A group of eclectic players qualified for the $3,800 World Poker Tour Choctaw Championship through ClubWPT and on the surface they’re as different as the miles that separate them, but they’ve had a great few days so far into their trip.
Jackie Richmond from Maryville, TN was the PokerOrg qualifier. “I’m so thankful for PokerOrg and ClubWPT,” she said. “I’m learning all the time and really like the news and updates from PokerOrg.”
She’s playing in the largest buy-in and is looking at is a great learning opportunity. “I like playing in these longer levels,” she added. “Usually, the tournaments I play in have really quick levels. I like playing against the pros, I have so much to learn.”
"My mother wore combat boots."
Clear across the country, in Creswell, OR, Steve Waggoner plays to get better as well. But he’s playing to best his younger brother John, who competes against him from Springfield, MO.
Waggoner was feeling good at the first break of the day, despite backtracking a few hundred miles. “I traveled from Oregon, landed in Dallas and drove to Springfield, MO to meet my brother John and then drove back this way.”
Both brothers are Army veterans, in fact, his whole family served. “My mother wore combat boots,” said Waggoner. “My mother, father, three brothers and I were all Army and I had one brother that was Navy.”
Because of the nomadic nature of Army families, the Waggoners had kids born in Virginia, Germany, California and South America. “Playing cards was normal, it was a way of life,” he said.
“My parents had people over regularly for cards and it’s something we did in the home,” he said. While the adults played, Steve and his siblings would play for pennies or build houses of cards with old decks.
These days, Waggoner and his brother John compete head-to-head in their own year-long game of “War.” Each day they track who had the best results and they keep track by chips in a rack.
“I won last year and he’s up 13 chips on me this year so far,” added. “He razzes me daily.”
Low risk, high reward
While Richmond and Waggoner are both in their 60s, Tom Joy is in his 30s and moved to Round Rock, TX purposely for poker a couple of years ago.
“I was looking to move out of LA it was either going to be Las Vegas or Texas,” he said. “I visited Texas a couple times, started going to the Lodge and loved it. It’s a great room and that’s where I’ve been playing predominantly cash games.
Joy plays on ClubWPT as a way to relax from Texas’ well-earned reputation for action. “I like the low-risk, high reward,” he said. “The action at the Lodge is crazy, it’s four or five ways to the flop every hand. I like being able to sit back in the comfort of my own home and not have to worry about the live aspect of poker.”
Joy grew his family by one a couple months by adopting a dog with and honored it with a name worthy of Texas AND poker royalty. “My dog’s name is Doyle and I idolized Doyle Brunson,” Joy said.
“I read his autobiography and adopted the dog a couple months ago,” he said. “I brought him with on this trip and I asked him for some luck this morning.”
All photos courtesy of World Poker Tour - shot by Enrique Malfavon.
