But I want people to understand that poker's not all glamorous it's not all being on TV and making tons of money. It's a hard life. It's a lot of travel. It's a lot of weird hours.

ESPN has this problem with sports it's impossible to fill 24 hours with sports programming so they have to resort to things like poker and arm wrestling tournaments.

I used to sports gamble a lot and I was getting killed on that but then I found poker and really enjoyed it. But it was a hobby more than anything else. I played it every day but only on pretty small stakes.

I met my boyfriend a pro poker player at a tournament. He tried to dissuade me because it's a seedy gritty world. Listen I've played till 4 in the morning. I've played with a half million dollars on the table.

I started playing poker in 2003 during my pregnancy to distract myself from my awful morning sickness. For months all I did was cry and play Texas Hold'em.

What I know about poker you can fit into a thimble with room left over but I'm learning.

My favorite hobby is being alone. I like to be alone. I also like dancing fishing playing poker sometimes and vegetable gardening - corn tomatoes cucumbers I have a big garden every year.

What I needed most was to love and to be loved eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me and sure enough I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy by suspicions and fear by burst of anger and quarrels.