Annie Duke
Player Information:
- Name: Annie Duke
- Nickname(s): n/a
- Date of Birth: ?
- Place of Birth: Concord, New Hampshire
- Currently Resides: ?
- Favorite Poker Game(s): n/a
- Personal Web Site(s): n/a
- Favorite Online Poker Site(s): n/a
- Online Poker Name(s): n/a
Biography:
Born in Concord, New Hampshire, Annie Duke grew up in a family who played card games for entertainment and intellectual combat. In fact, Annie would throw her cards when she lost a card game - not a sign of her future "poker face" necessarily, but certainly the seeds of her competitive nature.
Talk to many professional poker players, and they'll tell you that they knew from a very early age that they wanted to play professional poker, but not Duke.
As an undergraduate at Columbia University, in their first coed class, she majored in English and Psychology, intending to become a professor. During that time, her brother Howard Lederer, a two-time World Series of Poker bracelet holder and two-time World Poker Tour champion, started playing poker in local New York poker rooms. On breaks from her studies, Duke would watch him play, but still didn't get into the game. Instead, she went to graduate school in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she won a coveted National Science Foundation Fellowship.
During graduate school, Lederer invited her to Las Vegas during the World Series of Poker and taught her the basic rules of poker for Texas hold'em, the world's most popular poker card game.
Trips to Las Vegas planted the poker seed, and in 1992, after five years in graduate school, Duke left academia, moved to Montana with her husband, and started playing poker in earnest in the local poker rooms in Billings, Montana. Her brother sent her $2,400 and gave her some poker lessons. In the spring of 1994, impressed with her poker results, Lederer convinced Duke to play in the World Series. She placed 13th in her first tournament and 3rd in her second. She also placed in the 10K championship event the first year she played --knocking Lederer out of the tournament. Cashing over 70K that first year, Duke moved her family to Las Vegas to pursue poker professionally.
Notable Poker Accomplishments:
| Place | Date | Entry | Game Type | Tournament Name | Location | Amount Won |
| 4th | 27-Jun-05 | $5,000 | Limit Hold'em | 36th World Series of Poker 2005 | Las Vegas | $88,500 |
| 1st | 01-Sep-04 | Invitation | No Limit Hold'em | World Series Tournament of Champions 2004 | Las Vegas | $2,000,000 |
| 2nd | 08-May-99 | $5,000 | Limit Hold'em | 30th World Series of Poker 1999 | Las Vegas | $110,000 |