Annie Duke’s New Book Due to be Released

She may not be the most-loved person in the history of poker, but Daniel Negreanu’s former foe on and off the table, Annie Duke, still has a lot to say about what the poker world has taught her, her latest book - ‘Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts’ - due to hit the shelves on February 6th.

Duke’s notoriety in the game came not only through her $4,270,548 in tournament earnings, or being the sister of Howard ‘The Professor’ Lederer, nor even from her high-profile TV appearances and four previous books…

…but also from her involvement in the Ultimate Bet scandal - and more clearly in  the ill-fated Epic Poker League ‘which defrauded players out of a "guaranteed" million dollar freeroll’ according to Negreanu back in 2015, the Canadian having a long-running feud with Duke, once calling her “a fucking cunt” in an unsavoury outburst.

In the aftermath of the EPL disaster, now- Executive Tour Director of WPT Matt Savage absolved Duke of blame for the venture’s downfall, stating to Calvin Ayre’s Lee Davy in 2014:

“Annie tried hard to do right by the players, but had a lot to overcome with her public opinion. Tarnished by Ultimate Bet and Daniel (Negreanu) slinging insults and negative comments about the EPL and how it would fail. Annie doesn’t deserve the blame for the Epic failure.”

Well, Duke may still not be winning any popularity awards in the game, but the introduction to her latest book states:

“This is not a book about poker strategy or gambling. It is, however, about things poker taught me about learning and decision-making,” and perhaps it will show Duke’s own behaviour in a new light.

Having left tournament play long behind her, Duke has re-invented herself as a public speaker – and her soon-to-be-released book sounds like it will be far-removed from the likes of her 2005 autobiography ‘Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker’.

“I’ve been writing this book since 2015, but it’s the distillation of issues I’ve been addressing since 2002 – and arguably since 1992 or even earlier,” explains Duke on her website. She adds: “During the last half of my 20 years in poker, I developed a pair of mirror-image careers: using my behavioral science approach to teach groups of developing players about poker strategy, and using my poker background to teach business and professional groups about decision-making strategy.”

Not everyone was impressed by the thought of her latest offering, however…