Christina was a full time model and actor in LA years back and during a writers strike, she took advantage of the time off to visit her father in Memphis. They made the short trip south to Tunica, Mississippi, where he taught her to play Limit Hold'em at the tables. "I fell in love with it" she said.
Back home in LA, she began playing charity tournaments and met some online players who took her under their wing and taught her to play online. After scoring a six-figure win online, she told her agent not to bother calling about auditions because it would interfere with her poker.
Christina Lindley
She began playing poker full time, mostly online with some brick-and-mortar. Then came Black Friday (April 2011) which shut down most online poker in the US. Christina had to travel more, either to live tournaments in the country or out of the country to play online.
The travel began to wear on her and this summer, she decided to become a "full-time live pro", where she began to grind her way through the local tournaments to get experience. Since making the shift, she's cashed numerous times, including winning a Ladies event at the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza and finishing runner-up in a CPPT event during the Wynn Classic. She didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to play at Borgata for the televised WPT event.
When not playing poker, she enjoys working out and writing, which led to working with Vice, an online media company with a show on HBO. She's written a show based on her life and poker, and that resulted in them wanting to do a documentary on her life to introduce their viewers to poker.
"Poker is the backdrop [for the show]...it's about the emotional roller-coasters and the friendships, the stuff you do when you're not on the felt."
"The documentary, I'm really excited about" she says. "FOX just partnered with Vice and there's a pretty good chance that its going to air on FOX, too".
The young woman who grew up in the South, modeling and acting in LA in front of the cameras, changed careers to be a professional poker player, now has come full circle to add another career working behind the cameras.
No wonder she's One To Watch!
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