Debbie Blair
Debbie Blair sat at a poker table for the first time four years ago.
The mother of two from Vail is now one of the most well-regarded players in the state, and last summer earned some primo face time on television during the World Series of Poker.
The 39-year-old has earned more than $100,000 in tournaments.
She won the 2006 Arizona State Women's Championship (payout: a gaudy necklace and $40,000) and finished 176th out of 6,358 players at last summer's World Series of Poker main event in Las Vegas (payout: $51,398).
Blair was featured prominently in a World Series episode on ESPN in which she won a pair of huge pots against upstart Italian professional Dario Minieri.
"It was kinda cool," said Blair, who works for a pharmacy benefit management company. "It was exciting. I know my kids really enjoy it. Every time they see me on TV now they're like, 'There's mommy!'"
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Blair said she's immersed herself in poker because of the rush of adrenaline she gets from being involved in a big hand.
"That's why I like it," she said. "And for the money, of course."
Blair sees no end to the poker boom anytime soon.
"I think it's just going to continue to grow," she said. "Especially since they keep coming out with so many more poker shows."
Don Holt
The late Don Holt was a fixture on the professional poker circuit long before the televised poker boom.
The Pittsburgh native moved to Tucson in 1959 and founded Sparkle Cleaners with his wife, Judy, in 1961.
The couple ran the company until 1985, when Holt followed his dream of being a pro poker player and moved to Las Vegas.
Holt, whose nickname was "Tucson Don," won more than $765,000 in major tournaments, according to Card Player Magazine's online tournament database, including $402,000 for finishing second to Brad Daugherty in the 1991 World Series of Poker main event. He also won a World Series event in 1989, claiming $154,000 and a gold bracelet in a seven-card stud tournament.
"It's a lot of luck," Holt said in a 1991 story in the Arizona Daily Star. "You have to get the right cards at the right time."
Holt died in May 2003, shortly after turning 76.
Bryan Wilson
Bryan Wilson was a skilled pool player who had never sat at a poker table when some buddies persuaded him to join them on a trip to the casino.
"I didn't know how to play at all," recalled Wilson, 26. "But I got hooked on it probably within the first six months. Then I started learning, and two years after I started, I realized not only was this a game I could play, but one I could make money playing."
His goal is to someday play poker for a living.
"It's something I've definitely thought about doing if I got in a good position to do so," said Wilson, a Palo Verde High School graduate who deals poker at Desert Diamond Casino. "I just don't want to do anything to endanger my family. I like to pay my bills on time."
As a dealer, Wilson has seen it all in terms of local skill and local interest. There's never a shortage of people looking for a game, he says.
"I think the reason it's stayed popular is because it's got no boundaries," Wilson said. "As the saying goes, it takes a short time to learn but a lifetime to master."
Ned Shabou
Ned Shabou grew up in Paris, where five-card draw was his favorite game.
But when he moved to Tucson in 1997, it was nowhere to be found. Instead, he discovered Texas hold'em and eventually made it his new career.
"Since last August I'm 100 percent playing poker and teaching poker," said Shabou, 49, a former graphic designer. "I thought that this was something that was within my reach."
A fixture at local tournaments, Shabou branched out to bigger events last summer and fall when he hooked up with a pair of local investors who were willing to back him financially. That partnership enabled Shabou to play at the World Series of Poker and at a handful of World Poker Tour stops, earning more than $100,000 along the way.
His top cash came last August, when he won more than $87,000 by finishing second in a $5,000 buy-in tourney at the Legends of Poker in Los Angeles.
Shabou recently signed an endorsement deal with Nutspoker, an European online poker site.
"They give me monthly money to play in tournaments, they give me free money to play on their poker site, and I wear a T-shirt and caps (with their logo) when I play tournaments for them," Shabou said. "When I'm at the Bellagio, or the World Series or the WPT, I have to do a daily blog to tell them how I'm doing and what's going on. And starting in April there will be a tournament online where there is a bounty on my head."
When in town, Shabou says, he works with a handful of local players to enhance their skills and improve their play. Debbie Blair was one of his first students.
