In many ways it's only fitting that Karina Jett is now making her living as a professional poker player. The former "Miss Photogenic" in the Miss World Nevada pageant starting playing poker at about the same time she started breathing air.

With poker-crazed parents to guide her and the card rooms of Las Vegas her childhood playgrounds, it would have been hard for Jett to not set her own course into the world of professional poker herself.

Born in Saigon as Karina Mikelis on August 16, 1974, Jett moved with her Greek-American father and Vietnamese mother to St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of nine months. Just over a year later, her father, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force and an avid Seven-Card Stud player, was transferred to Nellis Air Force base in Nevada.

It would prove to be a serendipitous move, as both of Jett's parents took advantage of their close proximity to Las Vegas by patronizing many of the poker rooms on the Strip. By the time she was ten years old, Jett was following her mother on jaunts to the Mirage and soon became the darling of the players, pit bosses and dealers alike.

At first she found poker boring and would simply wait out her parents' streaks of luck in an arcade near the poker room, but as she grew older she tired of the arcade and as a teenager began playing $1/$5 Stud to pass the time, honing her skills and learning the intricacies of the game.

After graduating from high school, Jett entered college with the intention of pursuing a degree in political science. She was forced to drop out, however, in order to help operate her mother's businesses, a Chinese restaurant and a jewellery store. It would prove to be another fateful step in the development of Jett's poker career.

While assisting her mother, Jett grew reacquainted with her friends in the poker world and rediscovered the sport. It soon became apparent that she was a better-than-average talent in Seven-Card Stud, and Karina moved up the ladder from low-limit competition to higher- and higher-level poker, eventually finding employment as a proposition player in California. By 1996, she was ready to become a full-time professional.

In 1997, with a year of professional play under her belt, Karina expanded her repertoire to include Texas Hold'em with the help of her cousin, Tan Le. Using her striking good looks and infectious personality to her augment her considerable talent, she racked up a number of wins in local tournaments before taking her game worldwide, reaching final tables at the fourth series of Late Night Poker in 2001, which was followed by similar finishes at the L.A. Poker Classic and Four Queens Poker Classic in 2002.

2001 saw a big change in Jett's personal life as well. During a tournament in Mississippi, a friend introduced her to another young pro, easy to pick out in a crowded poker room with his slick blonde hair and wraparound sunglasses. The pro was Chip Jett, and he and Karina took to each other almost instantly. Five weeks later, they were married at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas, and a poker power couple was born.

Both Jetts would continue their meteoric rise through the ranks of poker's elite, with Karina notching 20 cashes and eight final tables in tournament play over the following five years, and Chip taking down more than $1 million in tournament earnings over the same span. Karina has adjusted her focus to concentrate mainly on cash games, but has still managed to add over $110,000 in tournament winnings to the Jett family bank balance.

2003 was another watershed year for the Jetts as the couple welcomed another family member into their household. In September of that year, a pregnant Karina was chip leader in a tournament at the Four Queens Poker Classic in Las Vegas when she went into labor. She was forced to leave the tournament and was rushed to the hospital, eventually giving birth to a baby girl the Jetts would name Athena. Continuing their trend of birthing little gods and goddesses, Karina and Chip gave birth to their second child, Apollo, in 2006.

Although Athena's birth did slow the Jetts down for a few months, they soon adapted to the challenges of mixing parenthood and poker, taking their daughter on the road with them as they travelled from tournament to tournament. In 2005, both husband and wife survived to the final table at the $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em event at the London Open, making the Jetts the only couple in poker history to both reach the final table in so expensive an event.

As the Jetts have grown as a poker-playing family, they have begun to expand their interests into other aspects of the game. They've begun writing poker-themed columns in various publications, and both Karina and Chip are instructors at the WPT "Boot Camp," a series of poker lessons for neophyte poker players and aspiring world champions taught by some of the WPT's finest.

 They have also created Jett Poker Inc., a poker merchandising company whose first offering, a deck of collectible playing cards decorated with images of professional poker players and marketed as "Poker's Most Wanted," has proven to be very popular with fans and pros alike. Not surprisingly, Karina's image is emblazoned on the queen of spades, while Chip's face adorns the ace.

Even following the birth of their second child in 2006, Karina has not shown any signs of slowing down her professional poker career.

She has signed an agreement with Poker Royalty, the management agency that also happens to include in its roster her close friend Evelyn Ng, and will make herself available as a public speaker for poker-related functions. In addition, she has a minor role in the poker movie Lucky You, featuring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore.

With all of her time spent playing and promoting poker, it's a good thing Karina has enlisted her mother to help take care of Athena and Apollo. With any luck, she'll bestow on them the same childhood enthusiasm for the sport that inspired her daughter's incredible rise to fortune.