Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

HIGH STAKES: Taking a Gamble

Las Vegas woman gave up previous life before emerging as top 10 female poker player

Kathy Liebert, shown playing poker at the Bellagio, gave up her previous life and is now one of the top female poker players in the world. Photos by Clint Karlsen.

The stakes were high when Kathy Liebert quit her job in 1991 to move cross-country, wagering her future on a deck of cards and the luck of the draw.

But it's a bet that's paid off in spades. Diamonds, hearts and clubs, too.

Now one of the top 10 professional women poker players in the world, Liebert gave up what seemed like a bright future in the business world of New York City to go West when she was only 21. She left the comfort of the East Coast, where she'd lived her whole life surrounded by friends and family, to go to California, where she knew not a soul, had no connections and no source of income, save the money she'd made by investing wisely.

"I just decided, `I don't love this job, let me go out West and see what happens,' " Liebert, 37, said of her job as a business analyst for Dun & Bradstreet. "At first, I thought I made the biggest mistake of my life."

The decision turned out to be the best thing she's ever done. Since turning professional in 1997, Liebert has won more than $2 million in prize money. She's earned a World Series of Poker bracelet, one of the two major highlights of her career, which serves as a respectable badge of honor. The other highlight was being the first woman player to win $1 million in the Poker Royale: Battle of the Sexes tournament.

Today, she gets to do what most people never dream of doing: making a living by playing games. Liebert travels about six months a year following the tournament circuit, splitting the rest of her time between her homes in Las Vegas and California. Much of her life is devoted to poker, whether she's researching it -- constantly -- or playing it -- about 100 tournaments a year. That's not counting her Internet games, either.

"I love poker, I think it's a great game," she said.

Her father introduced her to poker when she about 12, playing nickel and dime games with the family, she remembered. But it was just a game then, nothing special about it.

A remarkable knack for math compelled her to study business in college. She landed what many in her field would have considered a dream job right out of school, but after a year, Liebert realized it wasn't her true calling.

When she moved to California then Colorado in the early 1990s, Liebert prepared to pursue a law degree. All that changed after playing in a private poker game. It was then that she realized she loved it and had a natural ability for it. A couple of games later, Liebert was seeking out books and reading up on poker. Then, in 1994, she landed a job as a prop at a Colorado casino. Props are paid by the casino to play poker when extra players are needed at the table, but they have to wager their own money.

Liebert honed her poker skills making $10 an hour and sometimes winning more than the pit boss earned in week. She also lost as much, maybe more, making her job a liability at times. Still, a few months later, she moved to Las Vegas to launch her new career.

Not a lot of women were playing professionally when Liebert turned pro, so she often had to contend with being the only woman in a game. If male players treated her differently, she tried to use that to her advantage.

"A lot of times I was the only woman at the table, but it didn't bother me. If they thought I couldn't play, that was to my advantage. Sometimes they'd start telling me how to play, how they played," she said.

Liebert relies on her attention to detail and ability to focus to help her succeed as a player. Occasionally she uses a hat or sunglasses to give her a bit of an edge, drawing the bill of a cap over her eyes in an effort to unnerve the competition.

Liebert said she thinks the popularity of poker is a good thing, overall, for the game, and she welcomes new players.

"The more people that play, the more money there is to win," she said. "It's better odds than the lottery."