Molly Bloom Talks Competition in Poker, Skiing and Sobriety

It is perhaps a sign of the times – or at least the state of the game – that the great poker masscult-icon of this decade is shaping up to be Molly Bloom. Her role was not at the table as much as owning it and renting it out to the biggest names from Hollywood to Wall Street.

That, and also going down in a welter of FBI raids and frozen banks accounts.

Given that she was on trial for federal crimes and suspected ties to organised crime, she seems to have got off light – just 200 hours of community service for “being a player in an illegal gambling ring”. But that didn’t mean it was all plain sailing. 

In a recent interview with ESPN, she talked about the extraordinary pressure of running such a high stakes games.

Booze, Drugs and Rock’n’roll Stars

As the game-runner she was taking players credit and paying cash (or cheque) out. The result was that she was constantly in and out of debt depending on how quickly she could chase up the markers she held. 

A lot of what got her through the stress of it all was her sporting background.

“Because of athletics, I got real comfortable with risk at a young age,” she said. “I made choices that I may not have made otherwise. In sports, especially skiing, you have to be comfortable with risk.”

That wasn’t all that helped her with the stress. There was also the drugs and alcohol you’d expect in a story like this.

Having already had to remake her life once after an injury nixed her skiing career, she had to do it all again in the wake of her conviction. It is something her competitive nature has always helped her with.

“I approach everything,” she says, “including sobriety with the same mentality I approached sports.”

Lights, Camera, Action

Instead of folding, she cleaned up her act, wrote a book, and started chasing Aaron Sorkin to turn it into a film for her. Served well again by her knack for sticktoitiveness she tracked him down through a thicket of lesser filmmakers who “didn’t see beyond the glitz and glam.”

When describing the process of consulting on her own life. She joked that the process of being grilled by Sorkin and his writing team for research was cathartic.

“I should probably pay him for therapy,” she quipped. 

Either way it seems to have paid off.

“This isn't just a movie or a book for me, it's given me a viable second chance,” she said. “It's an incredible moment.”