The Most Dangerous Woman in Poker

7 years ago
The Lucky Black Cat
11:32
14 Dec

(Photo: Cat Hulbert)

The 64-year old pink-haired woman sitting at the poker table across from you might seem like any other eccentric, but if that woman happens to be Cathy ‘Cat’ Hulbert, then beware!


(Photo: Cat Hulbert)


Because there was a time when the girl with "fantastic skin, tanned, stylish interesting hair… always black, black as night with roguish curls and waves,” couldn’t walk through the door of a casino anywhere in the world such was her skills at card-games.

Banned from 150 casinos world-wide and ‘arrested’ by casino security more than 50 times during her prolific career, Hulbert was one of the original blackjack counters who – as part of ‘the Czechs’ gang - would travel the world to ply their secret skills.

Having originally moved to Las Vegas to become a poker pro, it would be decades before she finally turned her hand to the dream she had as a college graduate, but when she did she soon mastered the game of poker much in the same way as her agile mind had mastered the game of 21, leading Card Player Magazine to name Hulbert as one of the best 7 card stud poker players in the world.

"Every hand I was dealt had the allure of an unopened present,” she said recently, her late conversion to poker immersing her finally in the game she had planned on long before. “Even in the dull periods when I didn't have a playable hand, I would watch other people's choices and behavior and play along mentally, figuring out their puzzles for myself.”


(Photo: Cat Hulbert)


Often described as a sultry vixen, the raven-haired beauty found that although, “Blackjack had given me a big bankroll and a big ego,” the poker table would take something more than looks and remembering cards.

"The first three years I played poker I lost and I lost and I kept losing. Then I met David Heyden, who was regarded as the world's greatest seven-card stud player.”

Soon she was not only winning, but also training other women to play and penning the book‘Outplaying the Boys: Poker Tips for Competitive Women’ as she did so.

"I do believe we are innately better players than men,” she claims. “We are more reflective and intuitive, and seem to have more guises at our disposal. On the downside, women are more compassionate, and there is no room for that at the poker table. We also lack brute strength, which may be one reason I have been robbed numerous times, including once at gunpoint behind the Peppermill in Vegas.”


(Photo: Cat Hulbert)


Still playing $40/80 live poker when the mood takes her, Hulbert is as dangerous as it gets when it comes to card-games. Despite a brief online poker romance she believes that.

"A card game is a coming together of luck, brains and temperament, and to really enjoy the complexity and nuance of poker you must play face-to-face.”

Personally, I would be avoiding any game with a woman capable of getting herself banned, arrested and still able to walk off with millions - they could be your millions!


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Andrew from Edinburgh, Scotland, is a professional journalist, international-titled chess master, and avid poker player.Read more

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