Pint-Sized Poker Player Profiled in Card Player

We all know that poker players are getting younger every year, but this is ridiculous.

Meet seven-year-old Alexa Fisher, a budding poker prodigy from Texas. Alexa came to the attention of the poker world recently when she was profiled in a recent issue of Card Player Magazine. It seems that young Alexa already knows how to play every game played at the World Series of Poker, along with a lot of other poker variants. She’s even already met many of her poker heroes, having chosen the World Series of Poker as the family’s summer vacation destination last year.

Okay, she’s not quite ready for the Main Event yet, but Alexa’s story is both interesting and impressive. When Alexa started becoming interested in learning how to count at age three, her father used a deck of cards to help teach her the basics, using the cards as numbers. When dad later watched a television poker show, Alexa saw the same cards she enjoyed learning with, and loved seeing people “clapping and being happy.”

So the counting lessons continued, bringing in more and more elements of poker as time went on. She learned how to count money using chips, how to recognize straights and flushes, and other poker-related tidbits. By the time she was four, she already knew the basics of poker, and before starting kindergarten, she could play no-limit Texas hold’em. It was only another year before she knew a wider range of poker games than most professionals.

Perhaps her most impressive feat was accomplished this February. According to the Card Player article, little Alexa played in a $30 charity tournament that benefited the Homes for Pets charity. Alexa not only played properly and showed proper etiquette and sportsmanship, but she actually managed to win pots on bluffs and outlasted more than half of the field, finishing higher than her father. Normally, this wouldn’t be notable, but when it’s done by a seven-year-old, people notice.

Thankfully, Alexa also has a life outside of poker. She’s reportedly a straight-A student who’s now in first grade, and poker isn’t allowed to interfere with her studies. And she’s not playing for big money yet; she’s only allowed to play in family games using her own allowance money.

But don’t be so sure you won’t hear from Alexa again. She’ll be eligible for the World Series of Poker in 2024 – and with 14 years left to improve her game, who knows? She might start a new trend of really, really young poker stars.