Kasey Lyn Mills is having one of the best years of her professional poker career. She won back-to-back WSOP Circuit events to start the year off red hot and banked $88,442. Mills followed that up with a final table appearance and seventh place in the $5K WPT Voyage event for $42,000.
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What's one bit of essential prep you do before a big tournament or cash game session?
I have a non-negotiable with my performing my affirmations before sessions. I have specific ones that I use.
I love Louise Hay’s books. There's one group that I have used that's called 'the ten most powerful affirmations of all time'.
By working with these positive affirmations, they get my head to believe that good things will happen, and that I’ll radiate abundance and prosperity. I love this one: “Chips come to me in expected and unexpected ways.” These are essential to my prep for any games I sit down in.
What piece of strategy advice did you get when you first started playing that you wish you had ignored?
Some bankroll advice that just wasn’t for me. That was terrible advice, but I’ve turned the corner on that.
I got a lot of bad advice. One was to trust what the solver tells you, not yourself. I've seen Doug Polk talk about this exact issue: go to the range of hands, use the math, and trust the numbers.
That was horrible advice for me. When I started to lean in hard to trust my reads and my instincts, my game started to grow. I learned when to deviate from the solver and similar GTO programs and trust myself more, and better results began to happen.
What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen or done at the poker table?
Well, I just recently had this happen. I rarely do this, but it happened during the recent $5K WPT Voyage event where I finished seventh. I folded my hand off a chop, which I can't remember the last time I did that.
We both had two pair, kings and sixes, with a queen. He showed King-Jack, and I had King-8. When he showed the King-Jack, I believed he had won and out-kicked me. After showing it, I didn't actually table it all the way. I was so embarrassed. I’ve never felt sillier.
'Worse things happen at sea': Mills went deep in the WPT Voyage ChampionshipI could have tilted off and lost my stack so fast, but I just told myself, you'll get all the chips in the end. Take the time to reset yourself.
A few hands later, I made a crazy four-bet bluff in a particular spot and showed it. Then I got max value from that same player I had bluffed a few hands later. I did the same overbet that I used on the big bluff and got paid.
Another dumb thing I have seen is some guy eat Cheetos at the table and then sucking it off their fingers. That was pretty dumb!
What's your most memorable hand?
I played on a $20,000 pot on a Twitch stream. I had 
. My opponent flopped a set of nines. I believe I was in position, and he checked the flop. I checked back.
I turned massive. I was open-ended and had the nut flush draw. He led out huge. I'm never supposed to raise against that sizing. But in my head, I think if we get it all in, I can run it twice and have so much equity. I'm surely going to win at least one of these boards. I raised it, and he just called.
I hit my straight on the river, but I didn’t have the nuts. He led out the full pot. So now I have a huge decision: to call or jam. The announcers thought I should just call when I eventually listened back to the play-by-play of the hand. But I ran it all back in my head and shoved. He called. It was the biggest pot of my life.
It was just a huge moment for me. I mean, there's nothing super special about it, but it was really a scary moment. It just stands out to me because it was so big. It was so special at the time. I’ll never forget that hand, mainly how I played that river.
What is your best piece of advice for players?
Diversify your income.
Most people think being a professional player is cool. They don’t understand that so many high-level players in the big buy-ins are in huge amounts of makeup. They’re rich-broke.
I think it's essential to be investing in other things besides poker. Sure, keep playing and keep crushing, but use your poker winnings to diversify. Make sure that you're taking care of yourself long-term, and that poker is not your only source of income.
If you owned a poker room, who's the first player you'd want to sign as an ambassador and why?
Andrew Lichtenberger. I love that guy. It's because of how he comes off as a person.
Yes, he's a phenomenal poker player, but then he is just so kind. I played in a group with him online during the pandemic on Discord. Andrew is the zen daddy, he’s wonderful.
Images courtesy of the WPT
