Redeem now - Abby Merk, 23, learned to play poker three years ago. She's already gone pro.
- She now can earn more than $11,000 in a single game.
- She's an instructor at Poker Power, a company that teaches women workplace skills through poker.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Abby Merk, a 23-year-old poker player, instructor, and content creator. It has been edited for length and clarity.
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.When I first started learning to play poker about three years ago, I thought there was more luck involved. I thought it was gambling. But once you dive into poker, you understand there's always a correct decision.
I was a losing player at first. We all start there. As soon as I fell in love with the game and started studying it on my own, I realized I was not unlucky — I was just making mathematically incorrect decisions. To think like a poker player, you have to change how you think about the game and start to see those patterns, and that only comes with reps.
I studied philosophy and mathematics at Wake Forest University. I fell in love with how philosophy got me to think about the world, and I fell in love with how math helped me analyze it. That's basically what you're doing in poker. You're thinking about the situations analytically and critically. You can use your people skills and how you think others might perceive the world, or in this case, the table, and then you can use mathematical skills to back your decisions.
I love the competitive nature of playing with other people, and if you can get good at something and make money doing it, that is something that piques my interest. The things that you'll gain by learning poker and understanding the game will be the same no matter where you go with it. The experiences that I was having at the $20 tables, I'm still having in the $10,000 events.
I've known Jenny Just, the founder of Poker Power, forever. She's been really good friends with my parents for a long time, and she was always a mentor for me. I was one of the first students of Poker Power, so I learned through them. At that point, their lessons were shorter and less in-depth. But I was able to take a few months and dive into the game. And I fell in love with it.
After a few months, I was playing for real money at tournaments. It was $20, nothing crazy. But I was risking something tangible and taking my seat at the table. That was a pivotal moment for me because I faced a ton of backlash. When I sat down at the poker table, I was instantaneously stereotyped. My play was supposed to fall into a certain category; I was supposed to be tight, so I was not supposed to play a lot of hands, and I was supposed to be passive when I played them because I was a female. As soon as I realized that that's how they were stereotyping me, I took that to heart.
I played horribly. I remember this so distinctly. I thought I was so good, and I lost my first hand. This was pivotal for me because it got me to drop my ego, focus on what the game actually is, and stick up for myself.
I remember after that hand, I went to rebuy, and while I was waiting in the line, this guy who was at the table came up to me and said, "Just so you know, that was a really bad decision, you know, right? That was a bad decision." I replied: "Was it a bad decision or did it have a bad outcome?"
I think that's the key to poker: To flip that question back on others that might give you some adversity because if you can separate bad decisions from bad outcomes, you'll be a great poker player. That realization was something that transformed my poker career. Just knowing that I belong and that a random guy at a table playing a $20 tournament isn't going to dictate how I feel about myself.
I started studying. I kicked it into gear and started consuming as much poker content as I could. I became good enough to be a Poker Power teacher, and I felt confident in what I was saying because I had some results to back it up. I was able to start teaching other women to be in situations where they can say, "To hell with all the other guys here. I'm going to take my seat. And I'm going to do well. And you guys can't do anything about it."
That mindset and the game itself are helpful in any workplace environment, especially in finance. In a financial environment, you will be the minority as a woman. So I think having the confidence to make your voice heard challenges the status quo. Women existing in or striving for positions of power is sometimes an uncomfortable feeling for men, and the only way to get around that — and the only way to go against that — is to keep doing it, to keep putting yourself in situations where you can rise above. That's hard to do, and I think that poker is a really great outlet.
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