We posted this story back in February 2006. I thought it would be nice to revisit this story for Valentine’s Day 2010.
Los Angeles, CA (February 10, 2006) –When the WORLD POKER TOUR® kicks off its spellbinding Season IV action on the Travel Channel March 1, about the last thing you’d expect to experience is love at the poker table. But, in what may be one of the most in intriguing aspects of the WPT, this year the Tour will showcase a half dozen happy couples, who are living the poker lifestyle, with both partners playing professionally.
It’s a real “full house” when two people manage challenging poker careers, while raising children, managing a household and still making time for a little romance. Poker is a complex profession. Besides the fluctuating periods of financial stability, there is no healthcare and few 40-hour weeks with weekends off. Moreover, tournament play requires a great deal of travel, which means additional expenses and time away from home. Now let’s imagine what happens when they are both competing for the same million-dollar winnings!
Actually in the case of Jennifer Harman and Marco Traniello, Karina and Chip Jett, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Aidilay (Lily) Elviro, Marsha Waggoner and Kenna James, Juan Carlos Mortensen & Cecelia Reyes, and Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Jennifer Tilly—their respective partners are their biggest cheerleaders.
“The advent of the WORLD POKER TOUR has made it possible for many more people to earn a good living at poker…and many of those are women. It’s been gratifying to see how many couples both feel comfortable at our 17 events,“ said Steve Lipscomb, CEO and founder of WPT Enterprises.
“They travel together, compare strategies against their opponents, commiserate with each other over ‘bad beats,’ and celebrate their victories—but watch what happens when they end up at the same table! He’s just likely to “come over the top” and she’ll call his “All-in.” It’s just like at home—each one wants the upper hand!”
But as competitive as they can be at the table, says Chip Jett, “It’s great having someone who really understands the highs and lows of poker, that has been there herself and is able to understand when I talk about a hand or why I get upset if I get knocked out of a big tournament.”
So how does one become a poker couple? The Jett’s actually met playing at a casino, as did Marsha Waggoner and Kenna James. Lily Elviro and Michael Mizrachi were both dealers. Cecelia Reyes and Marco Traniello got tired of standing around at the rail watching their partners through nine hours of poker and wanted in on the action. They’d been picking up knowledge by listening to conversations their spouses had with friends. Phil Laak and the actress Jennifer Tilly met when she came to play in the WPT Hollywood Home
Game tournament.
Mizrachi, Laak and Mortensen are all WPT Champions. Several of the women also play at the highest level of the game. Harman is considered one of the best high stakes players in the world. Tilly won the two more prestigious women’s events in poker in 2005—the WPT Ladies Night and the Women’s Open at the World Series.
But their own victories are oftentimes not even as thrilling as seeing their spouse rack up those chips. “The first week that he watched me, I knew he had talent,” said Harman. When Marco decided to try his hand at one of the big touranments, Jennifer placed in the money at five events and Marco in seven. “I was so excited that he was doing well, that I did well, too!” Jennifer says. “It might have taken a little bit away from my concentration, but who cares? It was just so exciting!”
The Jett’s have extended their poker partnership into teaching. They are both instructors at WPT Boot Camp, the fantasy poker camp that travels around the country educating aspiring WPT champs.
Togetherness is a key theme for these couples. So that he didn’t have to be separated from his growing family, Michael Mizrachi, purchased a luxurious tour bus with his $1.8 million WPT winnings so Lily and their baby could travel around the country with him. With grandma as nanny, both players were free to play the various WPT events.
One thing all of the partners seem to share is a love of the flexible hours and the unlimited freedom that comes from not having an office job. But given that pros frequently play into the wee hours, poker partners have to be night owls.
“Poker couples on the WPT are like ‘suited connectors’—sequentially numbered cards of the same suit,” says Lipscomb. “Different in many ways, there are strengthened by their likenesses.”
To see some of these couples and all of the WPT stars in action, tune into the Travel Channel, every Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Profiles of Individual WPT Poker Couples Follow:
Karina & Chip Jett
You might call them two peas in a pod. Karina and Chip Jett, both now 31 years old, seemed made for each other from their first meeting, which was arranged by a mutual friend in Tunica, Mississippi, at a casino where they were both playing.
Karina had been playing poker for ten years. She was raised in a Vietnamese household in Las Vegas, where a poker game could be found around almost every corner. Her parents loved card games and taught her to play poker at a young age. “I used to sit at the dinner table and listen to their bad beat stories,” she recalls. “Poker was always in my life.” Chip had been playing poker for almost twelve years. Though his parents didn’t exactly encourage a career in the gaming industry, they supported their son in his chosen
profession. Karina and Chip hit it off immediately and were married within a year. Chip moved from Arizona to Karina’s hometown, and they began to travel the world playing poker.
When Karina took a short break from poker to give birth to their daughter two years ago, a life change may have seemed in order for the Jett family. However, after a few months, Athena simply began traveling with her parents, adding Karina’s mother to the caravan to help with babysitting. “Athena is a positive influence on us,” Karina says. “She puts things in perspective. When we do lose a lot of money or we are down, we come home to this baby who knows nothing about what happened. We realize that poker isn’t the end of the world. It’s really about her.”
Meanwhile, this dynamic duo continues to maintain a hectic travel schedule. Chip aggressively pursues more championship titles to add to his already impressive resume. Though he has placed numerous times at the World Series of Poker and been featured at two WORLD POKER TOUR final tables, he fervently seeks a WPT championship title. Karina is content with winning in live poker games, although she also quests after prize money in big tournaments when the opportunity presents itself.
The Jetts make it look all too simple after five years of marriage. They admit that they’ve had to overcome obstacles, but they are lucky to have each other. “If you can continue to give to each other” says Karina, “you can grow and get better—in life and poker.”
Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi & Aidilay (Lily) Elviro
Young love is refreshing, and that’s what strikes you about Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and his fiancée, Aidilay (Lily) Elviro, due to marry this spring. Both in their early twenties, they met at the Seminole Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Though Michael had been a highly successful online poker player since his late teens, he deemed it necessary to hold a legitimately paying job for tax purposes and took one as a poker dealer. As he walked across the casino during a break, he saw Lily at another table. Michael recalled, “I thought ‘Wow! Look at that beautiful girl dealing!’” He started the conversation, discovering their mutual love of poker, and they began dating.
Soon Michael and Lily were inseparable, but Michael was soon ready for a slight change. Having mastered online poker, but wanted to take his game to the next level. A trip to Las Vegas in the summer of 2004 made it clear that tournament poker was his new calling. The birth of Michael and Lily’s son in the fall was taken in stride as Michael began wracking up impressive tournament performances, culminating with his $1.8 million victory at the WORLD POKER TOUR’s L.A. Poker Classic.
Michael immediately purchased a luxurious tour bus with his winnings so Lily and their baby could travelaround the country with him. But she missed the green felt, too. In Reno for a 2005 WPT tournament, Lily recalls, “It was spontaneous. Michael told me to play a single table satellite, and I won it!” After securing
27th place in that open event, she knew that it was only the beginning of her career alongside Michael.
Lily gained such a reputation for skilled play in her first few months on the tournament circuit that the WPT invited her to play in its Ladies Night III event. She made it to heads-up action against actress Jennifer Tilly, and with the tables turned for once, Michael was the one who sat in the audience cheering.
Jennifer Harman & Marco Traniello
Love at first sight, they claimed it was. In the parking lot of the Bellagio in Las Vegas, a handsome Italian man on vacation sees a beautiful, petite woman and invites her to go dancing. That was the beginning of a romantic courtship between superstar poker player Jennifer Harman and world-renowned hairdresser Marco Traniello. They were married less than two months later.
The only issue that ever posed a problem in their relationship was Jennifer’s career as a poker player. Though Marco was well aware of her profession from the moment they met, his understanding of the game and its intricacies took time. “When I was on a losing streak, that’s probably the only time we ever argued,” she says. However, with the help of her friends including leading pros Daniel Negreanu and Howard Lederer, Marco listened to explanations of the ups and downs of the poker business and came to understand.
Though he spent a great deal of time managing the hair salon he opened in Las Vegas, Marco watched Jennifer play poker as often as possible. At the 2005 World Series of Poker, he spoke up. Jennifer recalled, “He said, ‘You know what? I think I’m ready to play. I want to play all of the hold ‘em events.” And I said, ‘Go for it!’” They played in a number of tournaments, resulting in Jennifer placing in the money at five events and Marco—the newcomer–in seven!
With such a kick start, Marco sold his hair salon in order to turn fulltime poker pro, and Jennifer couldn’t be more pleased with the freedom that comes with his decision. Besides being thrilled for her husband’s new career choice and all of the promise it holds, she looks forward to “the ability to do what we want, spend more time together whenever we want, and vacation together.” Furthermore, she plans on helping him through his career. “I’ve been through the pain of losing streaks, and he’ll go through it, too. He’s very intense, and I know the right things to tell him. We have such a good relationship. We’re best friends.”
Marsha Waggoner & Kenna James
Marsha Waggoner, a quiet and modest woman, and Kenna James, an outspoken and unreserved man, seem very opposite, but their strikingly similar views on life, love, and poker make them a perfect match.
Even though he comes from Chicago and she from Australia, and she is considerably older, the marriage of Marsha Waggoner and Kenna James, two highly-respected poker players, couldn’t be more natural or appropriate.
Marsha, who had been playing on a professional level for 25 years at the time, met Kenna at the Los Angeles cardroom where he was working as a tournament director. He was ready to make the switch to full-time play, and Marsha gave him the support he needed to complete the transition.
Almost immediately, Kenna made an impact on the tournament circuit by winning tournaments in Los Angeles. At the same time, Marsha began to experience health problems, a brain aneurysm that required major surgery and a significant recovery period. Kenna continued to play tournaments, though mostly in or near the L.A. area to stay close to Marsha. He, in fact, made the Final Table of the most recent LA Poker Classic, a WPT event.
Surviving those difficult times together strengthened the bond between Marsha and Kenna. Four years into their relationship, they married. What has been the secret to their successful years together? She says it is lessons learned in poker that turned out to be universal in purpose. “It looks like you have an easy living in poker, but it’s a tough job, “ says Marsha. “You weather a lot of storms. You learn to keep a calmness in all aspects of your life.”
Juan Carlos Mortensen & Cecelia Reyes
When they met in their late teens in Madrid, Spain, Juan Carlos Mortensen and Cecelia Reyes never planned for a future that included becoming one of the premier couples of poker. Carlos met Cecelia after moving to Spain from Ecuador, his country of birth. He finished high school and enrolled in college, while working several jobs to pay for the house that he shared with Cecelia. One of those mundane jobs was bartending, though it turned out to be a means to an end; the bar was where he was introduced to poker. In less than a week, he was taken with the game.
With the support of his new wife, Cecelia, Carlos ventured into a life of poker, playing cash games wherever possible and building a reasonable bankroll. Since poker was technically illegal in Spain at the time, he took his winnings and periodically traveled to the United States to play. Finally, with skills and passion on his side, he and Cecelia moved to Las Vegas so he could pursue a full-time poker career. Though a somewhat risky decision, he said his confidence and his wife inspired him.
The two had a difficult time when they first arrived in America, considering their inability to speak English and their fluctuating finances. However, Carlos soon made his mark on the American tournament circuit, placing seventh at the World Series of Poker in 2000, then winning the bracelet at the championship event the following year. One of the most prominent wins for Carlos, known in the poker world as “The Matador,’ was the WORLD POKER TOUR’s Doyle Brunson North American Championship in 2004, where he claimed a $1 million first prize.
Beyond simply supporting her husband, Cecilia was paying attention to the cards, the strategy, and the “tells.” With some added coaching from Carlos, she quickly began to master the game in her own right. By 2002, she was playing and capturing her first title in 2003 at the Jack Binion World Poker Open. She went on to acquit herself admirably in the WPT’s Ladies Night III, making Cecilia and Carlos one of only two couples with where each of the partners has the achievement of appearing on an internationally televised
WPT Final Table.
Phil Laak & Jennifer Tilly
He is recognized for wearing dark sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt — a look strikingly similar to the Unabomber, a well-known felon imprisoned for his terrorist crimes. A poker champion with a very unique style and keen intelligence, his name is Phil Laak. She, on the other hand, is known for her acting roles in such movies as Bullets Over Broadway, for which she received an Oscar nomination, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Liar Liar and Bride of Chucky and the current CBS sitcom Out of Practice. She is also known as a burgeoning poker star who has surprised the gaming world with her adeptness and passion for poker. Her name is Jennifer Tilly.
Together, Phil and Jennifer have become the most famous couple in poker today. Both have very unique and distinctly recognizable personalities, but their different lifestyles and backgrounds seem to blend easily.
Phil has been playing card games since childhood. His analytical abilities drew him to games of skill throughout his life, first with backgammon where he became a world-class player. But with the discovery of poker, its logic and complexities drew him immediately and provided a new career choice. He began winning tournaments in 2002, and he has been on a nonstop course ever since, capturing the WPT Invitational in 2004, the event where he met the actress known for her high-pitched squeaky voice. Jennifer, on the other
hand, had played poker for about 15 years as a form of entertainment with friends. She never considered playing in tournaments or learning the intricacies of the game until she started dating Phil.
Soon she was on a mission to learn the ins and outs of poker. Seeking Phil’s advice, she found he was reluctant to guide her on specifics. “I directed her to read poker books and gave her maybe one piece of advice each week,” Phil says. As she did so over the following months, he would quiz her on odds, strategy, and tells. Then, he says, “I knew she was finally ready to play tournament poker when it only took her about 14 seconds to come back with the right answer.”
Jennifer came out of the gate running. She entered the 2005 World Series of Poker Ladies Championship event and beat 600 other women to win the bracelet. And then proved it was no fluke when she captured the WPT Ladies Night III against a very strong field of competitors—giving her the two prestige titles in women’s poker.
She says that the best advice she received was from Phil. “He said to play my own game. You have to do what feels right.” And though Phil has realistically been a key factor in Jennifer’s newfound poker success, he credits her determination for her victories. “She works at becoming the best. I am just so proud of her!”
