FR3POKER

Poker is a game for everyman, or woman for that matter, and it inspired me to read about Donna Blevins approach to the game. What inspired her, how unfamiliar it all seemed to her, her reasons for playing and how it affected her life.

Donna Belvins was born in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia – the daughter of a coal miner (much like me) she grew to a statuesque height of 6 foot, 5 inches tall (unlike me at 4’11″.). There must be something in the water there! She turned her mid-life crisis into a poker career, and she turned her poker career into something even larger than life, just like her stature.

After being an athlete and entrepreneur all her life, she asked her life partner to teach her to play live poker in 1996, and the first game she learned to play was 7 card stud. She says that this move has brought her even more stimulation and adventure and turned her mid life crisis into a mid-life rebirth. It led to an exciting new career complete with travel and fortune, and she reckons that poker provides an arena to use skills you already possess and set the loftiest goals at any age.

Poker players come in every size, shape color, sex and creed and the game is a great equalizer. Wheelchair bound people and Olympic athletes play poker on the same playing field, and your level of education matters not.

She was in her mid-forties when she started playing and could barely grasp that there were 52 cards, four suits, and 13 cards to each suit. She also says that the way she was taught made a difference to the way she played poker, and she had an incredibly patient teacher, who really put her through her paces.

Then she had to learn, what poker hands beat what and her short term memory was bad. But she was already a business woman and her decision making skills were good, even so, she still felt like a teenager learning to ballroom dance.

It is hardly surprising that Donna Belvins is a life coach and motivational speaker, but she also says that playing poker rescued her from an overworked existence. Her first live poker tournament was in an Indian Bingo hall with a 500 stack and a $25 buy-in, but when she came in 4th place she was both elated and hooked.

Today this daughter of a Virginia coal miner customizes poker classes to promote team building and management skills. She also uses poker as a fun vehicle to help people learn decision making and work through their issues. She is down-to-earth, funny and incredibly successful.

She worked as an international poker journalist in 1998, and is still a professional poker player. She has lost and won in everything she has done; learning from these lessons all the while and in the 2007 WSOP Main Event she negotiated a $216 investment in poker into a $51 000 win. Finishing her in the top 4 women out of 6 400 players! She also won the election for Virginia Girls State Governor with an election slogan “Six Feet Four, Who Could Ask for More!” And no-one believed this “hillbilly” would win! Man do I love this poker player!