She’s PokerStars’ latest Ambassador for Ladies in Poker, and Kerryjane Craigie was all patched up as she welcomed feminine poker gamers to a particular ‘Girls Evening’ on the Horseshoe in Las Vegas.
In her first official engagement, she welcomed feminine gamers on dinner break from the World Sequence of Poker Girls Occasion and others, together with from the Ladies’s Poker Affiliation (WPA), of which Craigie is a board member.
In addition to persevering with to champion feminine poker gamers via her month-to-month video games on the Hippodrome On line casino in London the place she is Director of Poker Operations, Craigie spoke about how her new function will impression ladies’s poker and the way it will contribute to constructive change and enhancements within the taking part in expertise for ladies on the tables.
Craigie’s Voice for Change
Craigie stated she was delighted for the chance, and thanked PokerStars for the belief and assist they’d given her.
“I’ll try to assist us make a distinction and make our experiences higher”
“I am not essentially the most profitable feminine poker participant,” she instructed a bunch of feminine poker gamers assembled in Las Vegas. “And I am actually not essentially the most profitable feminine poker within the room! However I’m one among you. I’m a lady in poker.
“I hook up with all of you in a poker atmosphere and I have been blessed to have a voice on this area. I’ll try to assist us make a distinction and make our experiences higher.”
As she defined, Craigie stated she “encourages the doubters” of girls’s poker occasions and actions to discover that curiosity, saying she does not need to silence those that discuss down on ladies’s poker, quite talk with them.
“We are able to solely educate and encourage an understanding if we open up that dialogue. I simply hope in return that we open up some minds about why women-only occasions are so needed.
“We are able to all make a distinction by steering behavioral traits after we are on the desk, and inspiring change”
“We’re part of the poker atmosphere, and ladies’s occasions are key to how the entire recreation progresses.”
Craigie went on to say she felt that the poker neighborhood is on the sting of actually empowering a development in inclusivity in poker and particularly in ladies’s poker.
“My favourite quote is that ‘poker has no bias’. The sport does not acknowledge gender, or coloration or preferences — there is no defining issue. It is the gamers [themselves] on the desk that decide how persons are handled.
“I imagine in equality and inclusivity, and that habits breeds habits. The one factor that everybody has the power to do is change their habits. I am not asking — and I haven’t got the appropriate — to alter anybody’s persona. However we will all make a distinction by steering behavioral traits after we are on the desk, and inspiring change.”
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Discrimination In the direction of Ladies “Unacceptable”
Craigie says there are a lot of studies on social media of discriminatory habits, and that such studies are growing.
“These actually spotlight what is going on on on the poker desk. And I do know all of us have a lot extra tales of our personal. You will not persuade me that these incidents are remoted or blown out of proportion only for social media.
“There are numerous events the place you witness phrases or actions directed in the direction of a feminine participant simply because they’re a lady, and that is merely unacceptable.
“Everyone seems to be entitled to the identical poker expertise on the poker desk, and if we test our habits and encourage others to do the identical, it is not unachievable that everybody can stroll away winners come the top of the occasion.”
Craigie has inspired feminine poker gamers to hunt her out and share your experiences, ideas and concepts along with her. You’ll be able to attain her on social media: @KJCraigie.
“I need to hear about it as a result of this can be a collective drive from us to make the distinction. So steer me in the way you see the way forward for ladies in poker.”
All photographs courtesy of Danny Maxwell through PokerStars
Managing Editor
Based mostly in the UK, Will began working for PokerNews as a contract dwell reporter in 2015 and joined the full-time workers in 2019. He graduated from the College of Kent in 2017 with a B.A. in German. He additionally holds an NCTJ Diploma in Sports activities Journalism.
