Pretty and petite, Annie Duke, the real Queen of Poker-Casinos

13.10.2005, Lesen Sie hier den Bericht über «Pretty and petite, Annie Duke, the real Queen of Poker-Casinos».

Former emotional cripple raised herself to the top of poker world LA JOLLA – Pretty and petite, her jet-black hair contrasting smartly with an electric smile, Annie Duke took control of the room, wielding her star power and charisma like a wand.

She dispensed poker advice: "That pot is too small for a $5,000 bet; you will only be called by a hand that can beat you."

She revealed family secrets: "I grew up in an incredibly competitive household, and our father never let us win at any game. I decided at a very young age that winning was everything, and if I lost, I stormed out of the room crying. But I always came back for more."

She even tried her hand at self-deprecation: "Celebrity hasn't changed me, but people treat you differently. They seem to think your molecular structure is different or something because you're on TV."

More than 200 enthralled poker fans crammed into Warwick's on a recent weeknight to soak up a bit of felt-table wisdom from the "Duchess of Poker," as Duke's father, KPBS-radio word meister Richard Lederer, introduced her.

And they lined up for her to sign copies of her new memoir, "Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker" (Hudson Street Press; $24.95).

Many also stuck around for an hour of exhibition poker in which Duke squared off against a handful of local sharpies who'd won elimination games to earn the right to face her.



Guess who ended up with most of the chips? "Poker is like life: You have to make decisions based on incomplete information and your ability to read people," said Duke, who talks as she thinks – a thousand miles a minute.

"To be a good poker player and to live life well, you have to understand there are some things you have control over and some that you don't, and losing is part of it, at least in the short run."

Annie Duke still hates to lose. Already the top tournament money winner among the growing ranks of professional female poker players, the 40-year-old Duke last year solidified her status as one of the best of either gender.

She won $2 million against nine top male opponents – including her brother Howard Lederer – at the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions.

That followed her capture of a highly coveted World Series gold bracelet, her first, by winning an earlier WSOP event, defeating a field of 234 players.

Not bad for a woman who was so emotionally crippled by panic attacks in her early 20s that she fled her doctoral program (in linguistics) at Penn and checked herself into a mental ward.

It was a decision that changed her life. "I realized what was causing my fears and insecurities. I realized that life is what you make of it, you have the choices and control," Duke said.

After grappling with her demons in psychotherapy, she retreated to Montana and married Ben Duke, a college chum whom she'd never dated. The marriage, which lasted more than a decade, produced four children.

Strapped for rent money, Annie walked into the card room at the Crystal Lounge in downtown Billings and immediately started taking cash from cowboys, businessmen and roustabouts, most of whom were discomfitted by a woman in their midst.

Before long, she was headed to high-stakes games in Las Vegas, tutored and bankrolled by her brother and mentor. Over the next decade, she barely took time off from the poker table to birth babies.

"The best thing I ever did was walk into a poker room," Duke said. "For someone as competitive as me to be able to sit down and play this game of cold, ruthless calculation, it was: Whoopee! This is what I was meant to do."



TV stardom Poker in America has always been bathed in romantic light, a mysterious matching of wits and guile played by rogues and misfits, college kids, working stiffs and Uncle Charley and Aunt Maude alike.

That's the way Duke sees it, and it is why she believes the startling wave of poker popularity, fed by the success of games on TV, is not simply a craze destined to fold like a check-raised pair of 2s.

And she sees herself as a perfect fit, a relentless maverick with a sharp mind, deep well of stamina and obsessive competitive streak who likes nothing more than beating up on the boys.

Poker, she says, is the only sport where women are on equal footing with men. "Why," she asks, "are there ladies-only tournaments?"

In 11 years as a professional poker player, Duke said, she has never had a losing year. For pros like her, poker is not gambling, Duke asserts. "It's a game of skill. Over the long run, the best players prevail."

The game has provided a good living and plenty of time off to spend with her children. When she's playing poker, the kids are with her ex-husband, with whom she maintains a cordial relationship. "I'm no different than any other working mother," she said.

Her appearance here underscored the continued popularity of TV's ultimate reality show – high- stakes poker – at which Duke is giving her brother and other top pros a run for their money.

Duke is working feverishly to parlay that popularity and her recent success at the table. In addition to coaching such poker-playing celebrities as Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Duke was a producer and consultant for "All In," an NBC-TV pilot based on her life and starring Janeane Garofalo.

"I also created 'Annie Duke Takes on the World,' a poker show that's really fun," she said of the cable-TV project. "And I have something completely different, a horror film I wrote, in development, plus another movie in the works.

"Poker got me through doors and into rooms in Hollywood that I would have otherwise never gotten into," said Duke, who recently moved her brood from Portland to L.A.

"I'm a creative, educated woman with plenty of ideas, like a lot of others. But because of poker, I have the opportunity to pitch them. Why not take advantage of that?"

Revealing secrets Duke's book is part memoir, part poker.

She candidly explains her years in therapy dealing with her panic disorder, her mother's alcoholism, her brother's fierce competitive drive.

The book careens chapter to chapter, alternating tales from her personal life to the drama at the poker tables in her big 2004 tournaments.

She spent a cloistered childhood in a super-competitive family, the daughter of a linguistics teacher at St. Paul's in Concord, N.H., an exclusive prep school, and a mother who struggled with booze while pursuing acting and writing.

Duke describes her poker epiphany following her ill-advised marriage, her obsession to become a pro, and the rigors of childbirth and child-rearing while working the poker circuit.

As an indication of how popular Duke and Howard Lederer are thanks to televised poker, their younger sister, poet Katy Lederer, published a memoir of her own, "Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers" (Three Rivers Press) in which she chronicles the unusual family.

"I have not been pleased with how (my sister) has been presented in the press," Katy Lederer said recently. "When poker first became popular, she was the housewife with four kids." Now that Annie's lost the baby weight and gotten a divorce, her image in the press is changing in a way her sister finds suspicious.

"My sister is beautiful, brilliant and compellingly complex," Katy continued. "She is a powerful role model for both women and men, and I feel strongly that the press is, whether consciously or not, subverting that power."

For his part, Richard Lederer plays the proud father, whether discussing his daughters' not-always- flattering memoirs, or Annie and Howard's poker prowess. (Lederer has called San Diego home for the past decade.)

"My daughters write the truth, and I feel fine about their memoirs. I'm really very proud of all of our kids," said Lederer, who co-hosts (with Martha Barnette) "A Way With Words" each weekend on KPBS-radio and has authored more than 3,000 books and articles about language and humor.

"As for Annie and Howard, all their mother and I ever wanted for them was to do what they were put on this planet to do, and if that's playing poker professionally, great.

"I think they are both passionate and articulate ambassadors for the sport. What's wrong with that?"

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