She’s PokerStars’ latest Ambassador for Girls in Poker, and Kerryjane Craigie was all patched up as she welcomed feminine poker gamers to a particular ‘Girls Night time’ 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 Girls’s Poker Affiliation (WPA), of which Craigie is a board member.
In addition to persevering with to champion feminine poker gamers by 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 position will impression ladies’s poker and the way it will contribute to constructive change and enhancements within the enjoying expertise for ladies on the tables.
Craigie’s Voice for Change
Craigie mentioned she was delighted for the chance, and thanked PokerStars for the belief and help that they had given her.
“I’ll try to assist us make a distinction and make our experiences higher”
“I am not probably the most profitable feminine poker participant,” she advised a bunch of feminine poker gamers assembled in Las Vegas. “And I am actually not probably the most profitable feminine poker within the room! However I’m considered one of you. I’m a lady in poker.
“I hook up with all of you in a poker surroundings and I have been blessed to have a voice on this enviornment. I’ll try to assist us make a distinction and make our experiences higher.”
As she defined, Craigie mentioned she “encourages the doubters” of girls’s poker occasions and actions to discover that curiosity, saying she does not wish to silence those that discuss down on ladies’s poker, quite talk with them.
“We will 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 obligatory.
“We will all make a distinction by steering behavioral traits after we are on the desk, and inspiring change”
“We’re part of the poker surroundings, and girls’s occasions are key to how the entire recreation progresses.”
Craigie went on to say she felt that the poker group is on the sting of really 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 isn’t any defining issue. It is the gamers [themselves] on the desk that decide how individuals are handled.
“I imagine in equality and inclusivity, and that conduct breeds conduct. The one factor that everybody has the power to do is change their conduct. I am not asking — and I haven’t got the suitable — to vary 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 direction of Girls “Unacceptable”
Craigie says there are various studies on social media of discriminatory conduct, and that such studies are growing.
“These really 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 various events the place you witness phrases or actions directed in 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 verify our conduct and encourage others to do the identical, it isn’t unachievable that everybody can stroll away winners come the tip of the occasion.”
Craigie has inspired feminine poker gamers to hunt her out and share your experiences, ideas and concepts along with her. You possibly can attain her on social media: @KJCraigie.
“I wish 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 pictures courtesy of Danny Maxwell by way of PokerStars
Managing Editor
Based mostly in the UK, Will began working for PokerNews as a contract reside reporter in 2015 and joined the full-time employees 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.
