselves.....Gambling News: "Poker is on a roll. Cheap $1 tournaments with million-dollar cash prizes are proving so tempting that poker has become our fastest-growing hobby, while online-to-live success stories are doing their bit to sell the rags-to-riches dream. Surprisingly the UK provides 80% of Europe's poker, while Ladbrokes.com, which draws in around 350,000 players per hour, estimates that women accounted for 20% of its players last year....

with nearly 300 poker websites to choose from, more than 1.5 million regular players, and nearly £100,000m being wagered every day, there's always a game to be had...

Mercier, 29, has put time and effort into becoming more aggressive at the table over the years: eyeballing opponents, staring them down and generally unnerving them so much that they throw in their hand.

This petite, 5ft-2in French Canadian says her appearance also works in her favour as some male players underestimate her bite. And so ruffled are they at the thought of being beaten by her, they make rash moves that leave her raking in all their chips.

Gary Jones, poker pro and commentator at the British Poker Open, says that anyone who underestimates a woman's ability to be aggressive does so at their peril..

The one thing women don't tend to bring to the table, says Jones, is their ego. "So many poker players play off the back that it's almost a personal affront to their manhood if you bluff them out of a pot. I don't think a woman's like that. When she comes to the table she's there to play and she's there to win. She doesn't care if you bluff her out as long as she plays a good game. A bloke on the other hand can take it very personally. It's a bit like driving or having sex, it's one of those things that men aren't prepared to admit they're bad at...

Xuyen "Bad Girl" Pham is another formidable player, whose game has earned her both a nickname and a much sought-after sponsorship deal. As one of Xuyen's opponents wrote: "Across the table from me is a woman wearing a T-shirt that reads: 'Pham "Badgirl" Xuyen [sic], Pot Limit Hold 'Em World Champion, Is Proudly Sponsored By William Hill Bookmakers.' This is not a T-shirt one ideally wants to see across the poker table."

"I am a housewife. I have three kids I have to look after," says Pham. Yet with just two years of professional poker-playing under her belt, she scooped the World Poker Championship last year, pocketing €250,000. When not playing live, Pham, 36, from Hemel Hempstead, plays online from 8pm to 5 or 6am, then gets up to do the school run before heading off to bed..

Pham's chief ambition now is to win the prestigious World Series diamond bracelet - poker's equivalent to the World Cup - hideously ugly to look at but effective at putting the fear of God into other players. And as for treating herself when her winnings roll in, she says: "I can't drive, so I can't buy cars. I don't have holidays as I travel so much with poker and go back to Vietnam every two years to see my parents, so I buy diamonds set in white gold. They call me the diamond collector."