By Sean Chaffin
The day was even sweeter with two sisters winning events in the same day. In the early morning hours on Sunday, Kujdes Gagliardi (pictured standing) won the $220 Charity Series of Poker event. The tournament was a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, and Kujdes (pronounced Kweedus) topped a field of 126 to claim the title and a $3,500 entry into the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open.
If that weren’t enough, shortly after winning the event, her sister Alida Veliu (pictured sitting) won the ladies tournament for $3,325. Alida also won the event in 2009 at a $300 buy-in for $21,060. It was quite a night for these sisters from Bergen County, New Jersey.
“I actually made her play that one,” Alida says of her sister’s win. “It was amazing that we both got to bring a trophy home.”
Bank Robbery to Poker Tables
Talk about poker with Alida Veliu for a short time and she throws out a sentence nonchalantly that seems a bit incongruent with playing poker, at least for most. But to her, it has a direct correlation with a unique first-hand experience.
“I think I found my passion for poker after I was involved in a bank robbery,” she says.
A bank robbery? It’s not quite how it sounds. Alida didn’t brandish a gun and a mask demanding money, and risk years in federal prison. She was on the other end. While working in a bank several years ago, someone came in looking for an easy score. The robber pulled out a gun and demanded money.
He shoved the gun into her ribcage and made her empty the cash drawer. While talking about the incident at the first break in the day, Alida points to where the point of the gun touched her and it’s as if the robbery happened yesterday. The experience was traumatizing and left her psychologically unsettled. She left her job and struggled to go back to work.
“That’s how I got into it poker because I was out of work for about six years,” she says. “I just started playing more.”
A married mother of two, Alida now plays poker recreationally and works as a bookkeeper for Horseless Carriage, which transports high-end autos. A regular on the Northeast tournament scene including here at Borgata, Alida has $250,000 in live tournament winnings including a WSOP Circuit ladies event championship here in 2008 for $17,017. Her biggest career cash also came here at Borgata in 2013, when she finished third in a $560 Deep Stack preliminary event at the Winter Poker Open for $155,639.
Her sister has less experience playing on a big tournament stage than her sister. Both women are hoping to parlay the success on Saturday into an even bigger score in the championship event this week. Kujdes gave her sister the WPT entry and has a nice percentage of her action.
“I don’t have the patience for this,” Kujdes says and then adds laughing, “she’s going to pay for my son’s college, that’s my percentage.”
Growing Up Poker
For these two sisters, poker was always a part of life. As youngsters, one experience stands out. After dressing in the morning and getting ready to head to school, there would occasionally still be a poker game running in the living room. The sisters grew up playing poker, and her father, uncles, cousins, and siblings all got in on the action.
“Whoever won that pot the second we were going to school, paid us our lunch money,” Kujdes says. “And whoever parked last in our driveway had to drive us to school. That was our upbringing.”
Alida introduced her sister to poker in Atlantic City, and the CSOP event was the first tournament Kujdes has ever played. Both women believed it was a great cause. St. Jude’s treats children with severe illness or disease, and families never receive a bill from for treatment, travel, housing, or food.
“I’m a new mom and that’s why I wanted to do it,” Kujdes says.
And while the tournament may have ended well, she’s glad Alida is playing today in her stead.
“Honestly, I was happy it was over,” she says. “It’s exhausting. It didn’t start out as a real tournament for me. And then at the end, people got nasty, and that’s when I was like, ‘Okay I have to win this.’ It was tons of fun though.”
After the win, it was a great night for the pair. Both took home some hardware and Alida is now battling in Day 1a in the championship event. That last part wasn’t planned, but she’s hoping to advance to Day 2 and score some cash for both of them. A call to her employer may be in order, however, so she can keep playing here at Borgata.
“We both have a trophy and we had them on both our beds last night,” Alisa says laughing. “It was pretty amazing. I may have to figure out how to get out of work on Tuesday. I wasn’t planning on doing this, but it’s been such a great time that I had to take advantage.”
Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas. His work appears in numerous websites and publications. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions.
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