Pokerstars Women's League

Well as some of you know Pokerstars has started a new Women's League and I've been playing in the nightly games for a few weeks now. My results have been pretty decent and I have actually been enjoying playing in these games. As many of you (the 2 or 3 people who might actually read this blog) know I'm not generally a big fan of ladies poker games but decided to give this league a shot anyway. This journey through ladies poker has been interesting.

Currently I am number eight on the Women's League tournament leaderboard but I should move back into the top five after my 5th place finish last night. The play in these is very mixed. There are some women who are really pretty decent and few who are actually good and a whole bunch who are really horrible.

Women have a reputation in the poker world for being calling stations and after playing these games for awhile I've realized this is a reputation well deserved. I've never seen the like of horrible calls and I play low stakes sit-n-goes and see some pretty awful play there but these ladies have even the mirco stakes players beat at making really bad calls. My very favorite was in one of the earlier games before the field got so big and went like as follows:

I have AA on the big blind, one person in middle position raises about 4X and the button flat calls, the small blind folds and I 3 bet to 12 or 13X and the original raiser shoves over, the button calls and of course I call. The original raiser turns over AKs and the button turns over A3 off. What in the world are you beating with a raise, a 3 bet and a 4 bet shove with A3 off, nothing that's what! Anyway beat us she did. The board played out with a 2, 4 and 5 giving Miss Super Dumbass a straight. Luckily I had her well covered and was able to hang on for a little while longer.

I have to say the best thing about playing these games is learning how to best play against really bad players and learning the proper adjustments. One example was last night. The woman who was the big blind to my button was a total calling station and every single time I raised she called. At first I would make a typical c-bet whether I hit the flop or not, unless the flop was super wet or something, but she would call every time. So finally I just stopped c-betting when I missed the flop and even when I hit because I knew she would bet out even if she missed and then I could check raise her. And that brings me to another thing these women do that makes me insane...

Donk betting, not just normal donk betting but min donk betting, some of them will donk bet you every time and half of more of the time they didn't even hit the flop. They min donk bet with complete air. Sometimes I string them along sometimes I raise. Sometimes they fold to a raise and sometimes they call to the river with complete air or my favorite, bottom pair. I mean seriously how bad can you be? Anyway ladies keep playing badly my bankroll and I are totally enjoying your bad play!

One night in an early game I was playing really aggressive, as usual, and one women accused me of being a man. I'll take that as a complement!

On a positive side these games are very friendly and it's rare to see someone go off on someone else in chat. Women tend to be very supportive of each other and this really shows in these games. In other games I play I don't even keep the chat window open but in these games I do and I'll actually chat a small amount with the other players if I don't have a bunch of games running. Surprisingly this is one thing I am enjoying about these games. Also anything that increases the number of women in the game of poker is good. I'm pretty sure many of these ladies don't play in many other games but through these games maybe they'll start venturing out and discover how fun poker can be.

In closing kudos to Pokerstars for supporting women players the way they do!

Wish me luck with leaderboard! First place at the end of the month pays a $300 bonus and the other top five spots bonuses aren't too shabby either.