Early on in her life, Linda Johnson had two paths available to her. In one, she stayed in her cushy government job at the US Postal Service, worked her way up to Postmaster General, and lived a comfortable life. In the other, she gave it all up and chased her dream of playing poker for a living.
She chose the gamble, and she won big.
These days, Johnson is a lot of things. She’s a successful businesswoman who runs her own line of poker cruises. She’s a philanthropist who has helped thousands of people through her Poker Gives charity that she co-founded along with her friends. She’s a World Series of Poker bracelet-winner. And in 2011, she became the second woman inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. She has a smile seemingly permanently affixed behind her trademark red-rimmed glasses, and a delightful laugh that she sprinkled throughout her conversation with The Sporting News.
Don’t get it twisted, though. When it comes to the poker table, she’s check-raised her own mother to win the maximum amount of money possible.
“I have three rules for playing poker,” she told The Sporting News. “Win money, have a good time, and make sure my opponents have a good time too.”
Johnson got her poker start in the 1970’s when her father, who worked in the military and played poker to supplement his income, suggested she learn the game. After buying a few books and studying, she started playing in a home game with her co-workers. That invitation didn’t last long.
“They had a little meeting at first and they decided that I could play because they thought that I would be a fish [Ed. note: A fish is a poker term for a losing player]. And so as long as I was losing for the first month, I was welcome to play. But after I started winning, not so much.”
From there, Johnson took her game to the local card rooms in Gardena, California to test her wits against more serious players. She called it “not such a nice atmosphere.” She was oftentimes the only woman in a smoke-filled room full of crabby old men.
Some of them were very kind, treating her like a daughter. More were not. Over four decades later, she still recalls some of their barbs.
“It’s a man’s game.”
“You shouldn’t be playing.”
“You should be at home, taking care of your husband. Cooking. Cleaning.”
“We really don’t think that they should let women play.”
Johnson didn’t let those comments get in the way of playing the game that she loved. Men would blow smoke in her face. She would take their money.
“I was young and naive,” Johnson recalled. “”When you're 21, you don't really know how to handle yourself. But pretty quickly, I just said, You know what? I'm not going to let these guys intimidate me. When they barked at me. I just barked back. If you defend yourself, bullies will leave you alone.”
Johnson would take weekend flights to Las Vegas, where the atmosphere was only slightly better. Undeterred, she played 18 hours of poker a day and loved every minute of it. After placing fifth in the 1980 World Series of Poker Ladies Event, she decided to quit her job at the Postal Service to see if she could make it as a poker player. She hasn’t looked back since.
Johnson played professionally for the next 13 years. There were a handful of other women, but the industry was dominated by men. She would put in long hours to win five or six-hundred dollars on a good night. Back in the 1980’s, that was pretty good money.
Her life changed again in 1992 after attending a Card Player poker cruise with some friends. They loved the experience so much that they asked if they could get involved. Much to their surprise, the owners were looking to retire. They were offered the entire business, consisting of a cruise line and a poker magazine.
Normal human beings would have been anxious at undertaking such a large endeavor with no prior experience. But Johnson is extraordinary. She saw an opportunity, and she bet on herself again.
“One thing I have is confidence,” she said with another one of her trademark laughs. “We had a fake it till you make it attitude.”
Johnson and her partners thrived, changing Card Player from a dull black-and-white newspaper to a glossy magazine featured in poker rooms across the country. They eventually sold the magazine for a tidy profit in 2000. She still owns and runs the cruise part of the business, which remains one of her passions. She’s visited well over 100 countries on more than 300 cruises.
One of the benefits of owning the magazine was that Johnson was given a platform to speak. She used it to clean up the game she loved.
“I am proud of the fact that at one point after I had taken over Card Player magazine, I just said enough is enough. We're never going to grow if we aren't more welcoming to new people. If somebody were to come in and play, they would never come back because it just wasn't nice. So I went to the people who ran the World Series and told them we needed to make some changes. And then they instituted the penalty system.”
That rules system and the work that Johnson did in co-founding the Poker Tournament Director’s Association changed poker for the better. Players who were abusive to staff or others were penalized or banned from tournaments. Abuse was quickly toned down. And slowly, more women have started entering the playing field. Most poker rooms still see mostly men, but board one of her poker cruises and you will see that 35 to 40 percent of the players are women.
Johnson was recognized by peers for her contributions to the game in 2011, when she was named to the Poker Hall of Fame. The honor was well-deserved. She won the 1997 Razz bracelet at the World Series of Poker, she was instrumental in starting the World Poker Tour, she cleaned up the game, lobbied on behalf of poker players on Capitol Hill, taught poker clinics for years, and hosted tours designed to get women more involved in the game. She’s been a tireless ambassador, a fearless player, and left the game better than she found it.
“When you love something, you want to do it, you want to help it, and you want to be better. And that's how I feel about poker.”
Walk into a poker room today, and you will see a completely different atmosphere from the one Johnson grinded her way up through. Rather than a room full of cranky old men verbally abusing each other and the staff, it’s a fairly civil environment. It's a better place to play for both men and women. You can thank Johnson for helping to foster that change.
These days, you can still find Johnson at the poker table. She plays a bit online and visits the casino when the $75/150 Omaha eight-or-better tables are running at the World Series of Poker. She’s still scooping up pots in the thousands of dollars, still laughing, and enjoying the friendly atmosphere that she helped create.