Chats with Tats – Kelly Heffernan

Chats with Tats - Kelly Heffernan

Scotland’s Kelly Heffernan talks to CalvinAyre.com’s Tatjana Pasalic about sleeping at the airport to make it to this year’s WSOP main event.

Will you sleep at the airport to play the World Series of Poker? Kelly Heffernan did and even brought her mother along.

The Scotland player powered through flight delays just so she can register at the WSOP main event this year. And she was the last non-American, last girl and last person to enter the event.

“My flight was delayed for seven hours back home, so I was at the airport and I brought my mom as well, and I got to sleep for about an hour on a bench in the airport,” Heffernan told CalvinAyre.com. “It was just ridiculous. I really had a bad day, like, no sleep at all, and I thought I need to go and play that cause that’s the last day to play. And [I] came to Vegas the last minute and just tried my best really to spend up some chips.”

Heffernan is a heads up specialist, which she said is a good thing during long main event battle.

“It does make you quite tired,” she noted. “I guess being a heads up specialist is good to know because if I get into a heads up confrontation in poker, then I say it definitely gives me an edge.”

Heffernan joins the ranks of women that play poker around the world. She may not have understood the game at first, but she said it “just completely fascinated” her.

“I actually started playing in tournaments online about five years ago, just like $5, $10 tournaments when I was still in my day job, and eventually went to a casino and played cash one night and I ended up winning quite a lot of money,” Heffernan said. “I was like, poker’s amazing, that’s just great. And I used to watch it on TV like years and years before that and I think that’s just great.”

Now, Heffernan has her eyes on playing against the best heads up specialist.

“It’s got to be Dong Yu Kim. He seems to be dominating the heads up poker world,” Heffernan said.