The popular Poker in the Ears Podcast, a PokerStars production, released its 305th episode on Thursday, and it was headlined by guest Lexy Gavin-Mather.
Gavin-Mather is an author, poker pro, and teaches a poker training course. She joined hosts Joe Stapleton and James Hartigan for an interesting conversation about her experiences with the poker world.
But before the guest appeared, “Uncle Daddy Joe Stapleton” and his “Work Wife” explained that Will Jaffe, a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner and comedic poker X personality, was the original guest slated to appear on Episode 305. Jaffe couldn’t make it because he was too busy playing poker.
Gavin-Mather Joins Poker in the Ears
The conversation with Gavin-Mather started with the poker pro sharing her story about how and when she got into poker. Her entrance into the game began in 2009, right after she graduated college, on PokerStars, and her first live tournament cash came in 2013. Much like many other online poker players following the infamous Black Friday scandal on April 15, 2011, she had to make some changes.
“After Black Friday, I did the whole move to Canada thing with a bunch of pros and started grinding up there,” Gavin-Mather said. “I used to mass multi-table, 24 tables.”
More than a decade ago, she won an online package to a live event and transitioned more to playing live poker, mostly cash games. But she does have over $600,000 in live tournament cashes, according to The Hendon Mob.
Gavin-Mather credited the many poker pros she befriended, dated, or lived with in the past who helped her grow as a poker player. Some names she dropped included Greg Merson and Ankush Mandavia.
“I credit them for so much of my career,” Gavin-Mather said of her early days poker pro friends. “I was a losing player when I first started playing online. I used to mass multi-table micro stakes, you know, and I was struggling beating 5-cent/10-cent for the longest time. I would just sit behind them and I would watch them, and I’d be like ‘why’d you do that?”
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The Poker in the Ears guest would go on to discuss the lifestyle online poker grinders in their 20’s had back in the post-Black Friday era. She then turned her attention to her spouse, Bob Mather, a fellow poker player and enthusiast.
“It was unexpected and the best thing to ever come out of my poker career for me,” she said about her husband.
Gavin-Mather continued to say that she’d been friends with her now husband “for a very long time,” and had met at Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles.
“The summer of 2019, we just kind of fell in love at the (World Series of Poker).”
Many poker pros find it difficult to build long-term relationships, but that hasn’t been the case for Gavin-Mather, who told Stapes and Hartigan that Bob Mather has been supportive of her career, and referred to her marriage as “a team.”
“I don’t think I could have done it without him and his support,” the poker pro said of her supportive spouse.
Not only is Gavin-Mather a poker author and pro, she also has a successful YouTube channel, which she uses to vlog her poker life and share some valuable poker tips for her audience.
To listen to the full conversation on Poker in the Ears, click on the link below or search for it on SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
PokerStars Online Tournament Calendar
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