‘This is just the beginning’: Jen Shahade and Louise Ulrick on lessons learned from the Women’s Bootcamp
One of the undisputed successes of this trip to Cyprus was yesterday’s Women’s Bootcamp Showdown from which Louise Ulrick won herself a trip to EPT Prague.
While it’s always a special moment for a rookie player to earn a shot at the poker big time, the ambitions of the organisers — PokerStars, in association with Poker Power — are even more lofty.
The sincere hope is that more women hear about events like the Bootcamp and become involved in poker themselves, adjusting the quite clear gender imbalance in the game.
For reasons that nobody has quite been able to pinpoint, women have always been severely under-represented in poker, despite it being a pursuit where both men and women should be able to compete on a level playing field.
The Women’s Bootcamp began as an online contest, promising to teach poker skills to women completely new to the game and equipping them to compete in any poker environment. But more than that, it served as a simple showcase for poker.
The women who entered came from numerous countries, were of various ages and different walks of life, but all clearly enjoyed their introduction to a game that might previously have seemed off limits.
BARRIERS THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
Anyone involved with poker will tell you that there should be no barriers to entry, and the 10 women who came to Cyprus this week and had the time of their lives should stand testament to that.
“I think this is an amazing event,” said Jen Shahade, the PokerStars Ambassador who is a lifelong advocate for women in poker, and who helped train the Bootcamp participants. “The women, not only did they learn to become really good poker players, but you can see they’re really passionate about the game and they’re going to stick with it. I think a lot of them see this as a beginning not an ending.”
Jen Shahade is accustomed to being the only woman at the table — but wants it to change
Certainly, the Bootcamp players regard it as such. Although Ulrick is the only player who will have her expenses paid and a buy-in to the event in Prague provided by PokerStars, the other nine were already discussing taking the trip to the Czech Republic to support their friend.
There was conversation almost immediately after the event ended in Cyprus on the subject of booking AirBnBs in Prague and playing the women’s event at the EPT. Shahade thinks they could well be successful.
“I was definitely impressed by the play,” she said. “I really think they have great demeanours, great attitudes for poker, and when I say it feels like a beginning, I feel like we’re going to see amazing things from a lot of these women, and that they’re going to continue to inspire more women.”
A POWERFUL SUPPORT NETWORK
The women involved in the Bootcamp first played against one another online, but competed face-to-face in Cyprus. There was clearly fierce competition in the winner-take-all format, but a mutually supportive network also quickly developed, with everyone rooting for each other.
Shahade thinks that the community approach is important.
“I think that’s one thing in poker that we don’t have for women,” Shahade said. “There are so few of us, relative to men, that we don’t really have the same community, chat groups, cliques that the guys have. This is part of that, trying to get more women access to that community.
“I’m very proud to be involved in it. I’m really excited about it. I think that it’s really fun to see people learn poker and be pretty confident that it’s going to accentuate their lives. I think that’s true for a lot of women. Even though it’s much more popular among men, it’s actually women who have a lot to learn from poker, because we’re maybe not as socialised to take as many risks, or to be aggressive.
“I feel that poker can teach us a lot about that, and that’s why it’s beautiful to see Poker Power partner with PokerStars, because Poker Power wants to bring a million women into poker. And that’s a pretty awesome thought.”
Louise Ullrich, with trophy, received great support from all her opponents
In the immediate aftermath of her spectacular success, Ulrick struck a similar chord.
“It sounds a bit trite to say life-changing, but it would certainly be a highlight, and interesting point in my life,” Ulrick said, describing what it meant to have won. “I have found it fascinating how much I have learnt about myself over the last two months.”
LIFE LESSONS FROM POKER
Ulrick, who is from Camberley, in the UK, describes herself as a “born explainer”, who enjoys taking complex situations, understanding them, and then imparting her knowledge to others. She remembers teaching her sister from a blackboard when they were very young, and then spent some time as a maths teacher later in life.
She now advises businesses in the buying and selling of Microsoft licenses, and leads seminars and conferences with more than 1,000 attendees, all of whom benefit from her ability to make the complex much more simple. But even for someone of her business nous, poker opened new avenues of knowledge.
“I’ve just learned so much from poker about business situations,” Ulrick said. “I always feel that I’ve got the weaker hand in life. But actually, I don’t necessarily have that, so I need to step up and take charge. It’s been really good.”
Ulrick was a complete novice before a novel convinced her to learn poker
She added: “I think poker mirrors life in many ways. I’ve learnt that you don’t have to play every hand that life gives you, and I feel that sometimes I’ve thought, ‘This is just the way it is, I need to put up with it.’ And then I’ve sort of thought, actually, I need to work out, when I’m negotiating, what cards do they hold actually? What can we do in a negotiation that would make sure we get what we want.”
She said she also enjoyed the problem solving aspect, with poker continually throwing up new situations to analyse and decipher.
“Every hand is a poker puzzle,” she said. “And that’s what I like about it. There’s a puzzle and I think how am I going to solve this. What am I going to do?”
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
Despite having a close friend who plays a lot of poker, Ulrick said she had never really been tempted to play the game until she read a novel in which the female protagonist is a poker player. The character figures out various methods to beat the men at what they consider to be their own game.
“I suddenly thought, ‘I fancy learning that,'” Ulrick said, going on to describe how she soon found herself in the right place at precisely the right time.
“I went on the PokerStars website, there was online training which is really good, so I worked through that. And then I guess because I was on the site an advert popped up for the Bootcamp, and the rest is history.”
The Women’s Bootcamp was a collaboration between PokerStars and Poker Power
Having now won her trip to Prague, she is intent on furthering her skills before taking her bow on the EPT.
“It was quite overwhelming when you walk into the big room and there are all these tables there,” Ulrick said. “There are a lot of people concentrating very hard. Just being part of that — we walked through the tables to get to our table — it was astonishing. And now I get to do that for real, in Prague. There will be a lot of practice before that. I’m going to book some time in the casino.”
REPRESENTING THE CYPRUS CONTINGENT
She does not intend to shy away from stern competition either.
“I’m not going to be playing only women in Prague, so I kind of want to make it harder for myself before I go,” she said. “I’m happy to use the online stuff to improve technique, but I want to go to a poker room to feel the pressure, so I don’t let myself down physically. I think mentally I’ll do as much reading as I can, I’ll play online as much as I can. But it’s just managing myself in that physical environment. Not being intimidated, not being overwhelmed. I just want to be able to do my best.”
One this is certain, she will be carrying the hopes of many women with her, not least the other nine against whom she played in Cyprus.
“It’s been an amazing trip,” she said. “All of the women have said that when you have a lot of women together, it can be a bit competitive, a bit bitchy. But people have been very supportive. People have been genuinely lovely.
“PokerStars have done us proud in terms of the glitz and the glamour they’ve given us, and the trips they’ve taken us on. It’s been really good.”
The players walked through the EPT tables to their tournament area, but in Prague it will be for real
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