Annie Duke recently spoke to the Ottawa Citizen about her love for professional poker.

She aslo talks about her decisions in life which lead to her taking up professional poker and how she sees the next stage of her poker career developing.

Annie Duke is one of the leading women professional poker players on the circuit and has admitted that she does not regret for one moment her decision to leave college and to take on a career in professional poker.

However, it was not like Annie had left the academic world with no achievements – she is a graduate of Columbia University with a major in English and Psychology, and has further studied psycholinguistics and the University of Pennsylvania. After five years of studying toward her PHD, Annie ended her academic route and began playing professional poker.

Annie admits that it was probably the most lucrative business decision she has made – she has since won millions of dollars playing at professional tournaments, with her biggest win being the $2 million in the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. Being a professional player, and a woman, has its challenges, Annie said, and she splits her time between raising her four children in Los Angeles, writing books about poker, talking about poker and undoubtedly, playing poker.

 Annie also travels around the country leading poker seminars and workshops and is currently in Ottawa where she will lead a poker seminar at the Marriot Hotel on Kent Street. The event, which is being sponsored by Ultimate Bet, is expected to attract the poker-loving masses. Annie has been playing less and talking more, in the past months, while also spending much more time with her family.

Annie is still as excited about the game as she was when she first began playing. Quoted as saying the “poker is the best game out there”, Annie began being interested in board games and card games from a very young age. She used to play the odd game of poker with her brother Howard Lederer, and now, he too, is a professional poker player.

Annie has a personal opinion on the luck aspect of poker. She outright rejects the idea that there is a luck element in the game. She says that there is no luck in winning poker, not in any hand combination.  As many of you have probably seen, she was a spokesperson in a Congressional hearing about the UIGEA where she held her own against the government officials

She claims that poker is much more of a strategically decision making exercise than any notion of luck. She continues that if a player is better at making decisions about whether to raise, bet, fold or call than their opponent, they will simply win the game, no doubt about it.