So this is a story of how a lil’ Asian girl like myself got infatuated with this game we all now call “poker”. Growing up as the youngest of 10 children, I always had a competitive streak in me. I strove to be the parents’ favorite, the teacher’s pet and the best friend. Everything I did, I always strove to be the best. I excelled particularly in school because I was raised by my parents to think that a Corporate 9-5 job was the culmination of the American dream. My parents had fled the fallen country of Vietnam in 1980 in search of freedom and a better lives for us. So in their eyes, a stable job equated a stable life. To them and probably to most people, what you are suppose to do is be successful in school, go to a good college, then have a good job and have a family. The American dream riiiight?? So I worked my butt off in school, earning top grades and ending up at a top university. I graduated college with a degree and ended up at my stable, 9-5 job. Soon after I was making good money, driving a fancy car and shopping til I dropped. I felt good until one day I looked back on the last few years and realized that I had fallen into the rat race. It was the same story every day and somewhere along the way I had lost my drive and found little passion in what Iwas doing. Sure I was “successful” but I was not fulfilled. And so began my search for something new, something challenging and something that would take me out of this trap!

One day, my ex-boyfriend and I were bored so he took me to a local casino and sat me down at a 3-6 limit game. Mind you I didn’t even know what a full house meant. I was the equivalent of a fish at the table and everyone had gone fishing. And getting my a$$ beaten at the poker table had suddenly awoken the competitive lion that had been sleeping for all of these years. So soon after, we started making it our Friday night date. We would go to the local casinos and just play because we like to win. It didn’t take me long to get the hang of it and before I knew it I was winning, not a lot but just enough to keep me interested. Then one day I hit the jackpot at those local casinos, where your Aces full get beaten and I ended up with $5,000 cash in my purse. I never held so much cash in my life. It became my bankroll and I quickly found myself seated at the 15-30 limit hold ‘em game. I remember my hands were shaking the very first time I played. I won my first session and the next 10 sessions after. It was then that I actually thought to myself, hey I might actually be pretty good at this. So we continued to play regularly and as a result, our relationship suffered. It was maybe half a year into it that we broke up and just when I found myself beginning to truly understand and be able to control the game – I stopped playing. I didn’t want to run into him so I gave up poker and found myself busy trying other things. For 2 years I was out of the game, but I always kept up to speed with the poker musings and I still believed that I was born with some kind of “luck” in me.

It was about 2 months ago when a friend invited me to a local casino with him. I entertained the idea and went back and played 6-12 limit hold ‘em for kicks. I won a little bit and decided that it would help pay for weekly nail salon visits. So I kept going and it didn’t take long for the family bloodlines to kick in. I was again drawn back into the game and found myself driven to aim higher than a few extra chips. Having always played limit games, I am curious of tournament play. When you watch the players, especially the young ones on ESPN or WPT, you think to yourself, the sky’s the limit right? So begins my quest to become a professional poker player. Not a gambling degenerate, but hey God gave me some luck and analytical skills so perhaps maybe this is my destiny??? I played in my first tournament in a long time recently and finished 2nd place, winning $11,000. At that moment, I knew – this is just the beginning. And so I launched www.pokerkim.com and hopefully I will have many more eventful moments to add. So please come along and enjoy the ride. I can’t promise there will be high stakes involved…there’s a learning curve, right? And I can’t promise a female version of “Rounders”, but I can promise that I’m going to try to answer my question.  Hopefully one person will find it mildly entertaining . If not, there’s 5 million other blogs out there to visit .