Listen in as Amy and Jennifer talk to Carmenlita Cothron, who recently won $100k in PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge.

Carmenlita is a 42 year old Sign Language Interpreter, who is originally from Anchorage Alaska, but now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.  She started playing poker only three years ago.

Carmenlita has a BA in Business & Accounting, and an MA in Linguistics, with an emphasis on non-verbal communication, which she claims helps her in reading her opponents.  

She says that in every family function when she was growing up, all games were played for money, maybe just nickels and dimes, but money was involved.   So, she learned the value of a dollar pretty quickly, and learned what it took to win even quicker, being extremely competitive.   Playing live cash games with some friends, she heard of online poker, and a freeroll that would possibly give her the chance to play poker on TV with some of the worlds most famous professional players.  She boasted to her friends that they were gonna see her on TV playing poker one day, and they did.  

Carmenlita was able to make it through the grueling qualifying process to be one of 16 contestants on the FOX PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge, and out of the 16, Carmenlita was the only one to win all her heads up matches.  She walked away with a prize of $100,000.  Carmenlita hopes that her skills continue to improve so that one day, she can say she took down the WSOP Main Event.  Her dream is to open up a Early Education Resource Center for deaf children and their families.

Be sure to tune to listen to this wonderful and energetic poker player that we are sure we'll be seeing in the spotlight again soon!

Women's Poker Hour With Your Hosts Amy Zupko and Jennifer Shahade.

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