This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta.

We begin today in Las Vegas, the year 2004, the scene, a high stakes poker game.

Our protagonist is a woman named Annie Duke. She's about to win $2 million.

I'm all in. And with that top-air fill, Helmuth going all in with his 450,000 chips, Annie Duke

put the pressure on Phil when she checked raised him. This was the final hand of the World Series

of Poker, tournament of champions. They had these incredible Hall of Fame players, like

Dora Brunson, who was a Hall of Famer, Johnny Chan, who was a Hall of Famer, and then Phil Helmuth,

who has the most championships of anyone in the history of the World Series of Poker.

And then there was me. Annie calls the all in. And Phil sees what he's up against.

Annie and this guy Phil were the last two at the table. And Annie has overcome with emotion,

seeing how close she is to winning this championship. Annie's crying, Phil standing up,

pacing back and forth, the dealers laying out the cards that will determine who wins.

Annie has control of this hand. Now here comes the turn. It's a seven. No help for Phil.

Annie was the only woman in this competition. She had knocked out eight guys,

eight of the best players in the world to get to this point.

Annie Duke is now one card away from two million dollars.

But I didn't really feel like I deserve to be at that table.

At that moment, Annie Duke was feeling the pressure of something that psychologists call

stereotype threat. Here's how it works. Let's say you think people have a certain stereotype

about you. There's a part of you that's afraid that your actions and behavior will prove the

stereotype is true. I'm sort of thinking about, well, if I fold and I'm wrong, everybody's going

to be like, see she plays like a girl, like look how he pushed her around. But Annie's story is

...