Alexandra Botez Could Pull Poker Back Into The Mainstream

I blogged earlier today about the huge cash game last name that had the biggest streamers in the world as well as Phil Hellmuth and Tom Dwan.

But what I should have spent more time on was another player who stole the show- Alexandra Botez. Alex is a very popular chess Twitch streamer and internet personality, and has an awesome story:

Alexandra Valeria Botez is an American-Canadian chess player and commentator, Twitch streamer, and YouTuber. As a player, she became a five-time Canadian National Girls Champion and won the U.S. Girls Nationals at age 15. She achieved her highest FIDE Elo rating of 2092 in March 2016, and she currently holds the International Chess Federation title of Woman FIDE Master.

So she's extremely bright, worked her ass off to become one of the best chess players in the world, and is now transitioning into the poker world, which makes a ton of sense, because there is a ton of money to be made in poker. And last night was more or less her coming out party in the poker world, winning huge pot after huge pot, much to the chagrin of Phil Hellmuth, who berated her all night for making a good call. She took it in stride and gave it back to him some, but like most people, tried not to irritate Phil too much because he's ultimately good for the game. She walked away last night up $456,900, not a bad haul for 6 hours of work.

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Alex is the perfect poker ambassador- she's charismatic, extremely bright, good at the game, and quite an attractive woman. It's the perfect combo to get everyone interested in the game- men, women, and children alike.

Last night's game has not just taken the poker world by storm, but is making waves across the internet. When you have 2 of the most famous internet personalities of all time, Mr. Beast and Ninja, playing poker, people are going to watch. Plus it was streamed on Ludwig's channel, and has over 1 million views in 15 hours.

I'm not going to say last night was the beginning of the poker boom 2.0, but it certainly was the beginning of something. It'll take time to figure out what exactly it was the beginning of, but a ton of more people are interested in poker today than were yesterday. Without online poker legal across the country it's hard to have that big of a boom as the Moneymaker effect, but the more eyeballs on the game, the better. Hopefully this is the beginning of things to come.