The Pros Speak: Karina Jett

The Captain — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:00:02 +0000

Finding the time to do what we enjoy in life isn’t always as easy as it seems. This is especially true if you’re in a profession that requires serious dedication and practice – professional poker players are a prime example. In order to achieve success at the highest levels, the pros put in a serious amount of time to continually improve their game. In some instances, it might even appear that poker is the only thing in life and that everything else takes a backseat when it comes to time at the table.

While it might be for a few, this isn’t the case for Karina Jett. For her, being able to enjoy life as a professional poker player is a matter of balance. As a poker pro, wife of Full Tilt Poker pro Chip Jett, and a mother, happiness is a matter of keeping everything in perspective. Here’s what she had to say about priorities, poker and managing her time:

Even if you are not a professional poker player, the game can take up a lot of your time. Poker players need to be able to balance their poker time with their home life.

A lot of people ask me about balancing time with family and playing poker when their spouse doesn’t have any interest in the game. People have to understand their spouse’s interests and hobbies and should try to be supportive, even if that is a matter of simply trying to understand the concept of the game. In some cases, because they don’t know the strategies involved in playing poker, they are worried that their spouse is “just gambling.” When they take time to learn the game, there is a better understanding of the skill involved in playing poker. It comes down to being supportive of whatever your spouse’s interests are.

There is a time commitment involved in playing poker and reconciling that time with family needs comes down to balance. You need to learn to spread your time equitably, leaving time for friends, family and other hobbies.

For me, the priority is my kids. They’re the first thing on my mind when I schedule anything. My husband and I try to put them first and our careers second. We balance family and career as well as we can. If a scheduling conflict arises, Chip will get priority over me. I will step back and take care of the kids. I don’t have a problem with that because, since I’ve had children, they have been the priority and my career has come second.

It wasn’t a difficult change at all. If I’ve had a bad session playing poker and I go home and see my kids, it puts things in perspective on how I see life and what’s most important. If you have a bad day at work and come home to smiling kids who are happy to see you, it’s the most rewarding experience. The bad beats don’t matter any more.

You want to be able to enjoy your time at the poker tables. You can only really do that when you know you are maintaining a good balance between playing time and family time.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

The Pros Speak: Karina Jett

Heads Up: Howard Lederer Versus Karina Jett

One Angry Monkey — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:11:47 +0000

Welcome back to another round of the Full Tilt Poker Heads-Up Challenge, where we take 64 of our top pros and pit them against one another like abused dogs picked up off the street by Michael Vick. This week’s match features number one seed Howard “The Professor” Lederer taking on the 16 seed Karina Jett. Can you say mismatch? Oh well, let’s just get this formality out of the way so we can move on to greener pastures.

As always, this competition has very little to do with actually poker and we apologize in advance to anyone who we might offend (except for Mike Vick – fuck that guy). We just need to look busy for when our boss walks by the office, so we spend our time on this thrilling endeavor. Check out the full tournament bracket below, now on to the fight:

Category	Howard Lederer	Karina Jett	Survey Says
Career Earnings	Over $4.7 million	Over $100K	Wow, now that’s what they call disparity. Ring one up for Lederer.
Major Titles	Two WSOP bracelets, two WPT titles	Nada	Two plus two equals greater than zero. Lederer takes down another category.
Tournament Play	The Professor is probably one of the best tournament players in the game today.	Karina has experienced some success in tourney play, especially Ladies events, but has yet to go the distance.	This just isn’t a fair fight. Howard’s looking like he could put up a shut out here.
Cash Game Play	Not his specialty, but a respected cash game player nonetheless.	Karina can certainly hold her own in the cash games, and has been known to rake it in during the side games of major tourneys.	When contemplating this category, we always ask ourselves who we’d rather be sitting next to at a cash game. We’d pick Karina, if only not to lose quite as much money. Plus she’s better looking than Howard. No offense Howard, we think you’re an attractive guy and all, but… What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Howard four, Karina zero.
Best Game	Limit Hold ‘em	Seven-Card Stud	How do we even judge this category? Both of these games are boring as hell. We all know that the only true poker game is No-Limit Hold ‘em. With that being said, we’ll go with Lederer on this one, at least he’s got the wrong version of the right game.
Table Talk	Eloquent, sophisticated, thought-provoking.	Not known as a talker, but who needs to talk when your looks can kill?	We’d like to give this one to Karina just so she can avoid putting up a donut. But on the other hand, we really like donuts. Mmmm, donuts. Howard marches on to perfection.
Nickname	The Professor	Chip Jett’s Wife	Karina has no nickname, so we had to come up with that one on the fly. Pretty original, huh? On the other hand, “The Professor” is one of the cooler poker nicknames out there. Lederer is oh-so-close to the shut out.
Outside Poker	Successful businessman	Successful mother of two	Howard works closely with some poker website, which is not to be named. We fear for our jobs if we don’t give this category to him.
All In The Family	Howard’s sister Annie Duke is a successful poker player.	Karina’s husband Chip Jett is also a successful poker player.	Hmmm. This is a tough one. We really do love Annie, but Chip is a Full Tilt Pro. We might have to go with Chip on this one, thus husband saves wife from getting blanked. What a stand up guy that Chip is.

So there you have it. Howard takes down Karina by a score of eight to one, nearly pitching a perfect game in the process. That’s a shame. Who the hell comes up with these categories anyway? It’s like this competition is rigged or something. Rigged just like a certain poker website, which shall remain nameless. Check back next week for more fun, the good times just keep on rolling here.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Heads Up: Howard Lederer Versus Karina Jett

Poker From The Rail» Karina Jett

The Pros Speak: Karina Jett

Heads Up: Howard Lederer Versus Karina Jett