The Unstoppable A-Z of Poker - The Hot Aussie Chick

It was my great pleasure and honor to be able to sit down and chat via video phone with one of Australia's finest poker resources, Danielle Adams-Benham. She is truly an amazing woman and her story deserves to be told, especially to her loyal readers of APW! Danielle Adams-Benham is better known to many as Hot Aussie Chick.
She is an accomplished cash game poker player, a well respected writer and columnist in the poker field, and she has become a leading lady in the $18 billion a year online gaming industry. She has managed to achieve all this, and much more, against all odds and while for the most part single-handedly raising her family of four great children. Here is her story.
Danielle was born in Sydney, Australia into wealthy family but her life has been far from easy, as it has often been plagued by roadblocks and setbacks. The first tragedy struck at 12, when Danielle’s family home caught fire at 3am and she somehow managed to pull her entire family free of the blaze, saving the lives of her parents and siblings. The fire gutted the home and the family was left homeless and poor. The resulting family hardship caused marital issues between her parents and Danielle was soon moved to a small town, where she was raised by her now single mother.
Her father soon followed the family to a nearby town, where Danielle attended high school. Becoming increasingly bored and restless with school, Danielle attempted to skip the final two years of high school. At the time this contravened all the Education Department rules. However, Danielle remained resolute, and eventually sat an exam without completing the final two years of classes – and graduated with exceptional grades, passing with flying colors! During this time she also worked as a sales manager and part-time model to fund her studies.
It should also be noted that she missed more than two months of college due to STP (Spontaneous Tension Pnemothorax), a condition that actually caused her to flat-line. She spent much time in intensive care and over six weeks in recovery. Her recovery complete at 18 years of age, Danielle was head hunted and hired by Australia's largest information technology and communications support company. She was placed in the Army as a civilian where she worked on a project to overturn the technology and telecommunications support systems. She also wrote their communications disaster recovery reports and founded the I.T. newsletter.
Danielle left this position and ventured into her own business at 19, investing almost $30,000. By this time she was married with one child. She successfully built and managed her business to a massive yearly turnover. She was a retail saleswoman and a computers and network repair technician. Most importantly, Danielle became a major player in the revolution of farming; installing computerized irrigation systems and computerized accounts for some of Australia's biggest producers and export farmers. Danielle’s company became the backbone and savior for these businesses when their systems went down, in some emergency situations saving them $10,000 per hour.
During this time in business she also taught the Diploma of Business Accounting and was her own student. Being unable to mark herself she sat a different exam at another college scoring a 98 percent distinction pass. Danielle was by this time a mother of two and fighting a battle against cancer, which necessitated three operations. The pressure became overwhelming and the 21-yearold. Danielle decided to close her business and assume a role as a Personal Assistant to a CEO in the town where she currently lives. Now mother to a third child, Danielle ran accounts for up to 12 individuals, together with those of incorporated businesses with millions of dollars in annual turnover. She also controlled all IT systems for the company and also managed the managers of each of these individually incorporated businesses.
Violence was to pay a visit into Danielle’s life when she became the victim of a brutal attack. This incident took place not long after the birth of her third child and Danielle was the prime witness of an establishment’s wrong doing in allowing the attack against her. She sustained severe injuries, her marriage collapsed and Danielle, all but destitute, moved into Department of Housing accommodation. She gave birth to her fourth child during this time.
Faced with the herculean task of putting her life back in order, Danielle did the odd teaching, factory and accounting job. Significantly it was the game of Texas Hold 'em poker that played a major role in her life’s turnaround. Understandably unhappy and with her life at an impasse, she joined up to play chip poker at Party Poker and discovered that she enjoyed the game itself as well as the camaraderie and friendships she made at the tables. She met and made several very good friends during this time and it is fair to say that poker in Australia shielded her through the roughest of spots in her life.
Soon Danielle began in-depth study of the game and the poker strategy involved at competing at the higher levels. She also discovered she had a real talent for writing. She joined what was then Gus Hansen's site theplayr.com and became a moderator and news writer for the site after the departure of Gus. Soon she was the face of the site, writing content for the wiki, making theplayr tube and covering every news headline and tournament she could. She commenced writing articles for Australian Poker Weekly and has since written many front page cover stories for the paper, including features on some of the world’s biggest poker pros as well as a complete coverage of the 2009 Aussie Millions. Danielle has co-authored a published and widely known poker strategy book. She happily reports she has also now started on her second volume.
Seeing such brilliant talent she was soon asked to apply for a position with pokerpodradio to cover the Australian, New Zealand and Asian Areas. She was hired on the spot after a brief news reading. Danielle also soon landed a position with Onecybertech, the online software and services company, as the Australian New Zealand Division Manager. Here she remains. Danielle is the leading front for her division in this 18 billion dollar a year industry. She works on software testing, blogging, marketing, gaming software back office management, and content writing for online casinos which are soon to revolutionize the online poker industry.

Danielle Adams-Benham, mother of four, cannot be held back and has overcome several personal and health battles and has resolutely stood her ground. She is widely acclaimed to be everything poker A-Z and her most detested phrase is “go back to the kitchen”. I hope you have enjoyed getting to know this amazing person as I absolutely enjoyed every minute of getting to know her myself.