Positively Violette

For Cyndy Violette, poker has been more than a 20-year odyssey. From the pit in Binion's Horseshoe to Benny's Bullpen and World Series of Poker fame, she came up in the poker world at a time when the only way to learn was by doing. She's seen good and bad days, but even when she ends up in the red, one thing always remains positive: her attitude.



With four final tables since June, three of them at the World Series of Poker, and more than $400,000 in tournament earnings this year, there is no doubt that Cyndy Violette's positive approach to life is leading to big gains at the poker table.



The results of her hard work are on display when I pull into her new luxury apartment complex in Los Angeles, and trade being captain of my red Ford Focus for the passenger seat in her gold drop-top Lexus: a sweet car with a noticeable dent from recently sideswiping Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi's Hummer. I buckle up, and ask her if she's been playing a lot.



She tells me she's been settled into the new place for only two days, and hasn't had time. L.A. is now the third place Violette can call "home," as she has a house in Atlantic City and a condo in Las Vegas. She seems excited when she says she'll be going to Commerce Casino after our interview for some cash-game action.



Cyndy believes that you create your own reality, and your own destiny, and it is with this knowledge that I let her dictate the course of the afternoon.



Our first stop is the M Café, a vegan restaurant in L.A. CardPlayer.com's live video updates and ESPN's World Series of Poker coverage have made Cyndy's commitment to a macrobiotic diet common knowledge. She brings me here for my foray into this subculture, and opens up about her past over some soup and rice.



Growing Up
Violette was born in Queens, New York – she pauses a moment before divulging, "in 1959." Her father owned a successful nightclub called Tune Timers, and entertained in a band that shared the same name. When Cyndy was 12 years old, her parents separated, and she, her sister, and her mother went to live with her grandmother in Indiana. Around the same time, her father sold his nightclub and moved to Las Vegas. After only seven months, Violette's mom began to miss her husband, and it was off to "Sin City."



Although initially she dismisses the notion that growing up in Vegas is all that different from growing up somewhere else, or that there is some subconscious draw to gambling for its residents, the gambling bug certainly caught Violette at a young age. "Actually, I started playing blackjack when I was like 18 or 19. I had a fake ID, and I went in and played blackjack. I loved playing blackjack. I met somebody that was a really good card counter, and I was doing that for a while. We did win money, but it was too much of a grind. It didn't really appeal to me."



The other side of the nature versus nurture debate gets its talking when Cyndy talks about the gamblers in her family. "My dad says my grandfather played poker. I never met him, but he was a really good poker player, supposedly. My father was a gambler. He loved to bet on sports. Our Sundays were always spent watching football, but he never played poker. So, the gambling blood was in the family, that's for sure."



Aspirations Before Poker
It seems like Violette was destined to do something that required irregular work hours, loads of adrenaline, and guts. At one point she was enrolled in a community college, where she studied to become an emergency medical technician (EMT). After enrolling, she got into a car accident that took her off that career path.



I ask her if she's a daredevil by nature. "Maybe," she says. Does she bungie jump? "No." Jump out of airplanes? She laughs, but again the answer is, "No."



Although the topic of being a woman in the poker world rarely comes up in our nearly four hours together, the always thoughtful Violette pauses a few moments, making sure to get it right before offering another theory as to why she never tried any other conventional careers before poker: "For me, I was never raised with an upbringing of being career-oriented in my mind. In my head, I just figured I'd deal blackjack, or whatever, eventually get married, and not have to worry about being a professional anything," she said, "while most men are [raised to be career-oriented]. When they're growing up, they are ingrained to be somebody, quote, or to have a career – to bring home the money – while women generally aren't."



So Cyndy went back to blackjack, this time as a dealer. She took a job in the pit at Binion's Horseshoe, where she stayed for about a year. She got married, and soon thereafter became pregnant with her only daughter, Shannon.



Poker Is Born

How does an expectant mother spend time in Las Vegas? By playing $1-$3 seven-card stud at the Silver Slipper. At least that's how it was for Cyndy Violette. During her maternity leave, she spent all of her time at the poker table.



But poker proved to be more than just a diversion. After giving birth to her daughter, she learned to deal poker. When she returned to work, she still found herself playing all the time, now after her shifts at the casino. For Cyndy, there was no watershed moment in her decision to go pro (although she did quit on the heels of a successful run at a tournament in Lake Tahoe). Instead, she says, "I just decided. I knew I loved it enough to do it full time. It wasn't like I was in a career at the time that I could never get my job back. It just kind of happened. I go with the flow. I did it, and that's it."



In 1983, Cyndy quit her job to play poker full time.

Early Success

She recalls an early satellite victory at the Bingo Palace, a $100 buy-in with a huge field, that netted her a seat in the World Series main event, and $7,000 in cash, as one of her first sizeable scores.



However, Cyndy's first major poker accomplishment came in 1986, when she took down first place and $74,000 in prize money in a seven-card stud event at the Golden Nugget. The prize was the most ever won at one time by a female poker player up until that point, and gave her instant celebrity. "It was really exciting. At the time, I had a friend who was kind of like my nanny for my daughter, so I bought her a car."



Cyndy was riding high, with instant celebrity, and the respect of the poker world. And then, with well-wishers and media outlets all scrambling to get a piece of the pretty young card shark – she disappeared.



A Hiatus

There have been a few times in Cyndy's life when it seemed that poker would become a part of her past rather than lead to such a fruitful future.



"In 1986 when I won my first tournament, it was a big deal because a woman had never really won anything major. I was getting all this press, I did an article for Playboy, and I had David Letterman calling me. I had all this stuff going on, and it was too much for me to handle. And that's when I got married to someone I had just met. He swept me off my feet and took me to Washington."



Cyndy credits much of her success in the poker world, and in life, to her self-reflective nature. She is constantly trying to improve herself, and heal whatever ills she may have. Looking back, she says, "It was almost like I couldn't handle success. It was almost like a fear of mine to handle all the success, so I just took off, and went and got married."



But in the end, her love for the game was too deep to remain dormant for long. When things didn't work out with her ex-husband, she went back to playing poker full time. "I did try to live life without it," she says. "I didn't realize how much I loved it until I went back to it. It has to be a part of my life."



Rolled In The Barrel
The type of longevity that Violette has managed in the poker world is atypical. Poker is a beautiful but brutal game that sends wannabes home broke by the minute. Not Cyndy. She has been playing and winning for 20 years – not that she hasn't seen her share of hard times. "Like Barry Greenstein once said, to be a good poker player, you have to have been rolled in the barrel a few times. You have to be able to handle it. I'm a very strong person, and I'm proud of that.



And I've definitely taken my rolls in the barrel a few times. You can't be too sensitive. And you have to be able to take the ups and the downs, and be able to get back up on your feet and get back on the horse. Have a lot of heart. When I get stuck or buried, I sit there and stay focused and play my heart out. I always seem to dig in deep and play hard."



Most poker professionals you ask will tell you that going broke is a rite of passage for even the most accomplished players. The risk that players take in dedicating their lives to the game can often find them in less than ideal financial situations. As usual, Cyndy puts a positive spin on a very negative aspect of the life. "I've been broke many times. I've had to borrow money, or somebody's put me in to get me back on my feet. But during those times, it made me a better player. All the times that I did go broke, it wasn't that I wasn't winning. I could win 10 times in a row. I had no money management, and spent a lot, so I might lose $50,000 on one play, and that would be my bankroll."



It seems that Cyndy focuses so much on the positive that topics about the negative always require a qualifier. She doesn't like to complain, so she adds, "But I have no regrets. I love my life. I love the lifestyle. And I love poker."



We hop back in the Lexus, presumably en route to Real Foods Daily, another vegan restaurant in West Hollywood that she had planned as our second stop. We get going in that direction when she changes her mind. "I'm not that hungry. I don't think I can eat again. You want to go get coffee?" Caffeine addict that I am, I oblige. Cyndy, like poker, is at once plotting and whimsical. It is obvious why she loves the game, and the lifestyle.



I ask her what's in the CD player, and she turns up a motivational CD produced by a gentleman known only as "The Coach." He speaks about your ability to create anything you desire in your life. "The Coach" does not sell his CDs, she tells me; instead, he gives them away to people who ask for them. She also tells me that "The Coach" gave her a nickname, one that many people may not be familiar with yet: Ultra-Violette. "He's great," she says with a smile, as she turns up the volume. Then she turns it back down and let's me in on a project in the works. She plans to come out with a series of positive affirmation CDs for poker players. The working title? "Positive Poker." We stop on the side of the Urth Café, an organic coffee house, to talk about her life now.



A New Cyndy

Cyndy Violette is no longer afraid of success – and it shows. In 2004 she won her first World Series of Poker bracelet in the $2,000 seven-card stud eight-or-better event, beating out Vegas local Pete Kaufman, and becoming only the eighth female bracelet winner in history.



Her performance in the 2005 World Series of Poker saw her make three final tables, pocket more than $400,000, and come within one Erik Seidel of her second bracelet.



I ask her where her bracelet is, expecting the distant location of mantel, bedroom, or safe. Instead, Cyndy reaches into her handbag, and pulls out a small plastic bag with the hefty hunk of diamond-bordered gold (she added the diamonds herself) inside. She mentions that they should make bracelets for women as I ogle the coveted piece of hardware.



She also tells me that she's working on getting a sponsorship deal from a poker website, as well as updating her own web portal, http://www.cyndyviolette.com/.



And to think that just recently she was nearly ready to give up poker to pursue her ultimate goal of opening a vegetarian café and bookstore. But then, poker's big bang happened, and renewed her energy for the game. The explosion of no-limit hold'em has also been integral in rejuvenating Cyndy's career. "It (her main game) was seven-card stud, but now I'm really liking no-limit hold'em. I've been playing stud for so many years. It's refreshing to play a different game. I feel a little bit more challenged, and I'm meeting new players. It's just a change for me. I feel like I'm getting better, a lot better at no-limit hold'em."

What Makes A Champion?

To Cyndy, winning poker begins away from the table. In her opinion, your diet, attitude, and preparation are as important as starting hands, pot odds, and value bets. "Anyone can learn the game. Everybody can play poker. That's why the other things are so important. All the preparation and the feel of the game are the things that are going to make you better than the next person. When I'm preparing for poker, I never read a poker book. I go and work on myself."



I ask her to quantify which aspect is the most important to her success.



"I think my attitude, having a positive attitude. Out of everything, that has always been part of my game: to think positive, have a positive attitude, and not let one bad beat or something take me off my whole game. I'm pretty good at letting it go. Poker's not about one hand; it's the whole picture. So, I don't let things bother me."



Her preparation includes a workout, visualizations, writing positive affirmations (such as: I'm focused – I'm playing well – I deserve to be successful), and, of course, eating right. She started a craze at the 2005 World Series of Poker when she hired her friend and macrobiotic chef, Sassy, to cook for her during the six-weeklong tournament. Violette's success likely prompted many to ask, "What are they feeding you?" And when they found out the answer, other big-name pros, including Erik Seidel, John Hennigan, and Mickey Appleman, dropped the overpriced pizza and hotdogs for whole foods.



Mirror, Mirror, On The Felt

Cyndy believes that poker mirrors life. So what happens when she doesn't prepare? She says poker lets her know, and that's one of the many beauties of the game for her. "The thing about poker is, you constantly get that reflection; every time you go play, it's right there in your face, you can't avoid it. Some people go to work and put their hours in, and no matter what happens, they're going to get a paycheck at the end of the week. I'm not. If I'm not ready and prepared and want to play my best … I mean, sometimes you can get lucky and still get away with it, but for the most part you're not going to. Poker can be very unforgiving when you're not on top of things, and that's what's great about it: It keeps you on top of yourself. It's really about yourself. It's not about the other players."



We leave the Urth Café and head back to the car. As we're getting in, Cyndy notices a white piece of paper underneath her windshield wiper. It's L.A., so it could be a promotion to some nightclub. It turns out to be a parking ticket. She laughs it off, and tosses it in the glove box.



The last stop on our tour of L.A.'s finest organic eats is Real Foods Daily. All of the food has been amazing, and I tell her so. She warns me that if I start eating this way, I'll never want to eat anything else. I believe her. We share a Mexican-style vegan dinner and some tiramisu, and talk about her future.



The Future
Coming off her impressive World Series performance, and some deep finishes in a few other major events, Cyndy seems primed to achieve one of her goals: a victory in a major event ($5,000-$10,000 buy-in). She says she feels like a big win is in her near future, and who would argue with her?



The airing of the 2005 World Series of Poker has continued to elevate Cyndy's celebrity status. In the past few weeks she's been recognized and approached in a Whole Foods Market, and received tons of e-mail about her macrobiotic diet. She's glad that she can inspire people to make healthy choices in their lives, but is a bit overwhelmed, saying that she doesn't want to be looked at as a "guru." It's just what works for her.



Still, she says that her ultimate goal is to open a vegetarian café/bookstore, but while poker is booming, her place is at the table.



And the future of her beloved game? As with everything, she is endlessly optimistic: "I think (in five years) it'll be bigger than ever. It has a long life ahead. More and more and more people are getting involved every day. It's huge, and it's going to become even more huge."

Rolling in 2005
Cyndy Violette put on a clinic at the 2005 World Series of Poker. She cashed five times, made three final tables, and pocketed $400,905. Violette, who in the past was best known for her skill at seven-card stud, banked in hold'em events only at the 2005 WSOP.



Here is a summary of all of her 2005 money finishes:
• Legends of Poker, $5,000 no-limit hold'em main event, 22nd place, $20,850

• Ultimate Poker Challenge, $10,000 main event, ninth place, $15,200

• World Series of Poker, $3,000 limit hold'em, Seventh place, $44,820

• World Series of Poker, $5,000 pot-limit hold'em, seventh place, $44,930

• World Series of Poker, $2,000 no-limit hold'em, second place, $295,970

• World Series of Poker, $2,500 shorthanded no-limit hold'em , 20th place, $8,825

• World Series of Poker, $1,500 no-limit hold'em, 56th place, $6,360

• L.A. Poker Classic, $970 seven-card stud eight-or-better, 10th place, $1,804



Cyndy's boyfriend, poker professional Mike Wattel, had an impressive Series, as well. He banked nearly $200,000 and, like Cyndy, came very close to taking home a bracelet. He followed up his Series performance by outlasting a stacked field and making the final table in the main event of the Ultimate Poker Challenge.



Inevitably, high-stakes poker players are going to clash at some point or another, so what happens when they meet at the table? Cyndy says they never soft-play one another. "It wouldn't be fair to the other players." And while they may not choose to check-raise each other, or try to make a big bluff when they're heads up, when they play together, they play for keeps.