Annie Duke was born in Concord, New Hampshire, on the 13^th September 1965. She is an author and a professional poker player. Both writing and poker are in her blood – her father, Richard Lederer, is a writer, as is her sister Katy. Her brother, Howard Lederer is a professional poker player.

Annie studied English and Psychology at Columbia University, before going on to study Psycholinguistics at the graduate school of the University of Pennsylvania.

She met Ben Duke at university. When they got married, she moved to Columbus, Montana with him. She had planned to finish her studies, but one month before she was due to defend her Ph.D. She decided to leave school and take up professional poker. Her marriage to Ben ended in divorce in 2004.

Annie now lives in Hollywood Hills with her four children and a new boyfriend – the actor and producer Joe Reitman.

At the start of her poker career, Annie received coaching and finance from her brother Howard. Once she was established as a professional herself, she began tutoring others. At one point she received a lot of media attention for tutoring Ben Affleck.

The highlights of her career include a 10^th place finish in the World Series of Poker main event in the year 2000 – at the time she was 8 months pregnant with her third child. She also managed, in the 2004 WSOP, to eliminate her brother from four separate events.

Annie Duke currently holds the record for the most WSOP money finishes by a woman. She also took a $2 million prize in the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. At the time, this was the biggest prize paid in a single event to a female poker player – a record broken in 2007 by Annette Obrestad.

Annie has many nicknames – including “The Duke”, “Annie Legend”, and “The Duchess of Poker”. She is known to be quite outspoken, and also somewhat emotional at the poker table.

She caused a lot of controversy back in 2005 when she commented on the policies of televised poker tournaments. The players must pay an entry fee to take part in the tournaments, but many venues do not allow the players to wear the logos of their sponsors. Duke said “We [the players] are not even slaves. We're people paying to pick the cotton”.

Annie published an autobiography, 'Annie Duke: How I raised, folded, bluffed, flirted, cursed and won millions at the World Series of Poker' in 2005 – the book was written in conjunction with David Diamond, and is still selling well today.