Annie Duke

Professional poker player Annie Duke attended college at Columbia University and later grad school at the University of Pennsylvania. Her area of study was psycholinguistics, but even after completing her thesis, Duke couldn't bring herself to pursue the area any further -- her real love was poker. In 1994, she and her family moved to Las Vegas so she could play full-time, and she commenced with a career that would make her a familiar name in the circuit. She would play professionally for the next several years, with ever increasing notoriety as her achievements soared higher, and as advents in cable TV and Internet poker brought the game more public attention. Notable achievements like winning $2 million in the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions added to her celebrity and led to her making appearances on shows like Deal or No Deal and The Colbert Report.