Sofia Ruiz

Sofia got bored beating the same Hold'em games and never looked back — these days she's happiest in a dealer's-choice rotation where half the table isn't sure of the rules. She covers Omaha/PLO and the wider world of variants, from stud and razz to draw games most players have only heard of, always with the two-card discipline that trips Hold'em players up when they first sit down to Omaha.

Sofia keeps a mental list of the strangest games she's talked her way into — the more obscure the variant, the happier she is. She likes mixed games precisely because they punish autopilot: the moment you get comfortable, the format changes under you. Her writing tries to give Hold'em players that same jolt gently, on the page, before the felt does it for real money.

• Omaha & PLO
• Poker variants