Sunday, March 9, 2014

Girls Rule!

After 4 events in the CMPPA season,  each event has been won by an Amanda. Yesterday was the 5th Annual CMPPA Charity event. We had a great turn out of almost 60 players. $1300 was raised for the Coborn's Cancer Center at the St Cloud Hospital. It was a lot of fun seeing some old faces and reminiscing about 10 years of Bar Poker in Minnesota.. Congratulation to Amanda Mock, who took down her third event of the young CMPPA season and has a big lead on the player of the year race. It's hard to believe that it has been 10 years since I started running bar poker at the Granite Bowl and even harder that later this spring the Granite Bowl will be gone forever. Even though we were not able to play at the Granite Bowl yesterday, I think the tournament was a great tribute to all that had played their over the years. Once again it proves that bar poker can unit a group of very diverse people for a great cause.


Why are the ladies dominating the CMPPA this season? I think it is easy to explain. Amanda is a very good poker player that has an advantage that I can never have. She plays a game that is mostly a male dominated game. I don't mean that in the sense that males are better, I mean that males out number the females. Looking at the CMPPA so far this season we have 30 members of which 5 are female. That is 16% of the field. We actually have a larger percent of women then what you would find in most tournament fields. I would think the average would be around 8 to 10 %. Her advantage lies in the male physique. Most males think they are better poker player then females. They also believe that a women is incapable of bluffing. This gives a good female player an advantage over a table of men, especially ones that she doesn't play with regularly. When a female bets or calls at a poker table most men will think that they have a good hand and thus fold to her bluffs. I believe a female that bluffs at pots will win a bigger percentage of those bluffed hands then the same skill level male will win. Of course, this will only work if the female player knows this and can use it to her advantage against a table of guys. I believe that Amanda knows this well and uses it to her advantage. I am guilty of this stereotype all the time. I have played with Amanda enough to know she is a good player, but if I am on a table with a female that I don't know, I will play her thinking she is a tight player and will only play if she has a good hand. Right or wrong this is how most men think. I try not thinking this way when at a poker table, but it is hard because so many women especially new players have the same style and are easy to read. So to those of you that aren't, I say take advantage of any thing you've got because most males will let you. To Amanda, I say good luck and keep it going your having a hell of a season so far!