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Cate Hall, a former classmate of Vanessa Selbst’s at Yale Law School, walked away from a promising legal career to seek her fortune – and more importantly her happiness – in the poker world. With two final tables and five cashes on the World Poker Tour so far, she’s off to a hell of a start. She talks to us about the introspection that led to her career change, how she’s grown so quickly as a poker player, and her experiences trying to convince Poker Twitter that sexism is a problem worth addressing.
You can follow Cate @catehall on Twitter, and she recommends the Center for Applied Rationality to “your audience in particular”.
In the strategy segment, Nate and Andrew talk about semi-bluffing, getting there, and folding.
Timestamps
0:30 – Hello and Welcome
18:06 – Strategy
52:23 – Cate Hall
Strategy
$5/$10 full ring NLHE at Commerce, $1700 effective stacks.
Hero opens $35 with 4c 3c in the CO, and the SB and BB call.
Flop ($100) As Ac 5s. Check, check, Hero bets $80, SB calls, BB folds.
Turn ($260) 2h. Check, Hero bets $175, SB raises to $600, Hero calls.
River ($1460) Villain shoves ~$985, Hero?
Awesome guest! Until this year I never knew how misogynistic poker was. I only found out the ugly truth about 2+2 forums because of parttimepoker.
Keep up the good work, you guys are the best.
Nate and Andrew, your strategy session this week was over-the-top awesome. Finding a bet-fold on a street where one improves to an absolute (but not relative) premium hand is a contest between emotion and logic where the former regrettably often prevails over the letter. Your sound, thoughtful and clear explanation of building a bet-calling AND bet-folding range here was a powerful logic-reinforcer to help combat the emotional and weak thought process that often impairs my game. Very cool. Thank you for making my long commute through the snowy roads of Bloomfield Hills a bit more tolerable this evening. Keep ‘em coming.
Awesome compliment, thank you!
Thank you very much for the praise! By the way, if you’re talking about Bloomfield Hills, MI, that’s my hometown.
Really? Drugs? I don’t get it…I was tuned in until that and then turned it off. Sorry don’t want to hear about your crack headed nonesensical drug induced poker playing state. Want to do it keep it to yourself.
Grest
I must admit that I was quite surprised to read this after your other, very kind comments. There’s a lot I want to say here, and I deliberately waited a few days before saying any of it to be sure I wasn’t responding rashly:
1. All of our guests do Nate, me, and our listeners a great service by coming on the show and opening up about personal, potentially controversial issues. Their willingness to discuss these things openly is a big part of what makes the show good, when it’s good, and when it isn’t, I tend to believe it’s because we failed to create a rapport with a guest that made him or her comfortable opening up in this way. I don’t expect you to agree with everything you hear on the show, and if something upsets you enough to turn it off altogether, of course that’s your prerogative, but I think you’re out of line to be rude to someone who took such a big risk with very little to gain from it other than a desire to help us create an interesting, thought-provoking show.
2. Telling her to “keep it to yourself” is especially bothersome to me, not only because of what I said above, but also because I explicitly asked her about drugs. It’s not like she came on the show proselytizing. She discussed the subject at my request, and I’m glad she did, and I’m sure some of our listeners found it interesting, even if you did not.
3. She didn’t say anything about crack, or about using drugs while playing poker.
4. This was a very small part of the conversation. I hate to think that you missed out on a very good interview (not just my opinion, we’ve gotten a lot of good feedback here and on Twitter) because of this small bit of it. I think that if you can avoid writing Cate off entirely because of one small life choice she’s made that you disagree with, you’ll probably enjoy the rest of the interview.
I’m tempted to ask you to be more open-minded, but I don’t know that I have a right to ask that of you. I do, however, think I have a right to ask you to be more polite to the unpaid guests who help us to make this free show interesting week in and week out. We couldn’t do it without them, and if we tried you wouldn’t enjoy it, so please don’t scare them away.
Sorry hit send to quickly, I also wanted to add that your hand strategy really gives me lots to think about and makes me see holes in my game for sure. Especially liked the bet sizing discussion on the flop. Really insightful!
This was a really interesting episode. I didn’t catch Cate’s age, but as a thirty-something who’s peer group largely went out of uni into a range of professions like law, medicine, banking and the like, it’s been a definite phenomenon in the last ~5 years that there’s been a bit of a winnowing-out phase where many of us have taken what we’ve learned and gone to find another career arc, leaving only those who really love their profession still on the original track. Going back to grad school is one option (the one I took), but a law qualification is a marketable skill that can open a range of doors without going back to school.
Oh, and the strategy was great – in that spot I worry that villain is overvaluing trips, but the line that you’re folding the winner sometimes but not often enough to make a profitable call really resonated.
I have a polarized range of comments. On one hand, Cate is obviously the smartest one in any room; on the other her giggly demeanor and (not sure if there’s a name for it) speech pattern, where every statement sounds like a question, detracts from her credibility. I can’t put my head around that in conjunction with appellate law–perhaps she couldn’t either.
Overall–a most interesting guest. I would like to know more about her drug journey and how each helped or hindered her introspection. Also, it was fun to hear her insights regarding some of her hands.
I’m not completely through the episode, but in answer to the question of how she advanced so quickly, I’d like to know one or two epiphanic insights that would help us all get better faster. (I’m guessing she’s just off the chart brilliant).
Thanks, Dalai, for listening and for commenting. FWIW, an abstract notion like “credibility” is pretty much guaranteed to be informed by sexism (as are the behaviors you describe). I mean, why does giggling have a necessary relationship with credibility? I suspect it has something to do with “credibility” being a gendered concept, such that behaviors that young women are often encouraged to adopt (such as giggling) are considered non-credible precisely because of their association with young women.
Please consider this comment in light of what I said, on the show, about sexism being a spectrum rather than a binary. I don’t mean to say that you are some evil sexist, just that we pretty much all inherit a lot of sexist baggage, regardless of the culture we grew up in, and it tends to shape ideas about “credibility”, and we have to make a conscious effort if we want to expurgate them (though that may be a futile endeavor).
Um, no. You might not have picked up on it since you were doing the interviewing, but when I was listening I was thinking “I don’t think I would want her as a lawyer”. Her responses had a lot of pregnant pauses, filler words, and rising inclinations (the kind you make when asking a question). ‘Credibility’ is a bad word, maybe ‘conviction’ or ‘confidence’ would be better. Basically some might think she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
None of this is a bad thing. I think it gives her and the interview a air of authenticity (she’s actually thinking about what to say instead of using canned responses). But Delia’s observations are not sexist on any spectrum.
I didn’t say the observation was sexist, I said that stuff that’s widely considered evidence of credibility (or conviction or confidence) is informed by sexism. You’re probably right that because many people share these gendered notions, a person who speaks this way may not be the most effective at convincing a judge or jury. Then again, Cate might very well recognize that and speak differently in a courtroom setting. Or she might become frustrated by the need to conform to sexist standards and decide to leave the profession altogether (just speculation on my part, I don’t think she said anything to suggest such, but I could see this being some part of her frustration with the legal world).
But it’s not an observation informed by sexism, it’s informed by reality. There are ways to act and talk that convey confidence and there are ways to convey uncertainty. This is true (meaning the exact same actions convey confidence, the exact same actions convey uncertainty) for all people all over the world in all cultures, even in those few that have virtually zero contact with modern culture (I don’t know if they studied this specifically with type of laughter but they did with facial expressions, but I’m certain results would be the same). “Demeanor of uncertainty” might have been a more accurate term, but I knew exactly what Dalai meant. You could argue that the term ‘giggly’ itself is sexist, but the act that term describes when discussing perceived uncertainty is not.
I have no doubt Cate would sound different in a court room. It sounds like she was on the top of her game. I bet it would be nearly impossible for her to not sound like she know’s what she’s talking about.
And I’m not criticizing her at all. She sounded confident when she was talking poker, and she sounded uncertain about things she was uncertain about(she was also doing a lot of self censoring, thinking about ways to say something without others taking offense). For the record I think a little self doubt and uncertainty are a good thing at the poker table. I’ll let Rocky explain why https://youtu.be/CkqAe9DL56w?t=53
I had some similar reactions to Gareth’s and Andrew’s. I think I’m much more hesitant and giggly on the air than most of our guests, and I rarely hear that it detracts from my credibility. It’s hard for me to imagine that the explanation for this doesn’t have something to do with ideas of authority, credibility, and confidence that are not unrelated to ideas about sex and gender. Of course, other explanations for various parts of this phenomenon are possible (e.g., that people who are sufficiently annoyed or unimpressed by me simply stop listening to the show).
Thanks Cate. I have been harassed and called all sorts of female directed names, just playing online. I’m curious also which drugs you think will fast-track your intellectual awareness? I hope it’s LSD (or similar) and not crack. This has been a very interesting interview. Good luck in your play and life.
I know I’m going against the tide but I really dislike the misuse of the term ‘misogyny’. The originally it meant hatred of women, but feminist misused the term so much most dictionaries expanded the definition to include mistrust of women. But now if you google the term now it’s mostly used to they way it’s typically used it to describe disagreement with a woman (especially someone who calls themselves a feminist), instances of a man expressing sexual interest in a woman that not attracted to him, and generally anything straight men find attractive.
I also question the assumption that the Royal Flush girls do anything to keep women from playing the game, especially since it’s one tour.
Thanks for the comment, JD. I do appreciate the feedback, but the debater in me can’t resist pointing out that you’re making a lot of tangential/straw man arguments rather than addressing the central issues you disagree with. OK, you “question the assumption that the Royal Flush girls do anything to keep women from playing the game”. It wasn’t an assumption, we made arguments for why we believed it to be true, namely that it sends a message about whom the WPT is most interested in appealing to (heterosexual males). It creates an environment that some women, such as Cate, say makes them uncomfortable. What about that you disagree with?
I actually had a similar reaction to JD’s. I came very late to the realization that a phenomenon corresponding to the etymological sense of “misogyny” is far more widespread and intense than I’d ever suspected. I think it’s important to recognize that, and using “misogyny” rather literally helps with that (IMO). You’re free to say that you’re just using a different definition of the word when you say things like “we’re all misogynist to some extent,” but I do think that distinguishing various other implicit and explicit forms of sexism from straight-up misogyny is important (and especially important as a means to addressing these important problems).
That last sentence may have been overly concise but on a casual listen I thought was fairly accurate. Maybe I missed something so I went back to listened and (this may be the part of the interview where she does her most self censoring) she said the Royal Flush Girls were “reflective of this damaging atmosphere where woman are view as objects of male attention”, then questioned whether poker is “unwelcoming to women because woman aren’t interested vs woman aren’t interested because it’s unwelcoming to women”, the you, Nate, and Cate made observations about why the free market might not be the best tool to make these judgement. So technically she was making an argument about the RFGs based on assumptions. However based on the interview and the “Poker’s Women Problem” article she wrote in July I think it’s fair to say that she assumes thing’s that she finds sexists drive and/or keep more women out of poker than they bring in.
There have been at least a couple of shows now where the issues that women face in poker have been discussed.
I’m always left wondering what I can do to help.
I’m already (I think!) treating everyone with respect. What should I do when other players at the table are not?
This is a good question and something I often ask myself. I’ve convinced myself that part of the answer is, “This isn’t about you or what you can do.” I know there’s always this temptation to act and fix the problem and be part of the solution, but this may be a case where listening and just changing yourself is more important. Treating people with respect is a good start, but I think (and I know this is true of me) that the more you interrogate your own behavior, the more you may find that there are things you’re doing unintentionally that can contribute, in a small way, to the problem.
I suspect that starting a confrontation with another player about his or her behavior is unlikely to help, and in fact may make the target of the inappropriate behavior even more uncomfortable. If you think the person will be receptive, but you might try to find a way to speak to him or her one-on-one and say something like, “I know you don’t mean to, but I think when you say X it makes the player in Seat 5 uncomfortable” or something along those lines.
For the most part, though, you won’t have a lot of success changing other people’s behavior if they aren’t open to change. That’s why I try to take the opportunity to put these dialogues out there when I can – to spur people who are open to change but have never really thought about how their behavior might make others uncomfortable to do some of that self-reflection.
I agree that the people acting badly aren’t likely to change.
What can change is the environment that accepts their behavior. I think it is better if the missbehavers keep their thoughts to themselves — even if they only do that because they know their behavior will not be accepted.
I think we’re more or less at that point with racism. There are still plenty of racists but saying racist things isn’t acceptable. As a result there’s less overt racism. Hopefully that influences people, especially young people, to be less racist and we make some very slow progress.
If I remember correctly, Jamie K’s answer to this question was that being one of the friendly faces is a big help. Being collegial and social, and especially helping new players with some of the minor mechanical parts of the game the knowledge of which a lot of us take for granted, is a good behavior to keep as a priority, I think.
As if Cate couldn’t change her speech pattern to suit her interests when she was in a courtroom! Or in a boardroom discussing whether to take on a case. Her and Andrew had a lot of chemistry and that’s going to lead to relaxed speech on both sides, we saw that from Andrew’s speech patterns this episode, he isn’t always that loose — and it didn’t detract in the least from anything, it enhanced it.
I like how I have been on the show a bunch of times, using all my normal sitting on the couch argot, pauses, ums, you’knows and just outright verbal sloppiness. Never heard a word of it. I have giggled loudly every appearance.
This show wasn’t Cate’s audition to be your lawyer or a bid to impress you — I see this so much on the internet from people who should know better — people who just have such a wonderful proclivity for tearing down or going after women, treating their online media as evidence in the court of public opinion as opposed to whatever those media actually are, be it profile photos, podcast interviews, or tweets.
Seems to me that people are saying that her demeanor is incongruous with corporate law. She said in the interview that she chose law because it was respectable and lucrative — not that it was something she was interested in, right? And that she left it because it didn’t work for her?
Why are Gareth and Andrew jumping to sexism?
Not to speak for Gareth and Andrew, but I imagine it’s basically a Bayesian inference based on the very high base rate of people perceiving women (disproportionately) as not credible, not serious, not professional, etc.
Well from the base rate you can convict all men of sexism using Bayesian reasoning then.
Don’t lesbians like the Royal Flush girls then?
There’s no doubt, like Andrew has pointed out, that sexism (and other prejudice) subtly color our views in ways that we aren’t conscious of.
At the same time, it seems like people often perceive prejudice too readily.
Surely some of those cases where you think people are perceiving prejudice “too readily” are actually cases of you not being conscious of the prejudice, right?
I’m pretty sure I’m slow to see prejudice. That’s part of the reason why I’m asking. 8)
I am not sure if I will ever repeat this (and I certainly haven’t said it before!) but I am happy to have Nate and Andrew speak for me for the rest of this thread :).
Cate was recently on Chicago Joey’s podcast. Very interesting IMO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucuW5ch9plk
She discusses her verbal static @ 1:00:15
https://youtu.be/ucuW5ch9plk?t=1h15s
I guess Andrew made her nervous. 8)
Wonderful podcast. I’m always looking for pros or semi-pros to talk about their experiences in navigating the poker world. I would like to talk a little about the balance of men and women in poker. I think you should ask yourself if the game is weighed to one side because of some biological reason or that the current state of affairs is just to the fact that men recruit men to play poker and that no one tries to change the established situation (obviously, there could be other scenarios). Personally, I don’t see real advantages to any one side when thinking about number crunching ability or the ability to read people because even if men or women had the slight advantage in absolute sense in one of the areas, it probably wouldn’t make much difference to who would play the game. When it comes to the fact that at its core Poker is a competitive game there might be something to be said about the differences in testosterone and other hormones in making the game of poker more or less attractive to said person (ie, drawing more men than women). Something like that is much different than the state of affairs with the situation of the number of men or women who might knit or crochet. One would think that because so many more women knit and crochet vs men that they would have some sort of advantage in doing it, but it is just a cultural thing that men seem to just not like doing it. If there were lots of competitions or just a general acceptance of men knitting and crocheting you probably would see more men doing it.
I would also like to say that Cate is correct in saying that hiring women as objects does hurt the game in an absolute sense if you were to consider both men and women. Something that was not mentioned in the interview is that I feel that men would actually love to have women poker players sit across from them in a game vs just entertainment as those hired women would be. “If” there was a way to increase women poker players in general I think that would get more men to the felt vs entertainment women <—-( I feel bad even using the term) and increase poker popularity immensely. In fact, I think that one of the ways to increase the longevity of the game of poker is increase the number of women playing poker. Sadly, just the nature of the game being competitive might keep many women away even if their are some women who are very competitive. Maybe I'm completely wrong and everything is cultural like the knitting example (I just don't know). Once again, thanks for doing the interview and I look forward to more.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Aaron. I don’t feel qualified to speak to the biology issue, but I do think it’s somewhat beside the point. We know that there exist women who enjoy the game of poker and would like to play live but feel intimidated or have had bad experiences or whatever. We know that there are women who do show up and play and are treated in a manner that ought to be considered unacceptable. Those are problems that can and should be addressed, even if we could somehow prove that there were biological reasons why women will never comprise 50% of the player pool.
I agree. I guess I’m just trying to point out the difference between cultural reasons vs another reason why there might be difference in the number of men vs women players. Honestly, I would love for the number of women players to grow. I think some intimidation is natural to the game. As players, we can dismiss talk as mostly uninteresting, but a lot of players reveal a lot of into during conversations. Plus, if a player knew they might be able to unnerve an opponent by talk or by just getting under their skin they might try to gain that advantage (by pissing off a female or even male opponent in some way). Even with some of the players who don’t talk, being starred down hard can be very intimidating. Even if the sexist talk was turned down, female poker players would still have to have to have great resolve and tough skin because they have to deal with all kinds of attacks to try to get them to play less EV against skilled opponents.
Just listened to the episode after missing it. If this person were on every other week it would be fine, amazing mind and perspective. Just wanted to upvote.