Poker night — for women — at Hollywood Park

By Tina Page
DAILY BREEZE

The men at the Hollywood Park Casino don’t know what to do with the group of women who have taken over one of their poker tables on Thurday nights.

Cat Hulbert’s all-women poker class stands out from the sea of stressed-out faces and unmanicured nails inhabiting the majority of tables.

Men wander by with looks of confused interest and excited smiles, gawking at the seven giggling women playing a game historically reserved for men.

Hulbert, 50, was talked into creating and teaching the class after her aesthetician, Deborah Elliot, learned of her infamous background in blackjack and poker. The next session of Girls’ Poker and Power Night will begin Thursday.

At 24, Hulbert moved to Las Vegas from New York to pursue a career in poker with absolutely no knowledge of the game. She picked up a job as a blackjack dealer before encountering a notorious group of professional card counters known as “The Czechs.”

While dealing to a member of the team, Hulbert noticed the variation in his bets and asked the man, quite frankly, what type of system he was using.

“I came to Vegas to be a poker player and I stumbled on to something I didn’t even know existed,” said Hulbert, of Torrance.

Soon she was traveling the world’s casinos, at first just occupying a seat for the group and then counting cards, making hundreds of thousands of dollars and working seven days a week.

The money did not come easily.

Hulbert was arrested more than 50 times in Atlantic City for trespassing and was barred from casinos throughout Asia before playing a game there.

In one instance, she was so angry at being thrown out of the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas that she visited a disguise specialist in New York and returned to the Hilton donning a beard and men’s clothing. She was soon discovered, however, and chose to escape rather than endure another rough and humiliating removal by hotel security. In 1986, Hulbert was ready to tackle what she originally set out to do — play poker and make money doing it.

Unlike many women who convert poker chips into mortgage payments or other practical necessities, Hulbert said, she has the ability to take on a more male point of view and regard the chips as an investment.

Hulbert said women are not as interested as men in poker for reasons inherent in their nature.

“It’s compassion,” said Hulbert, whom Cardplayer Magazine ranked No. 20 in the world in skill level at Seven-Card-Stud. “That’s why I don’t think women do it. Because you cannot afford to show any compassion toward any opponent for any reason. Women are just nicer people. I take a lot of pride in being emotionless, which is contrary to my basic personality.”

She also considers being a woman at the poker table an advantage if used properly.

“Men make mistakes against me that they might not make against other men,” Hulbert said. “Because in poker you have to be capable of folding your hand when it’s no longer superior quality and because they are so anxious to beat me they will continue to put in hands even though it is a lost cause. But I do enjoy beating a lot of different chauvinistic men.”

Charles Dirden of Los Angeles is a regular at the Hollywood Park Casino. He said he doesn’t mind watching the women play poker, but he has no interest in joining them.

“Poker is a man’s game,” Dirden said. “We like to smoke and talk dirty. I don’t like playing with ladies because I have a little sympathy for women. It’s kind of like a competition and when I compete I like to compete against men.”

The women playing under Hulbert’s guidance seem oblivious to any kind of disapproval. They sip wine and order food and apologize to their friends when winning money from them.

Janet Carpenter, a student of Hulbert’s current poker class, said the women can get competitive like the men only they are much more forgiving. She said she loves the camaraderieshe has been exposed to through women’s poker nights.

“There were seven other women who were strangers before this class,” Carpenter said. “Now I have seven new friends.”

Deborah Elliot, the aesthetician from Redondo Beach who encouraged Hulbert to start the class, has been a student since the courses began in April. She said poker has helped her in areas of her life away from the card table.

“I think this experience gets you comfortable in an environment with people you don’t know,” she said. “It has just made me socially more aware.”

In promoting the class, Hulbert stresses her belief that poker mimics life.

“Just as we shouldn’t take the weather personally,” she said, “we shouldn’t take what cards we are dealt personally either. Whether we are dealt sunshine or hail stones, the key is to maintain equanimity with poise, integrity and self-respect. Just as in life, our actions and reactions are the only things we truly own.”

Hulbert’s class incorporates every aspect of playing poker, including how to walk into a casino, reading opponents’ body language, money management, and dealing with uncouth opponents. She hands out quizzes, cheat sheets and a vocabulary list.

“Every chance you get, lie to those boys,” Hulbert advises her eager students.

Some of the women plan on trying a hand or two at the mostly male tables, but they are adamant about continuing to only allow women into the class. Though Hulbert’s plans for teaching only include women, her plans for winning only include men. She said the sisterhood keeps her from enjoying winning against women.

For Hulbert, winning is her way of supporting herself. Cards are also something she has been passionate about since childhood.

“Poker is an evolving art, where each card unravels its own mystery, where I am immediately rewarded for my good decisions and punished for my bad ones,” she said.

“It’s a total mental involvement that allows me to shine, relax, develop friendships, observe the human psyche or hide from outside stress. It’s highly stimulating whether I win or lose, but basically it’s fun to make money at something I love to do.”

What: Girls’ Poker and Power Night, 7 to 9 p.m. Thursdays through July 31 at the Hollywood Park Casino, 3883 W. Century Blvd., Inglewood. Cost is $150. Information: 310-530-0336 or e-mail straytales@earthlink.net.

Publish Date:July 4, 2003