Chips aren't down yet for poker player

Lee Childs thinks of himself as a poker professional, not a professional poker player.

After winning more than $700,000 at the World Series of Poker in July, the ex-Roanoker is focusing his efforts on teaching others how to play.

"I've always wanted to teach and coach," Childs said. "And to be able to do that with something like poker is something I never imagined."

Childs, 35, has won $139,000 since the World Series and plans to start his own poker training business at the start of the year. Among his first clients will be a group of old pals from Roanoke.

Kirk Davis used to watch Childs play football for Cave Spring High School. Davis coached at the middle school and would head to the high school practices when he had time.

"You could tell that he was going to be something," Davis said. "He had a drive."

The two lost touch after Childs graduated and moved away.

It wasn't until one Wednesday in July, when Davis was watching the World Series of Poker on television, that he heard one of the announcers talking about Lee Childs. The name immediately drew his attention.

"A lot of people move away, you lose touch with them, but it was just odd to see him there," Davis recalled.

Davis phoned Childs and rekindled the friendship.

Eager to share his skills, Childs invited Davis and a group of friends to Washington, D.C., to take part in the Pros vs. Joes charity tournament in November.

Childs paid their $3,000 entry fee himself.

"He was giving us some instruction, how to better our game," Davis said. "He was a good sport about it; he probably could have won the whole thing."

Proceeds from the event went to the Wellness Community, which gives free emotional support and education to people affected by cancer.

Childs lost his mother, Jan, to cancer about four years ago.

"It's something that is obviously near and dear to my heart," he said. "The number of people that she touched was really phenomenal."

Childs said that family has been essential to his success. His wife, Jenny, threw nary a fuss about her husband quitting his job before he entered the unpredictable profession of poker.

Jenny Childs, 29, works as a questionnaire designer for the U.S. Census Bureau. The couple have no children.

"I have this nice, ultra-conservative government job, but it's a nice balance," she said. "I'm trying to pick and choose the trips I'm going on."

The two just returned from a trip to the Bahamas, where Lee Childs was an instructor in a World Series of Poker boot camp.

There, he taught other aspiring players how to work the cards.

"I see so many mistakes that people are making, and they are mistakes that I used to make," Childs said. "I think it's great to get instruction from some of the pros, but I think when you've been playing for so long, you probably forget some of the mistakes you used to make."

Childs said he was making such mistakes as recently as April, only a few months before his big $700,000 win.


Roanoke Times

News Added: 21 December, 2007

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