Shirley started playing poker initially at the Commerce. She got immense opportunities to learn the game properly being an employee of the casino. She met her mentor as well as friend Steve Badger while working there and it was because of his encouragement that Shirley entered into her 1st poker tournament. Shirley acquired the 9th position in the Omaha event. Since then there was no turning back and Shirley kept on entering in quite a few more poker tournaments. Her participation in all these tournaments gave her the opportunity to come across and learn from great poker professionals like Mel Judah, Mark Seif etc. 2003 was a significant year in Shirley’s life as she had her 1st major win that year. She played in a satellite and big time won $1000, the day before the Omaha Hi/Lo event at the L.A Poker Classic. She had no intensions of turning up for the big game as she did not want to loose her newly won $1000. Steve Badger paid half of her entry fee while she paid the other half. This decision was totally in her favour as she stood second in the event and brought in $27,000. This event was sufficient enough to induce her into playing poker full time. In 2004 she won the No Limit Hold’Em at the Grand Slam of Poker. In 2005 she won the Legends of Poker Omaha Championship. Next she won the Big Poker October Omaha Hi/Lo event.
The majority of her income came in the next few years, when Shirley concentrated more on playing the game online. She got all the practice she needed when she joined the Bicycle casino as a prop player. Live at the Bike was a live internet show in which Shirley acted as a commentator. This show was picked up by the Poker Channel in UK and it was aired as L.A Poker Scene. She was shortly diagnosed with cancer and her career took a back seat. She owns a well knows website called pokerbabes.com which features the biographies of many poker greats along with her own journal as well as coverage of World Poker Tours events and WSOP.
