Maria Konnikova didn’t know how many cards were in a deck when she started learning poker one year ago but now she is winning major competitions

An American journalist and author has put the release of her book about poker on hold because she has become so successful at playing the game.

Maria Konnikova has won more than $200,000 since she started doing research for a book to be called The Biggest Bluff, about using poker skills to make “better decisions” in everyday life. Among those who helped her were poker legends Erik Seidel, Jason Koon and Isaac Haxton.

“I’m certainly far from the first writer to play poker,” Konnikova said in a tweet. “But as far as I know, I am the first to go from not knowing the number of cards in a deck to winning a major title within one year.”

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That title was the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, in which she won from a field of 230 players, including some major names in professional poker, to claim the $84,600 prize.

Perhaps more important than the money, the prize includes entry to the next PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em championship. Konnikova said she delayed the book so she could keep “in shape” for the championship.

“I should have had a first draft in long, long ago,” she told the New York Post from Monte Carlo, where she’s competing in another poker tournament. “I could never have predicted that I would ever be where I am now. I started this project with absolutely zero background in it.”

Though she is enjoying playing poker and making money at it, Konnikova, whose previous book was on scams, intends to return to her day job.

“I’m not abandoning writing. I really want to give it my all, but this is for the book ultimately,” she said. “There’s definitely one version of the future where I still write and play poker professionally. Why in the world wouldn’t I do both?”

Konnikova’s story echoes that of Victoria Coren Mitchell, a columnist for the Observer and another writer to make a lot of money from poker. Coren Mitchell rose from being a relatively unknown player to being a poker superstar in 2006 when she became the first female winner of the European Poker Tour.