Kasey Lyn Mills is Believing in Herself and it's Translating into a Career Year

Key Takeaways

• Kasey Lyn Mills is having a standout year in her poker career, with significant cashes in 2024, including a potential win at the WPT Choctaw Championship.
• Mills credits her success to a stronger belief in her skills and a focus on mindset improvement alongside her game strategy.
• Despite not being a full-time tournament grinder due to her responsibilities as a mom, Mills is making her tournament entries count significantly.
• Mills, who originally aimed for a career as a biologist, finds that poker suits her strengths, particularly as someone diagnosed with ADHD.

Kasey Lyn Mills added another impressive cash to her exceptional year on Sunday in the $3,800 buy-in World Poker Tour (WPT) Choctaw Championship, and she's still in the game, battling for her share of a $2.1 million prize pool.

During the Day 2 dinner break, the Oklahoma native, now a Dallas resident, shared her journey in poker and her insights on her recent upturn in tournament performance with PokerNews. At the time of publishing, 76 players remained in the WPT Choctaw Championship at Choctaw Casino & Resort in Durant, Oklahoma. Mills stepped away from the tournament room on dinner break with 475,000 chips, with blinds at 4,000/8,000. Having already surpassed $140,000 in The Hendon Mob cashes in 2024, Mills is on track for the best year of her tournament career.

"I think I've been leaning into really believing in myself and my skillset," Mills shared regarding her performance this year. "I think I had some confidence issues previously. We all do at times, and they still pop up from here and there. But I really have worked on mindset as well as my game over many years. But mindset has made a huge difference for me, and self-confidence."

Mills, a sponsored pro for the Poker Now online poker club, recently finished seventh in the $5,000 buy-in WPT Voyage Championship event, pocketing $42,000. However, her career-best score came in a World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) $1,000 buy-in Monster Stack event in January, where she outlasted 352 entrants for a $66,609 win. This victory marked her first career Circuit ring, followed by a second win just two days later in a $400 buy-in tournament for another $22,433.

Choctaw, the venue of these notable accomplishments and the current event, could see Mills reaching her first official World Poker Tour final table. What sets her 2024 (and 2023) tournament achievements apart is her selective participation in events, planning only "six or seven" entries this summer at the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

"I am a mom as well, and being a mom is always my priority, number one, whereas some people can grind tons of tournaments and go to every stop," Mills expressed. "I don't get to play that amount of volume, so I really have to make it count, and that's what I'm trying to do when I do play."

Choosing poker over a career as a field biologist, Mills fell in love with the game in 2009 and began to take it seriously "about 10 years ago." Her passion for poker, coupled with her ADHD, which she believes contributes positively to her poker skills, has helped her maintain a strong engagement with the game.

Mills is set to use her unique strengths to advance in the WPT Choctaw Championship, aiming for the final table on May 30 in Las Vegas. The winner will bag $361,600, potentially doubling Mills' career live tournament cashes if she claims the title.