Many of us dream of ditching our boring, soul-crushing jobs in exchange for that easier and rewarding life filled with fun, excitement, and lots of money, but of course, what kind of gig should we get to achieve that?
If poker is one of those answers, we all know too well that poker is not for everyone. But, one woman has proven that it doesn't take a very extraordinary skill to be able to make that leap from that daily humdrum world into a higher, more thrilling landscape - that if you just push yourself more and with a little luck on your side, you can flourish and make it bit doing something you don't know anything about before.
This particular woman who now enjoys the poker limelight is Maria Konnikova, a New Yorker contributing writer who simply decided one day that she should conduct a psychology experiment for a brand new book, and the process involves her having a go at high-stakes poker. She sought the expertise of Erik Seidel, a Poker Hall of Famer who won over $34 million so far in his poker career and is currently at the #1 spot in the United States All Time Money list. Seidel was generous enough to take her under his wing and showed her the ropes, and now it's making a big impact on getting her started to a ‘fruitful' career in poker.
According to an interview via PokerNews, she started out in the world of poker "as someone who has never had any experience with the game, and initially played small - $20 and $40 - tournaments and not winning much. Thanks to Seidel's guidance, she got much better that she was able to sit at higher-stakes tables with great players at top Las Vegas casinos such as the Aria and managed to walk away from a couple of games with winnings up to $2,000. Not long after, she was playing and crushing it at the major tournaments.
Lady Luck is definitely on her side, as less than a year after she started playing, she struck gold. This January, at the PCA National Championship in the Bahamas, she outlasted a field of 230 players and took home $86,400 (and a $30,000 Platinum Pass to the 2019 PokerStars Players NLHE Championship) from a game that she began playing from scratch, as a mere experiment, to research a book.
Currently, she is making so much money just by playing poker that she said she's setting the entire research writing thing aside for now, pushing her book schedule back, but the tradeoff to her is so much better, allowing her to experience the lucrative world of professional poker gambling.
Apparently, her decision is paying off well because in March, she just won $57,519 after placing 2nd at the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) in Macau!
Last month, she announced via Twitter that she just joined her first ever €25k tournament at EPT Monte Carlo, in which the event was won by Justin Bonomo for $457,380. Her mentor Erik Seidel finished third place in the same event for $210,661.
We don't know how she was able to pull it all off, but Maria Konnikova did it. She said goodbye to her old job, dabbled at a hobby she knew nothing about at first, and now she's incredibly rich! She will definitely be an inspiration to anyone who wants to learn poker and try to change their lives for the better.
Source:
https://www.pokernews.com/news/2018/05/maria-konnikova-poker-30637.htm
https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/maria-konnikova/page/2
