The Story Behind BLACK WIDOW Poker, One Woman's Poker Journey as a Man
Men will often say that women have great advantages at the tables. After all, they can flirt with men, thereby distracting them. They can bait a man into betting, calling, folding, and shoving all in at will…
Okay, if you think that is how it works — spoiler alert — it’s not.
But such beliefs — and any corresponding differentiations in play — suggest that there just may be some gender-specific tactics that women can employ – tactics that exploit the gender stereotypes that some men hold of their female counterparts. This topic is central in a new book titled, BLACK WIDOW Poker: A Woman’s Guide to Winning a Man’s Game.
The author of BLACK WIDOW Poker, writing under the pen name “Sia Layta,” goes to the extreme to study these dynamics by actually playing as a man.
Sia, an LA-based tournament poker pro, felt she wasn't able to execute certain strategies at the table because men played differently against her. They were calling with a wide range and trying to outplay her post-flop, possibly with some subconscious (or not) hopes of taking her chips or stacking her.
"I needed to use ego, social norms and assumptions about women to my advantage."
“When a woman raises to protect pocket aces, for example, it doesn't seem that men respect we might actually have a good hand. Instead, the reaction seems to be one of conflict. It's as if the men believe that our raise is somehow exerting control over them as a man. Anytime I raise with big cards, I will get multiple male callers even if they are holding very poor hands.”
Women are often intuitive and know which opponents are uncomfortable sharing the table with them, who wants to exert some masculine dominance over a woman in “their” game, and who is genuinely glad to see ladies at the table — especially ladies playing some good, aggressive poker.
These experiences and observations led to some questions: What if she played this game as a man? Would they still call big raises with junk, just to try to bust her?
Sia’s hypothesis was that men get more credit at the table, simply because of their outward gender expression. Having more credit means more ability to play “classic poker” in the sense of playing pot control, getting some respect – and folds – when betting with a strong hand and possibly getting more bluffs through because of some level of automatic mutual respect amongst the men at the table.
“I just don’t want to fight, I just want to play.”
So, what if her outward gender expression changed… let’s say, drastically? Sia didn’t stop with conjecturing. She decided to go for it — to test her hypothesis.
“I had to come up with a way of playing that exploited this gender inequality at the table. I needed to use ego, social norms, and assumptions about women to my advantage. That is what ‘Black Widow Poker’ is about.”
While many female poker players pick up on the gender-specific perceptions at the table and find their own ways to exploit it, this woman took a quite different approach. She decided to take the old saying, “Play like a man,” to an all-new level.
Sia found a makeup artist and studio and went full-bearded potbellied dude — a particularly ambitious feat considering she describes herself as naturally very feminine.
So began Sia’s social poker experiment.
Manifestation of Gender at the Table
It’s natural to carry our gender identities on our bodies. It’s who we are, how we experience the world, and part of that experience includes the way others react and respond to our presence.
It’s not news that women are treated a bit differently than men at the poker table. Men experience this from a different perspective – their visceral reactions to playing hands against a woman, and some men even experience extreme discomfort bordering on anger when facing aggression from a female at the table.
From the female perspective, this translates to unique experiences, depending on the fellow competitors at the table.
For Sia, who borrowed her pen name from the Australian singer-songwriter who wore masks and elaborate disguises when she became uncomfortable with her mainstream recognition, the transformation to passing as a man in poker was jarring.
She had to relearn how to be: how to talk, carry herself, sit, utilize space, put chips in the pot. She also had to relearn how to walk. That was a tough one, being the effeminate lady she is. Ultimately she had to practice what she described as walking like a duck, feet pointed outward - an awkward, confident sway in her step. Oh, and she also had to drop the heels.
She describes the experience in detail in BLACK WIDOW Poker:
I walked into the Bicycle Casino looking like a Poker Villain. Big beard, big sunglasses, bandana and a hoodie covered most of my very feminine features. The tournament cashier, who had registered me 100 times before, did not recognize me. So far, so good.
I focused on walking like a duck to my table (quack, quack, quack) and tossed my ticket on the felt. As a woman, I would have slid it over gently, with the text in the correct direction, so that the dealer could easily read it. As a man, I did not give a f--k. I was here to be served.
At the table, she felt almost as if she was in someone else’s body, experiencing life from a whole different perspective than had ever been possible before. No immediate attention upon entering the room, no more subtle and not-so-subtle looks, no glances or stares after taking her seat, no chatty small talk coming her way as per usual — like putting on a sudden invisibility cloak, but in real life.
Some of these guys she had been playing tournaments with for years in her home area of Los Angeles. There were times Sia had to go to extreme measures to deflect looks of suspicion – you can read about these in her book, but let’s just say, women don’t generally slouch back in their chairs and grab their crotches in public. She was dedicated to the ruse though, and even wore cologne to mask her pheromones, those subconscious natural chemical substances we emit and respond to without a single conscious thought.
For Sia, Los Angeles was the perfect testing waters for her experiment – tough players, many regulars, and a strong “boys’ club” culture that permeates the poker scene.
Dramatic Results
Since making the transition to playing as a man several months ago, Sia Layta says her win rate has multiplied by around 500%. What that means in actual stats is cloudy, but the point is pretty clear – she does significantly better in poker tournaments when playing as a man than when playing as her normal feminine self.
What does this mean? Does she attempt different strategies when playing as a man, more +EV plays? Do others at the table give her more respect when seeing her as a man, and therefore fold more often? The list could go on. And we may just have to read her book to find out her explanations, but either way, it’s a stimulating idea.
“These are perspectives born out of the need for me, as a woman, to find a way to survive in a very challenging arena."
In her own words, while playing as a man, Sia was “treated as a regular poker player rather than some anomaly sitting at the table that everybody assumes will be knocked out sooner rather than later.”
This translated into immediate benefits and vastly higher successes at the tables while playing the no-limit Hold’em tournaments she so loves, she says. In addition to the rich and colorful experiences that Sia lived in her pursuit of playing - and winning - as a man, Sia also included in the book plenty of strategy components. These include various plays aimed at maximizing the advantage of gender biases at the table, such as tactics for inducing aggression and bluffs, and trapping using some unconventional bet sizing and moves.
“These are perspectives born out of the need for me, as a woman, to find a way to survive in a very challenging arena," she told PokerNews. "It also has something for the intermediate and beginning players who are trying to acquire a deeper understanding of Poker. It's the kind of book I would have liked to have in my first or second year of playing. But, I think because of some of the unusual techniques described in the book, as well as the narrative about my journey playing as a man woven throughout, it will be interesting to most poker players.”
A WSOP Dream
Sia's ultimate dream in this experiment is to go deep in the biggest poker tournament in the world – the WSOP Main Event – and do it as a man. Then, of course, to rip off the male disguises, chuck her beard into the crowd, and bear her feminine features and bustier.
She described this as her “Victor Victoria moment," referring to the 1982 film where Julie Andrews' character was a soprano who couldn't make it as a singer in 1930s Paris until she was marketed as a man impersonating a female (a pseudo drag queen, if you will). In this film, Andrews' character gains fame and notoriety as a drag queen and eventually reveals herself as a woman in front of an audience in a dramatic display.
But the problem with this dream, as innocent and idyllic as it may seem, is that her plan may be in opposition to the rules governing play at the WSOP. You see, in order to protect the integrity of the game (and keep their gaming license), Caesars instated a rule against concealing of one’s facial identity while playing in WSOP events.
The rule stemmed from Phil Laak’s famous stunt of getting in full “old man” makeup to mask his identity at the 2008 WSOP, and the 2017 version was worded as follows:
“Participants may not cover or conceal their facial identity. Tournament officials must be able to distinguish the identity of each participant at all times and may instruct participants to remove any material that inhibits their identification or is a distraction to other participants or Tournament officials.”
From meetings between Sia's team of lawyers and the WSOP, it has become apparent that her participation in the event disguised as a man is grounds for disqualification - and forfeiture of the buy-in. While the WSOP understandably must do their due diligence in upholding the integrity of the game in the most prestigious tournament series in the world, from this author’s perspective, she just wishes it were different.
“I just don’t want to fight, I just want to play.”
And play she will, one way or another, even if she has to abandon the dream of her dramatic Victor Victoria moment – at least for now.
Final Thoughts
Sia is keen to point out that neither this experience, nor the book itself, is meant to indicate that all men are bad. Sexism at the table, much like in other areas of life, can be hard to pinpoint, as so much of it is on a subconscious, experiential level. And when it comes down to it, though she has had higher cashing rates when playing as a man, the whole experience has also helped her appreciate the experience of being — and playing poker as — a woman.
“I didn’t realize how special it is to be a woman until I sat as a man; it’s extraordinary to be a woman: it’s special, we are special creatures, people do on some level honor us when we walk into a room. We have a princess thing going that's kind of fun.”
“I didn’t realize how special it is to be a woman until I sat as a man."
But ultimately, as great as it can be to stand out in a poker room and at a poker table, there are unfortunate aspects that women often have to deal with in this traditionally male-dominated game, and Sia hopes to address that very issue with her book — and her play.
“There is gender bias at the tables, and every woman I've ever spoken to for the book has agreed. There is bullying, and there is enormous male ego at play. I hope the book brings some of these issues into the light. When a woman has to dress up as a man with a full beard in order to get a fair shake at the poker table, that's just unacceptable. That's archaic. Time's up for that type of attitude.”
BLACK WIDOW Poker is now available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon, so you can check it out for yourself — if you're curious.
