Jan Fisher: Poker Was Like WHAT in the 80’s?!

Today’s guest on CPG is a legend of the game who has experienced the evolution and transformation of the poker world first hand over the past 40 years… the indomitable Jan Fisher.

I’m not gonna lie to you, this is a hard intro for me to do because the following conversation shifted the paradigm in which I view the legends of poker in the 70’s and 80’s.

As it turns out, most of the folks I idolized as an 18 year old kid aspiring to be a professional poker player were unimaginably abusive to both dealers and their fellow poker players.

It’s simultaneously a bizarre and sobering thought to imagine my personal heroes of poker chucking cards at dealers and cursing them out because they had the audacity to deal out a bad river card, but that’s a reality Jan lived through and experienced first hand as both a dealer and a player in her poker journey.

It begs a very important question:

How much goodwill and forgiveness ought to be given to human beings simply because they’re a unique and transcendent talent?

It’s a question that, quite frankly, makes me sad to even ask.

I believe it’s easy for us as human beings to have infinite grace because of raw talent when we weren’t the ones who actually experienced the pain and suffering caused by the abuse.

Ultimately, I believe this question can only be answered honestly by the folks who have paid the physical and emotional price. The souls who live with the scars of nightly mistreatment for years on end by the very folks we call our heroes.

If you’re one of these humans and would like to tell your side of the story, please feel free to fire me an email at brad@chasingpokergreatness.com.

Now, without any further ado, I’m proud to bring to you a human being blessed with supernatural strength, endurance, and resolve… a woman who transformed the game of poker from the inside out and didn’t stand for any disrespectful nonsense… Jan Fisher.