Annie Duke, known as the “Duchess of Poker,” earned her reputation as a fearless, high-stakes poker player with a controversial style, which included cash-betting at the highest levels. She has won more than $4 million in tournament poker, won a World Series of Poker bracelet, and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Poker Heads-Up Championship. She is still in the top four of the leading money winners among women as of September 2021, despite retiring almost a decade earlier, in 2012.

Duke, born Anne LaBarr Lederer, was raised in a card-playing family and was interested in cards from an early age. Her brother Howard, also a professional poker player, is the controversial figure behind Tiltware, the company that launched Full Tilt Poker, which was shut down by the United States Department of Justice on charges of bank fraud and illegal gambling. Duke’s sister, Katy, is an author who published a memoir about the Lederer family.

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Duke attended Columbia University and double majored in English and psychology. After graduating from Columbia, she pursued a doctor of philosophy in psychology and was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Ultimately, one month before defending her dissertation, Duke decided to no longer pursue academia and left school.

Duke has authored strategy and instructional guides, including “Decide to Play Great Poker” and “The Middle Zone,” as well as books on decision making, including the national bestseller “Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts” and “How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices.” Her autobiography, “How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker,” was released in 2005. Her latest book, “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away,” will be released in October 2022.

Duke is a Co-Founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission is to provide training for teachers and mentors to create programs focused on decision-making skills for their students. She is also Co-Founder of the non-profit Ante Up for Africa, which benefits charities working in African nations. She has participated in many charitable poker tournaments over the years, helping to bring in millions for various charities.