Ask Chip and Karina

Q: What advice would you give to people who have a poker playing significant other?

Karina: Try to stay positive and be supportive of their play (no matter how terrible it is).

Chip: Do not allow your spouse to take out a life insurance policy on you for more than $10,000. That way you can avoid any "accidents."

Q: What part of each others's game would you like to borrow on occasion.?

Karina: Deep in a tournament, I sometimes play too conservatively. I would borrow Chip's aggresiveness and fearlessness. The ability to build huge chip stacks is vital in tournament play.

Chip: The ability to build huge chips stacks comes along with my other specialty: The ability to go from Chip "leader" Jett to Chip "less" Jett. I guess Karina's ability to downshift into a more stable gear would come in handy occasionally.

Q: What are the poker strengths and weaknesses of your spouse?

Karina: I think Chip is a very talented poker player, and I have learned a lot from him. He can be very tricky and he knows how to manipulate situations in his favor. But even though I admire his fearlessness, I think it hurts him. He sometimes has one speed, which I believe is a weekness, because to be a great player, you must adjust to every situation and change your speeds.

Chip: For live-game play, Karina's strength is that she has approximately a 95.6 win percentage, which is a nice quality to look for in a spouse. Her weakness is that she can play only 30-40 hours straight before whining, "I'm tired". For tournaments, her strength is her ability to amass chips through solid, conservative play. (I never tried that myself, but it seems to work for her.) Her tournament weakness is the same as that of most female players – the inability or fear of exploiting certain recurring tournament scenarios (also known as "not being able to pull the trigger"). Remember, ladies, if you can bring the hammer down on your man at home, you can bring it down on your poker opponents.