Poker Strategy: A New Way for Girls to Raise Their Hands
“I’ve, like, never played poker before. What if I don’t get any good cards?”
“My brother said he would teach me, but I definitely think I’d rather learn from women who play all the time. I can make all my mistakes here.”
Overheard last week as NYC girls in their teens and early twenties pulled up chairs to poker tables at Gotham Hall.
“I thought I wouldn’t win…but then I thought I would just try to raise [the bid] anyway…and I won! It was so surprising and I felt so powerful.”
“Downstairs I saw that a lot of the tables were filled with men, so having the opportunity to try playing with women first got me comfortable. I knew they wouldn’t try to overpower me, and they were all learning here right now too. It made me feel safe.”
Overheard as girls left the venue, making plans to bring more friends to the table soon.
This was the scene last Thursday as Être girls from The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria, Riverdale, Stuyvesant, and Newark Academy joined me at a table alongside recent graduates from Tulane and Cornell to play their first hands of poker with new mentors from Poker Power.
Inspired by her daughter and launched in 2020 by Jenny Just, one of the few self-made female billionaires in the U.S., Poker Power is an organization dedicated to teaching 1M women and girls to play poker. Citing the “strong connection between success, money ownership, and playing every hand,” leaders at Poker Power are encouraging girls to play today, “so they can compete and succeed in business, finance and life – all in a fun, supportive and safe-to-fail environment.”
As Jenny and I shared the stage at a Women & Worth panel a few months ago and Être girls had already shown interest in chess strategy and the link between gamesmanship and goal setting, an intro to poker seemed a natural and exciting next step. Announcing our partnership with Poker Power last week, we launched a brand-new page on Être’s website called Be Strategic and asked girls the following question:
We immediately had their attention.
Click to play.
What if, we continued, you could learn risk tolerance, how to read a room, bluff techniques and long-range strategy with no money or experience needed?
Hands started going up…and Poker Power spotted them.
“At Poker Power, we teach women how to play the game - the game of poker and the game of life - one hand at a time. Our partnership with Être enables more young women to take their seats and benefit from the game changing skills and strategies which come from thinking, negotiating and taking risks, like a winning poker player. As I always say: ‘If you don’t sit, you can’t play and if you don’t play, you can’t win.’ At Poker Power, we teach you how to win.”
Offering smart workshop lessons, an intuitive app and mentor moments with female poker champions, Poker Power invited us to bring our girls to the table and the evening did not disappoint.
What did the girls think?
“Tonight was really fun!! It was something I hadn’t done before…so it was intriguing. Plus, I really liked winning! It was inspiring to see that I can do more and I can push more and I’ll get what I want.” – Duaa (17)
“I liked how we were playing with women of different ages…so it wasn’t just high schoolers. That was really fun and it was challenging. I thought that was the best part.” – Alyssa (17)
“I found this event eye-opening…because as a woman I feel that especially at a table like that I would usually shy away from betting on my cards. But she [the instructor] was really adamant about not playing it safe and being the person who is going to shoot for those opportunities…to always go first and head on. I thought that was a powerful statement to take home.” – Angelina (17)
A powerful statement indeed – to take home, take into the classroom or locker room, and someday into the board room. Heading back to school with mentor words in their heads and a poker app in their pockets, today’s girls have everything they need to Be Strategic.
Here’s to empowering girls to raise their hands in every room and at every table.
Looking forward,
Illana
ÊXTRAS: Three more places to watch our BFFs at Poker Power as they bet on girls everywhere playing to win: Check out their Insta here, Tik Tok here and Être's new Poker Power Insta highlight here!
