March '10 Home & Family—Susie Isaacs Column

The Highs and the Lows

I
have never been a full-time professional poker player, just part time. I have always had other sources of income (thank goodness). On one of my best years, I was playing about a third of my time. I asked myself, if I gave up everything else that takes time and concentrated solely on poker, could I triple that amount? The answer was a resounding, I don’t know! Therefore, I continue, to this day, to play only part time. All poker players run good and they run bad. For my worse year (and my first losing year since this all began in 1988) I was extremely thankful for that other income. If a player says he has never had a losing session, he is either a liar or he played one time, booked a win, and never played again!

Lately, my low has been the Venetian. I played four events in the Deep Stacks and didn’t book a single win. My high is the 15K poker club I am a member of. We have played seven games with three to go and out of 15 players; I am leading the pact by 9 points! I have managed to stay in the top five with one first place win over the seven games. We will be sending one player to the 10K main event of the 2010 WSOP and four others will win 1K seats. We will be playing as partners for each other, 50-50. How I would love to get that 10K seat locked up prior to opening day at the WSOP, but only time and three more games will tell.