Playing Her Cards Right

The wonderful, dangerous, frightening and glamorous world of poker is booming like never before, with thousands of devoted enthusiasts from all corners of the globe engaging in online combat at any given moment. Of the many websites catering for this booming industry, PartyPoker has of late become one of the most successful, a development not entirely unconnected to the presence of Kara Scott as host for shows such as Premier League Poker and The Big Game.

A media natural, Kara was recently named 'Poker Personality of the Year' at the 2011 British Poker Awards, and 'Top Media Personality' at the 2011 Maven Awards in the USA. In addition to media duties, she’s also a highly accomplished player, whose best career result to date was a heady 2nd place in the 2009 Irish Open, a triumph which banked her a cool €312,600. 
Kara is keen to play down her status, modestly protesting that "Pro is a fairly extreme word for what I do. I’m basically an enthusiast and a media person, and my main job is working in front of the camera, commentating and hosting. That gets me into tournaments, which is frankly amazing. But I work with some amazing professionals. I wouldn’t feel quite right describing myself as a pro."
In truth, Kara has gathered attention for more than merely her poker prowess. Ridiculously good-looking with a sunny, bubbly personality to match, she’s lately become the face of PartyPoker and the subject of several admiring views on YouTube from numerous colleagues of mine who shall remain nameless out of respect to their WOGs (wives or girlfriends). Given Kara’s pin-up image, does she feel she has the complete respect of her rivals as a serious player?
"Well, poker’s a funny thing – nobody ever has complete respect. It’s such a competitive world that if someone drops even a little bit, you hear people saying, ‘Oh I knew it was just a fluke, he can’t play really.’ We’re a funny bunch in that way. But most of my friends are pros, we all hang out together and go to tournaments and talk about hands together – so in as much as poker players ever give each other respect, I’d say yeah."
As with all forms of gambling, one’s own sound judgement is only part of the battle – you’re always at the mercy of the fates, and anything can happen. Does Kara beat herself up a lot about things she might have done differently?
"A lot. Some players are terrible for that, some aren’t so bad. The thing about poker is that there’s definitely the element of chance. It’s not like chess which is a matter of pure skill, hence you’d never play a chess master for money because you know you’d lose. With poker there’s a bit of chance thrown in, so you can rock up and play against the big guys and sometimes it goes in your favour. Or it can go the other way too, and you’ve got to be prepared and keep your eyes open for that. And that’s what makes it so exciting, that little shot of adrenalin."
Did she think carefully before going for it?
"No, not really! I just went for it and haven’t looked back. My life is pretty random anyway – I like things that are exciting, and I like things that take me to lots of different places. It just really grabbed me – I was a sports journalist, I was covering a lot of really male-dominated fight sports. I started working on a poker show, and I loved the game instantly. And I didn’t want to look stupid, I’m not the kind of person who’s happy to just stand in front of a camera and ask dumb, meaningless questions. I wanted to learn all about it, so I asked a friend of mine who’s a really good player, and I just spent so much time working on my game, and it just came so naturally, I thought – ‘This is what I want to spend my time doing.’" 
Why does Kara think the world of poker is so male-dominated?
"There are a lot of different opinions about this. One is that it can be really intimidating for females to sit down with a table of guys at a live game. It’s funny, it’s not so male-dominated online – or at least people tend not to put their gender in their online accounts. But I think for a lot of women, it is intimidating, you’re sitting down at a table full of men and sometimes they do try to push you around. The good thing about that is, you can use it to your advantage. As long as you can spot it, if you see who’s thinking certain things about you because of your gender, you know what they’re likely to do against you, and react accordingly.
"With young guys, I notice that they treat it on its merits. They’ll just look at the cards, they look for whether I’m three-betting a lot or how often I’m opening from which positions, they’re not really looking at the fact that I’m a girl. Whereas sometimes with older players, there’s this sense of being a gentleman that comes into it. I’ve had this a fair amount, even in the States at playing really huge tournaments like the World Series, and sometimes guys feel a little bit bad about putting me out of a tournament, and as a result they’ll play a little bit softer against me than they might against other people. Which, for me, is fantastic. I wouldn’t play it up too much, that’s a little disingenuous - but if people are going to be nice to me, then sure, I’ll be friendly at the table, and somehow that makes it harder for them to look you in the eye and stab you in the back at the same time. It’s been ingrained in their heads since they were young guys that you’re supposed to be nice to women. So you’ll keep making nice, ask can you take a look at the screensaver on their phone, their dog or their kids, and kind of ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ over them a bit."
For anyone who’s intrigued about poker but isn’t sure how to go about getting started, what’s the best way to get up-and-running?
"I would always preach caution. Even though my life is a bit crazy, and I work in poker and play it now almost for a living, I always say you shouldn't play for money first. Do not put your money down on the table. A lot of these websites, like ours, you can go in and you get play chips. You’re not spending money, you just download the software and as soon as your chips are gone you push the button and you get more. It’s like figuring out what you’re doing before you sit down with real money. Because we really don’t want people to go broke over this.
"And also, when you do decide you want to go in for real, you have to set a loss limit in your head and stick to it, decide how much money you’re going to risk on poker in any given year or week or whatever. Whether that’s €50 or €200, I don’t know. But whatever you decide that limit is, make sure that you’re never sitting down with more than 5% of your bank at any one time, so whatever happens, you’re not going to go broke. You’re not going to have this big poker binge and wake up with a sore head thinking, ‘What happened to all my money?'"
Kara had a magnificent run at 2009’s Irish Open, which she still recalls fondly: "That was incredible. It was one of the first big tournaments I played, and it was the first time I’d been to Ireland, and I was here playing one of the biggest tournaments on the European circuit, and one of the most respected. The Irish Open is well-known as one of the old standards on the circuit, it’s been around for a really long time and a lot of great players have won it. It was a little bit surreal. At one point halfway through the tournament, I made this huge bluff that went horribly wrong. I got called on it, the guy agonised and agonised over it, and he finally called it and it was clear that I had nothing, it was a massive bluff. I was left with very few chips – I had two big blinds which is nothing in poker terms, and the next hand I got pocket tens which is pretty nice, and I tripled up against a couple of other people and realised ‘I’m not out of this yet’, and from then, I went to the final table and I came second, and at that point it felt a bit like a fairytale. The final table was great, I was playing against a lot of fantastic players and I felt like I held my own. And the guy who eventually won, Christophe Johanssen, was definitely a better player than me, he’s a hugely established pro. It was a little bit painful not taking the top spot, but to be honest he deserved it. No regrets. I mean I’d play the last hand differently, but who wouldn’t? No regrets."
By far the highlight of the international poker calendar is the annual World Series, taking place in Las Vegas and uniting enthusiasts from all over the world. Kara is a confirmed devotee: "Las Vegas during the World Series is like summer camp. We play like we’re kids in a candy store, there’s all this great food and there’s all these great clubs and all these great people, and the poker is amazing and you want to talk about your hands and there’s so many people there you can do that with and so many stories to swap."
That sounds a little dangerous.
"It is! The hard part in Vegas is knowing when to call it a night and go home – I’ve seen people lose their summer in Vegas. You start going to bed when the sun’s coming up over and over and over again, and it’s so hot, it’s like 104-105 every single day – it’s 100 degrees at midnight and I’m a Canadian, I just don’t know what to do with myself in that heat. There’s all these extremes over the summer, extreme amounts of money, and then there’s the heat and there’s this food where you feel like you might never eat again cause every meal you’ve had has been like 17 courses and so rich. But it’s super fun, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. You feel like ‘oh my God this is the best party in the world and I never want to leave’. But you have to, you have to go home. You have to sleep and you have to eat well, get a good routine and focus and realise ‘this is my job. This could be the most lucrative few months of my year, every year, if I treat it carefully.’"