The Balancing Act

The Balancing Act Poker and Family: Spotlight on Clonie Gowen's Life

Question: It must be hard, having kids and being away from them?

Answer: Oh, it is hard, but if you have a supportive family, they will fly out here three or four times. My son is three years old. His dad, who is my ex-husband, will fly out with him about four times during the World Series. Every night my son and I talk right before he goes to bed, and then every morning when he wakes up. Without Dave, I wouldn't do it, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't be able to do it, and I couldn't do it without somebody who is supportive like he is.

Question: Does your son understand at all what Mom does?

Answer: Oh yeah! He'll say, "Mommy play poker?" Yeah, he loves playing with my poker chips at home. He plays with them all the time.

Question: Are you going to teach him to play?

Answer: If he wants to learn, you know, I'll teach him, but that's not something I push on my kids.

Question: What else do you do when you aren't playing poker?

Answer: I spend most of my free time with my family. I teach for the World Poker Tour boot camp. That's not really free time, but it's something else I do besides play poker. I'm writing a book. And I just play with my kids and spend time with my kids. That really takes up a lot of time. I have very little time, so they're my main focus when I do have free time.

Question: What is your favorite thing to do with your kids?

Answer: Well, my son likes Thomas the choo-choo, so we play trains quite a bit. My 12-year-old daughter likes to shop, so we shop quite a bit.

Question: Does your daughter play poker at all?

Answer: She knows how to play, and she actually plays very well. She started playing when she was about four, four and a half. We had family tournaments at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and she would play in those little $5 tournaments, so she does know how to play. She likes impressing her friends with it, but it's really not her cup of tea. She understands the game, she knows how to play it, but she's more into horseback riding. She competes in horse riding.

Question: We've heard you worked on a book. Tell us anything you can about that.

Answer: It is an instructional book geared toward women.

Question: Speaking of being a woman player, does it bother you that people make such a big deal about being a professional poker player as a woman?

Answer: No, it doesn't bother me a bit. It's a niche in this market, being a female player, and a good female player, it definitely is a niche. There are only a handful of us who play the big buy-in events. So, no, it doesn't bother me, I'm proud to be a woman sitting at the table.

Question: Do guys act differently at the table?

Answer: Oh, sure they do, but that's one of the advantages we have. Men have bigger egos than we do, when you let your ego get in the way, you tend to make more mistakes. But top players they're not really going to make that many mistakes against a woman, but your average player will make a lot of mistake against a woman.

Question: Do you ever have any amateurs who come in and antagonize you for being a woman?

Answer: Not for being a woman, well, it probably is. Usually it's the younger guys. They want to try to push women around. Again, you go back to their ego. Their ego gets in the way, and they make more mistakes. Yeah, occasionally you have it. I have played in some home games where you have a certain male type who just doesn't want you in that game at all because this is his boys' night out, and you're intruding. If I'm there, then heaven help him, maybe his wife will get invited. That kind of bothers them at times, but usually in the casinos, that doesn't come into play as much.