Lee Davy sits down with the World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, Jackie Glazier, to wax lyrical about important things such as golf, tennis, moving home and much more.
When Jackie Glazier took her seat in the first starting flight of the Millionaire Maker, I knew she had flown under the radar. Her 888Poker patch was clearly prominent, but the biggest poker fan in the world—who was seated to my left—didn’t know her.
She had made it.
Then Jay Farber walked over to the table to give her a big hug. The biggest poker fan in the world knew who Jay Farber was. I knew this because he had told me a dozen times that he was going to have a photograph with him at the break. I kept telling him to take the shot in case he busted. Advice that fell on death ears.
“Are you Jay Farber’s girlfriend?” asked the biggest poker fan in the world.
“No, he’s just a friend.”
“Are you famous.”
“No.”
And that’s why she is such a great poker player. She can lie when facing pressure.
“I don’t consider myself famous,” she told me during the break, “but it’s probably better for me to slip under the radar.”
I know how she feels. When I play I never want to tell people that I am a poker writer because it’s a huge tell that I am a terrible poker player.
Glazier is a competitive nut. It started when she was a young woman trying to make the grade in professional tennis, and continues to this day, with a golf club in one hand and riffled chips in another.
“I hit my first golf ball on Christmas Day and immediately decided to get a handicap. I’m not happy with it. I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s totally crap, and I am trying desperately to beat it.”
She laughs as I talk about the number of golf courses in Vegas, and how she can relax and take a few swings during breaks away from the poker.
“I can’t think of anything that will stress me out more than golf.”
Okay…maybe not then.
So she may be learning how to navigate the golfing greens, but in recent years, she has proven time after time that she can navigate herself around the dirty green’s of poker rooms in Australia, Europe and the United States.
In 2012, she finished runner-up to Greg Ostrander in a $3K No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Event at the World Series of Poker (WSOP). And she followed that success, and $458,996 score, with a 31st place finish in the WSOP Main Event for $229,281, before making history, as the first winner of a WSOPE Ladies Event, which she took down for $29,534.
“I haven’t really had a lot of success since Paris. I made the final table of a side event at the Aussie Millions and have been plugging away, but my mind has been firmly focused on a big move my husband and I have made.
“He is a peak performance coach, who works with a lot of top golfers, and so we moved to a golf resort so he can work closer to a lot of his clients. It was a very big move for me.”
Australia seems a world away from where the real action is. I wondered if this is something that frustrates Glazier?
“Definitely. Australia is so far away, that it’s difficult for me to get on a plane and fly for 15 hours just to play a tournament for a few days. It’s a different story if I can play a few tournaments and squeeze a holiday in over a two-month period, and I do have plans to come to Europe towards the end of the year.”
When we return to the table her secret has been exposed.
“Have you finished all of your interviews?” asked the biggest poker fan in the world.
Glazier just smiles.
Her cover has been blown.
“She’s a pro, man I knew she was special,” said the biggest poker fan in the world.
I look over and see nothing but emptiness in Jay Farber’s seat and think to myself, That’s the first thing he has gotten right all day.
