Poker News Daily: How did you get started playing poker?
Duke: When I was 16 years-old, my brother went to New York in order to learn how to play chess. He read all of the books and even played on the tournament circuit. There was a Grand Master in New York that he was going to study with. In New York, the games are all connected, so he got involved with people who played backgammon and poker. When he was 18 years-old, he started playing poker. I had just gone to New York to do an independent study program and I used to go by the card room that he played in. That continued all throughout college; once in a while, I’d go watch him play. He started off really badly and then started getting really good. I watched his growth and transition to a poker player, but I never really played because I was too busy in college.
I went off to grad school and he went to the World Series of Poker. Every year, it was like a present for me: He would fly me out to Las Vegas for the WSOP so that I could hang out with him, he could have company for a month, and I could have a vacation that I could never afford. A friend of his taught me how to count cards in blackjack and so I started playing blackjack and I found that to be really boring.
At one point, he was done playing for the night, so we went down to the coffee shop in Binion’s and he said that I should try playing poker if I was bored. I said that I didn’t know anything about it except from watching him play. He wrote down a list of starting hands on a cocktail napkin that I could play, like A-J or better or a pair of sixes or better. He sent me down to the Fremont to play $1/$3 and that’s how I got started.
PND: At what point did you realize that poker could be more than just a hobby?
Duke: In 1992, I moved to Montana with my ex-husband. I had been getting a PhD in order to become a college professor. I was trying to figure out what to do for a living. I was intending to go back to academia, but wanted to take a break from it. My brother said that there were legal poker games in Montana, so I could make some money while I tried to figure out what to do. I started playing in the small card rooms in Billings that offered $10/$20 limit. In my first month, I made $2,800. Up to that point, I was living on $13,000 per year from a National Science Foundation fellowship, so $2,800 in one month seemed like an awful lot of money. I kept doing that for a while and every month I kept earning.
By the time 1984 rolled around, my brother said that I should play in the World Series. At that point, I didn’t think of poker as a profession even though I had supported myself by doing it. I really intended just to play in the first event. At the time, limit poker was much more popular than no limit, so the opening event was a $1,500 limit tournament. That event brought in more people than the Main Event did, a little over 600. I got to the final two tables and finished 14th. The next event was a $2,500 limit event. I came in fifth in that tournament and cashed for $26,500.
My brother then said I should play in the Main Event and I said that I hadn’t played no limit hold’em yet. He told me to go play satellites, which were no limit. I played in two super-satellites and won a seat in both of them. In the Main Event, I got down to the final three tables and took a really bad beat when we were at four tables. I was one of the chip leaders and had pocket kings against someone’s A-3 and an ace hit as the door card. I still remember that hand. I don’t remember beats very well, but I remember that one because it was new to me at the time. I came in 26th and cashed for $16,800. At that point, my brother said I should move to Las Vegas and consider myself to be a professional poker player.
PND: When it comes to basic strategy for high-low games, where do most beginners get off on the wrong foot?
Duke: The main place that beginners get off on the wrong foot in split pot games is that they treat it like they’re playing two different poker games at the same time. We all know that there are low games like Razz. There are games like Stud high. Those are two completely separate games.
What beginners do is pretend like they’re playing Razz and Stud High at the exact same time. That’s really bad because there are a lot of hands that are playable in Razz, for example, that wouldn’t be playable in Stud Eight or Better under certain conditions. There are definitely hands that are playable in Stud Eight or Better that are not playable in Razz. There are tons of hands that you play in Stud High that you do not play in Stud Eight or Better. Some prime examples of those would be that, in Stud Eight or Better, you generally aren’t going to be calling raises from low cards with hands like 8-6-2, where there’s not really any high hand possibilities and you aren’t drawing very well with the low. If a three raises and a five calls, you’re not going to call with 8-6-2 because you know that you are behind them, you have no highs going on, and the five and the four are dead. That’s a hand that people would play in Razz.
A hand that you wouldn’t play in Razz is 8-7-6 because you are drawing and you’re at a terrible low. In Stud Eight or Better, that’s a playable hand because of the straight possibility. Hands like 8-7-6 or 7-6-5 really go up in value, especially when the highest card in your hand is an eight, because you can get half of the pot or scoop the entire pot because of the straight possibility.
In Stud, you can play hands like two nines, two tens, or J-10-9 suited. Those hands have value in Stud High, but don’t have any value in Eight or Better. The problem with J-10-9 suited is that it’s a drawing hand, with puts you as an underdog because you’re not starting with the best hand. Most of the time, you are going to be drawing to get the half of the pot. With hands like tens and nines, you know you can’t make the low and you’re hoping that your tens are going to be the best high in the end, but somehow you’re going to have to save someone from hitting an ace. People have to realize that you aren’t playing Stud High and Razz at the same time. It’s not a mix-match of those two games. Each is a completely different game in itself.
PND: What was your most memorable career moment?
Duke: I don’t think that there’s any question that my most memorable career moment was winning my first World Series of Poker bracelet. I think that most people would think that it was when I won the Tournament of Champions because I won a lot more money.
My brother had this issue as well. He played in the WSOP for 13 years before he won a bracelet and, before that, kept getting second place and third place and second place and third place. I played for 10 years before I won a bracelet and I kept finishing second and third and second and third. Sometimes, the reason that I finished second was because the person I was playing against was better than I was. There were also a few times when I just took really brutal beats. There were times when I had a bracelet locked up and I was over a 5:1 favorite to win with one card to come and they took it away from me. I had a monkey on my back. I think that there are a lot of players who felt that same. Erick Lindgren had a monkey on his back. John Juanda, for a very long time, had a monkey on his back. People would say that you’re a really good player, but you can’t close the deal. My brother felt this for a long time, too. That was the big knock on me. Getting that World Series of Poker bracelet was just about showing that I could do it, too. The money meant nothing to me. I was really happy to have gotten that under my belt.
