Approximately a year and a half ago, Jennifer Leigh was one of the most well-known poker players in the game. After making a name for herself by grinding through $5 sit and gos at several online sites and building a bankroll substantial enough to play at the $100/$200 cash game tables, the lady known as “Jennicide” seemingly was followed everywhere she went. The life of a live tournament grinder, which would be welcomed by many in the poker community, brought her tremendous attention and allowed her to be recognized at every tournament she played.

Then, just as quickly, Jennifer left the game in early 2009. Whether it was on the cash game tables, online tournaments, the live poker world, whatever…there was no “Jennicide” to be found. When she returned to the game around the mid point of 2010, it was a new Jennifer Leigh that came to the game, and perhaps a better one at that.

“I’m just getting ready for my first European trip ever,” Jennifer said prior to her trek to Cyprus to play in the Full Tilt Poker Merit Poker Classic in late August. “I’ve been to Aruba and the Caribbean before, but this is going to be my own little adventure! I just wish there was a teleporter to get me there to avoid the jet lag,” she laughed.

About a year and a half ago, Jennifer began to take a hard look at the poker lifestyle. “I was playing very high limits online and I was traveling to tournaments all the time,” Jennifer said in looking back. “Unlike many of the top players in the game, it was all out of my pocket…traveling to the WSOP for the duration of the event, then to Los Angeles, back home. At the time, I was thinking after spending $10,000, $10,000, $10,000 for these tournaments, ‘Oh, that’s just a session online.’ After the passage of the UIGEA, though, the high limit games began to get tougher and I had a difficult time online.”

Jennifer found herself going through some of the extreme emotions that all cash game players face at one point or another. “My emotional well being became dependent on how I was doing online. If I won a lot, I was on a high; when I was losing, I was dejected and really didn’t want to do anything,” Jennifer remembered. “I had to take that step back to determine what I wanted out of life.

By taking that year and a half ‘step back,‘ Jennifer was able to analyze her situation fully. “I had to take a step back and learn what I really wanted from the game of poker,” Leigh said. “Did I want to keep living out of a suitcase and never really have a home life? Tournament players, unless they have a site sponsorship, have a very difficult time of it in the poker world.”

The time taken away from the felt has led to personal growth, Jennifer said. “I look back now and everyone says ’you lived in Vegas, you traveled around, you had a lot of money,’ but I didn’t have things, or a personal mindset, that made me happy,” Leigh lamented. “I mean, with the money that I had made online, I could have had a home, could have had things…I wasn’t very grounded at all.”

“After going through all of those things, and with the time off, I have grown beyond ’being young’ and am now more matured and humbled,” Jennifer continued. “I’m more realistic now…I don’t go out to the clubs and say, ’Hey, it’s all on me, guys!’ I never expected it to get to that point, but it did.”

Leigh’s return to the game started earlier this year during the PokerStars Spring Championships Of Online Poker (SCOOP), where she once again found success with a win in a smaller buy in event and a couple of final tables. “I said to myself ’OK, it’s time I come back’ and I found that my game came back to me easily,” Jennifer recounted. “The feeling, the excitement…and I also noted that I was playing a LOT better,” she said with a laugh. “In the past, I always had to give myself a reason to play. Now, it’s different, I was doing it because I wanted to, because it was fun for me.”

Jennifer also was back at this year’s World Series of Poker (“Oh, it was so disappointing!,” she said ruefully of being eliminated before the money bubble), but as to her continued future in the game, it is an open book. “If I had sponsorship, I’d be back in every week!,” she exclaimed. “Right now, though, that’s not an option. Now that I’ve come to terms with myself and my life, I’ve got the passion and fire back for poker. As to the future though…I’m going to play it by ear!”

Three women who are fearless on the felt: Vanessa Rousso, Tiffany Michelle and Jennifer Leigh

Editor's note:  When Jennifer Leigh first started to play poker she was a member of Women's Poker Club, a social club for women who play poker established in 2003.