Woman Takes Unlikely Road to Poker Fame

Inside His Head

Duke won a cool $2 million at the Tournament of Champions, but it was a hard-fought battle with a heart-stopping climax. As the tournament progressed, the poker world's best players "busted out" one by one, until Duke was facing Phil Hellmuth, the ultimate bad boy of poker.

Hellmuth has said of himself, "If you're talking about the best tournament poker player in the world, I've earned the right to say I'm the best."

And he says he didn't think Duke belonged at the table.

But Duke says she knew she could beat him once she went one on one with him, "because I got in his head."

When asked if that was the case, Hellmuth denied she got into his head -- but didn't sound sure. "I mean, I really don't, you know, but you know, she -- I, I don't think so," he said with a laugh.

Lessons of the Game

Duke entered another tournament, the World Poker Tour's Doyle Brunson North American Championship, shortly thereafter. But she didn't last three hours into the four-day event.

Still, she doesn't doubt herself. "The thing that people need to understand about tournament poker is that I might play 40 of these a year, 50 of these a year, and if you win two in a year it's an amazing year, that's like a really good year," she told Cuomo.

In fact, at this tournament, not a single one of the professionals was left standing at the final table. It was a reminder of the long odds that even the best in the business face on any given day.

"What makes it such an incredibly fun recreational game is the sense that someone can sit down with the Tiger Woods of the game or the Michael Jordan of the game, or whatever, and they can beat them on a given day," Duke said.