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Annie Duke (born September 13, 1965) is a professional poker player and author.

Family

Duke was born in Concord, New Hampshire where her father, Richard Lederer, a writer and linguist, was teaching at St. Paul's School. Her brother Howard Lederer is also a professional poker player; her sister Katy Lederer is an author and poet.

Academic career

Duke went to Columbia University where she double majored in English and psychology.

Duke was awarded a NSF Fellowship to attend graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania to study cognitive psychology, specifically psycholinguistics. Her intention was to become a professor but she left school in 1992, after five years of graduate school and one month before defending her Ph.D. work. She left academia to pursue family life with her husband, Ben Duke, and moved to Columbus, Montana.

Poker pro

While living in Montana, Duke began playing poker in the legal card rooms in Billings. Her brother Howard was already a professional and he both coached and helped finance her play. In 1994, she and her husband moved to Las Vegas so she could start playing poker full time. Prior to 2004, her main claim to poker fame was her 10th place finish in the 2000 World Series of Poker main event (one position short of the final table) while eight months pregnant with her third child.

In early 2004, Duke received considerable publicity because she tutored actor Ben Affleck, who then went on to win the 2004 California State Poker Championship. She holds the women's record for most in the money finishes at the WSOP. In September 2004 Duke won $2,000,000 in the inaugural World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions, a 10-player, winner-take-all invitational event. She subsequently appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman.

As of 2006, Duke has won one World Series of Poker bracelet, in Omaha HiLo and more than $3.1 million in tournament play. Nowadays she refuses to play in women's only tournaments, saying that "Poker is one of the few sports where a woman can compete on a totally equal footing with a man, so I don't understand why there's a ladies only tournament."

Duke is one of many poker players that take issue with the restrictions placed on players during televised tournaments. Although the players pay mandatory entry fees to enter tournaments, some venues do not allow players to wear sponsorship logos. Duke raised some controversy when she made a statement in a news article regarding this issue: "We [poker players] are not even slaves. We're people paying to pick the cotton."

In the 2004 World Series of Poker she eliminated her brother Howard Lederer from four separate events, including the aforementioned Tournament of Champions. Unlike her brother, Duke is known for being somewhat emotional at the poker table.

In the Main Event of the 2006 World Series of Poker, she finished in 88th place (out of 8,773 entrants) for $51,129 in winnings. She was one of two women left in the field when she was eliminated. (The remaining woman, Sabyl Cohen, later finished in 56th place for $123,699.)

As of 2007, her total live tournament winnings exceed $3,300,000.

Other ventures

Duke has been a spokesperson for UltimateBet since 2000 and has written many articles for the online poker website, mainly on Omaha HiLo. She has several nicknames including "Annie Legend", "The Duke", and "The Duchess of Poker". Her sister, Katy Lederer, wrote a book about the Lederer family, titled Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers. She also has her own biography, called Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at The World Series of Poker (ISBN 1-59463-012-7).

In 2002, she moved to Portland, Oregon to work for ieLogic, a company that produces software for online real time casino gaming. She and Ben were divorced in 2004, but she did win a $500 wager made with fellow pro Steve Zolotow, who bet her that her marriage wouldn't last five years. In 2005 she and her four children moved to the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Her new Mediterranean-style home and boyfriend, actor and producer Joe Reitman, were featured in the New York Times article At Home With Annie Duke on January 19, 2006.

In 2005, Duke helped her brother Howard Lederer promote a line of poker video games which featured both siblings as virtual characters.

On January 30, 2006, Duke became the first poker personality to appear on The Colbert Report. During the show, she talked about her book and what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated event. At the end of the interview, Stephen Colbert celebrated his victory over Duke in a single hand of five-card draw before she realized that the hand was played with a brand new, unshuffled deck.

In 2006, GSN premiered a television special titled Annie Duke Takes on the World, which features Duke playing against amateur poker players.

Duke has also made appearances on the Ultimate Blackjack Tour playing Elimination Blackjack.

On December 1, 2006 Annie Duke appeared as a member of the Mob on NBC's 1 vs. 100. On the show she correctly answered every question and was the only celebrity that wasn't eliminated. She returned for the next few weeks, continually answering her questions correctly. Duke then appeared on the Christmas episode on December 25, missing a geometry-based question that was presumably the third one asked at the taping. (The beginning of the show was preempted in the Eastern and Central time zones because the previous program, NBC's Deal or No Deal, ran late; the start of Deal or No Deal was delayed because the football game that preceded it ran long.) Duke answered a total of 35 consecutive questions correctly during her time on 1 vs. 100, making her the longest running mob member in the history of the show to that point. Duke participated in a special February 9, 2007 episode of 1 vs 100 under special "Last Man Standing" rules where the game continued until only one person remained. She was selected as the contestant, going against the other 99 mob members, and lasted long enough to be in the final five before she, and three mob members including Ken Jennings, all got a question wrong, and the remaining mob member was the winner.

Trivia

• During the 2006 World Series of Poker, Annie won the $500 buy-in World Series of Roshambo tournament, earning her $10,000.