Many in the poker media have dubbed 2010 as the “Year of the Woman.” Some big victories by women early in the year and the upcoming debut of Annette Obrestad at her first World Series of Poker has the poker industry abuzz with talk of women bucking the odds and winning more tournaments as the year goes on. And that adds up to a lot of pressure for a relatively small group of women who make up the fields in major live poker events.

Why the “Year of the Woman?” The percentage of any average live tournament poker field generally averages approximately 3 to 5 percent, but often the number is even lower; therefore the odds of a woman, no matter how talented, winning a major live event is slim. For example, most will agree that Doyle Brunson is one of the best poker players who ever lived, but when did he last win a tournament?

The “Year of the Woman” began with Annie Duke winning the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship in the first week of March 2010. It was an invitation-only tournament in Las Vegas but one of the more popular events in the annual poker lineup, and there were 7 women out of 64 players, a percentage which was much higher than an average tournament, but Duke’s victory over Erik Seidel to win the $500,000 first-place prize was a feat and one to be celebrated.

About one month later, the first PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour stop got underway at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, and out of 716 players, again with no specific count of women only, only two made it to the top ten, and when Vanessa Rousso was eliminated in tenth place, Vanessa Selbst was the only one at the final table. The 25-year old Yale law student quite handily won the NAPT event, adding that to a WSOP bracelet from 2008 and walking away with $428,000 in first place prize money.

And the winning continued. Less than two weeks later, Liv Boeree, a sponsored player of UltimateBet who has turned into a force on the live circuit, won the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour stop at San Remo, Italy. It was the largest field on European soil in EPT history with 1,240 players, and though there was no official count of women in the field, it was noted by many that there were very few. Boeree won the EPT San Remo, becoming only the third female EPT champion in its six-year history and taking home €1,250,000 for it.

All three winners are well-known and accomplished players in the poker industry, though Boeree was the one who had yet to grab an open major event before the EPT San Remo. If a person was to make a list of some of the best players in the game today, Duke and Selbst were likely to be on it, though Duke hadn’t won an event in years and Selbst admittedly only plays poker on a very part-time basis. Still, not many would argue the skills of any of the three women at the poker tables.

There are others who would surprise no one if they won a major tournament in 2010, those who have proven themselves through the years or even in a very small but impressive span of time. Players like Kathy Liebert, J.J. Liu, Jennifer Harman, Victoria Coren, Linda Johnson, and Cyndy Violette easily make it into the first category, while others like Vanessa Rousso, Katja Thater, Isabelle Mercier, Kristy Gazes, Clonie Gowen, Liz Lieu, and Erica Schoenberg are not far behind. And from the list of players who have recently graced the scene but have proven they are forces in the game come names like Annette Obrestad, Kara Scott, Thuy Doan, and Nichoel Peppe. (The list here is not all-inclusive by any means.)

That’s not to say that other women won’t be in the mix as well. There are almost always women in each major live tournament field that no one has seen before, and there are others who have had success in ladies-only tournaments who find their way to open events. But unless women step up in droves to make their presence known in live tournaments, the odds of them winning remain low.

The other caveat is that, sometimes, luck and skill come together for the best of the best to rise to the top multiple times. For example, Phil Ivey was so driven in 2009 that he won three WSOP bracelets and made the final table of the Main Event. It happens. And it could happen for any of a number of women who are motivated, run good, and play their A-games.

It becomes a bit intimidating, however, when the men of the industry label 2010 as the “Year of the Woman.” Should no woman stand out at the 2010 World Series of Poker by winning an open event or making numerous final tables, the likely response from the poker media is that the three wins from women earlier in the year were merely isolated incidences. Quite a lot of pressure is being put on the shoulders of women like Annette Obrestad, winner of the 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event, who will be playing her first WSOP in Las Vegas as a 21-year old woman, as everyone expects her to come charging into the Rio and win, win, win. While we would all like to see it happen, variance and odds must be considered, and should she fail to amaze and electrify in her first WSOP outing, let’s hope the young phenom is not dismissed as are so many other women in poker.

Hopefully, the “Year of the Woman” mantra will inspire women in 2010. It would be wonderful to see females sign up in droves for online poker accounts and win their way into the Main Event in high numbers. It would be refreshing to see more women play in open events than the ladies-only WSOP event at the Rio. More women can make their mark in this game if they make the effort.

I, for one, will be in your cheering section.

Read:  He Said