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Winning-hand Rose, top poker player
WHEN Rose Owen started playing poker, no one took her seriously. With the best will in the world, you can sort of see why.
Quietly-spoken and demure, she looks more like a schoolteacher than a hard-nosed card shark.
But to everyone's surprise she soon started winning. Then she won some more.
In fact, over the last two years she has clinched pretty much every tournament her local casino in Leeds has to offer.
Which is pretty amazing when you consider she only took up the game three years ago.
Such has been her success that she is now giving serious thought to turning professional and trying her luck against the best poker players in the world.
Although if you ask Rose, it's got nothing to do with luck.
"I've never been into gambling and I don't see poker as that," says the 52-year-old.
"You do need an element of luck but you've got to have the skill there or you will never get anywhere."
In her day job the mother-of-two, from Alwoodley, Leeds, works as a hypnotherapist, helping people with everything from conquering phobias to giving up smoking.
And she reckons it gives her a distinct advantage when it comes to playing poker.
"You need to be very relaxed and focused to play well, which is something I help my clients with.
"It also helps that I'm used to reading people. When a client's sitting in front of me I'm looking for signs that tell me how they're feeling and whether or not they're nervous.
"I watch their hands, their face... everything about them is telling me something.
"That definitely gives you an advantage when you're sitting at a poker table trying to read your rivals and work out who's got a good hand."
Rose took up the game when a client said she would be a natural.
It was someone who was seeing her to improve their own game who suggested she have a go and then taught her how to play.
"When I first started I had to have a piece of paper telling me what all the winning hands were," she laughs.
"I would see people sitting at the poker table and they would know what hand someone had by how they were betting. I didn't know how they did it.
"But suddenly it all clicked into place and I love it now."
In fact, she loves it so much that she devotes 24 hours a week to the game, often finishing at the card table at 4am.
She enjoys the social side of the game and has made a lot of friends through it. What also appeals is the fact that it provides a good mental workout.
All the while she is honing her play and perfecting her poker face.
"Yes, you definitely need a good poker face," she nods.
"You get what they call 'tells' which are a good indication that someone's got a good hand and they change from person to person.
"Someone will have a twitch or start tapping the table. Another person might start looking around them and others will say, 'It's time I was going home' and put all their chips in.
"You're always looking for things like that, they give a lot away."
To start with, she says, there were one or two people who looked down on women players.
"But that was great because if you were playing in a cash game with them they would always call it because you're a woman and they must be able to beat you.
"They've stopped doing it now, which is a bit of a shame really."
As well as winning every league she enters in Leeds, Rose travels all over the country to play at big tournaments.
She has won upwards of 20,000 from poker so far but hopes to considerably add to that sum at upcoming games.
She's going to Las Vegas in November for a holiday and "to see what it's like".
But she might soon have the chance to go there for real.
Her play has won her a place in a three-day Gala poker tournament in Liverpool next month where she will be up against more than 200 other players.
The winner of that is automatically entered into a tournament at Bristol, with whoever triumphs there bagging a seat at next year's World Series in Las Vegas where a prize of nearly 5m is up for grabs.
"Of course it would be nice to get to the World Series," she says.
"You need the luck with you on the day but if you have that there's no reason why I can't win in Liverpool. And after that, who knows?"
So what do Rose's two children make of mum's budding new career?
"My daughter quite likes it and has even started watching tournaments on TV. I'm not quite sure what my son makes of it.
"But I love the game," she smiles. "It really has given me a whole new outlook on life."
grant.woodward@ypn.co.uk
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Weather for Leeds
Thursday 24 May 2012
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