Annie Duke: The Duchess of Poker
Duke was born and grew up in Concord, New Hampshire. She is a professional poker player and is considered one of the best female poker players in the world. Annie has four children: Maud, Leo, Lucy and Nell.
Annie attended college at Columbia University. She finished two degrees; Major in English and Major in Psychology and was given a NSF Fellowship to pursue further studies in the field of psycholinguistics.
Annie married Ben Duke, her close friend at Columbia University. The couple moved to Ben's place in Columbus, Montana. In 1992, Annie decided to quit her studies. It was during this year that Annie took up her poker career.
In 2002, Annie traveled to Portland and landed a job at ieLogic, a fast-growing company that specializes in computer software for online casino gaming. Ben and Annie were divorced in early 2004. The following year, Annie and her children traveled and settled in Los Angeles, California.
Annie began playing real poker games in the card rooms in Montana. Her brother Howard coached and funded Annie during her early poker career. In 1994, they moved to Vegas to start a full time poker career.
In early 2004, she received some sort of publicity for training Ben Affleck, who eventually won the California State Championship. Prior to this, Annie's tool to poker recognition was her respectable showing in the World Series of Poker 2000 edition. She finished at 10th place in the main event. In the 2004 WSOP, Annie eliminated Howard Lederer, her brother from four different events, among others the Tournament of Champions. Annie also won a gold bracelet during this annual poker tournament. She got it by winning the Omaha high-low tournament. Annie together with Cyndy Violette and Kathy Liebert are the three women players to register a win in an open event.
Currently, she holds the ladies record at the World Series of Poker for most money finishes. In the inaugural staging of the Tournament of Champions held in September 2004, Annie won the first prize worth $2,000,000. It is an invitational event participated in by 10 players that uses a winner take all format of play.
Annie has won a single gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker. She also accumulated more than $3,000,000 in tournament play. These days Duke refuses to participate in exclusively for women poker tournaments.
In the 2006 WSOP Main Event, she ended up in 88th place and took home $51,129 in prize money. Currently, Annie Duke's entire live tournament prize money exceeds $3,500,000.
Aside from participating in poker tournaments, Annie speaks and writes on poker-associated subjects, as well as promoting poker-associated organizations. Since 2000, she has been the representative for UltimateBet. Annie has also written several articles for the internet poker website, mostly on Omaha high low.