Playing Against the Field

Angela Jordison needs no help in a game that is dominated by men. After all, one doesn’t become a professional poker player like Jordison unless she can play.

The 44-year-old Terrebonne resident has won more than $120,000 in her poker career, according to CardPlayer.com. And she has “cashed” (won money) three times at the World Series of Poker, poker’s grandest event.

Last year, Jordison made poker news by winning the first three no-limit Texas hold’em tournaments at the Spring Poker Round-Up at the Wildhorse Resort & Casino in Pendleton, a feat she sizes up as a 52 million to 1 shot.

Not bad for a woman who already has a full plate as a business owner — she owns Sassy’s Cafe in Redmond — and as a married mother of two young adults (ages 22 and 18).

“Most of the time women make up like 3 percent of the field,” Jordison said. “So to have success as a woman you kind of stand out more because (poker) is so male dominated.”

Being a woman certainly comes into play at the table for Jordison. Sometimes men play their hands differently, checking a bet when they might have ordinarily raised, she said.

Often she has been underestimated, and that can be an advantage.

“When you come to the table I think that they initially will think that you’re not as strong of a player as the other male players at the tables,” Jordison said. “A lot of times it comes out pretty quickly that you can hold your own.”

She grew up in a card-playing family, mostly playing just for fun. And when she first got married, Jordison and her husband, Tim, would gamble recreationally.

In 2004, she opened Sassy’s Cafe and began to offer blackjack. Then she opened the Sky Box, a sports bar in downtown Redmond (which she no longer owns), around the time poker started booming in the mid-2000s.

Intrigued, she decided to open a poker room at Sky Box.

“That is when I started to get more exposed to it on a more serious level than something you just played over the dining room table,” Jordison said. “That was really successful and extremely popular.”

Jordison started playing more, joining tournaments in Oregon casinos whenever her busy schedule would allow. She even traveled to bigger events, like the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, if she could.

Her breakout came in Pendleton, where she cashed $38,000 for her three wins.

“I’ve always known she was good, and she’s always beat our family members whenever we played as young kids,” said Trevor Jordison, Angela’s 22-year-old son who often plays in the same tournaments as his mother. “When I was in high school, she really started to take it seriously and doing it four or five nights a week and really improving.

“I never thought of it as unusual. … It was definitely different, though. And people were always interested in it.”

With her 18-year-old daughter, Makena, joining Trevor as students at the University of Oregon, Jordison has had more opportunity to travel to poker tournaments. She’s mostly played in poker hubs such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and nearly won a World Poker Tour event in Reno, Nevada.

In all, she has cashed 12 times since last June in what has been by far her busiest year. But Jordison, who is drawn to poker because of her innate competitiveness, wants more.

Jordison has the World Series of Poker this summer, and she’s ready to take the next step.

“I’m ready for a six-digit win against a tough field in a prestigious tournament,” Jordison said. “I’ve been close several times in the last year, but they are really hard to close out.”