A sure bet – how one family gambled on Victoria, and baseball — and won

VICTORIA, B.C. — “Mom, what’s the count?”

The question, flatly posed, came from a knowledge of the game, from an intent focus that would match the character played by Clint Eastwood in Trouble With the Curve, but certainly the opposite end of the age spectrum. This was a Baseball IQ conversation.

It was asked in a fresh new baseball setting in the Stadium District of B.C.’s capital city, in the Edwards Family Training Centre that houses the Victoria HarbourCats players club. The lounge area of the former squash court complex now transformed into turf floor and netting galore, had about eight people in it, watching the Tampa Bay Rays play the Toronto Blue Jays, the game in late innings and the outcome hanging on every pitch.

“1-and-2, Cian.”

That’s Cian, as in Cian (pronounced Key-an) Carter. Whose lifespan is all but five years since he was born to Adrienne, mom in this case, and father Ryan Carter.

Cian and his family are a very interesting story, as complex and yet as normal — and as intriguing — as they come. Baseball, poker, family, even Lego and Star Wars, and how they settled on living in Canada, and Victoria, returns to baseball, always.

THE FLOP

The Carter parents were not born and raised in Victoria, as many wish they had been. Adrienne is from Edmonton, a former Occupational Therapist lured away by a Texas Hold Em talent. Ryan is from Detroit — college wasn’t for him, but the Vegas poker tables sure were. They met in Vegas through a mutual friend, but found their best earnings in online tournaments. And, because it always comes back to baseball, they love the Tampa Bay Rays nearly as much as they love their own children.

Yet their story of arriving, and staying, in Victoria, is about Cian, and his sandwich siblings Carrick, 7 and Caitlin, 3. They’ve been in Victoria for two years, and the roots have taken, not because of poker, or their extended families being nearby.

Why Victoria?

Baseball. That’s it. Baseball. A Canadian city, selected for climate, for location, for size and programs, and all because of how it spokes back to the hub of their family, which is a love of baseball.

“We choose to live our life around our vision and our loves, and we love baseball,” said Adrienne.

Carrick is part of the Beacon Hill Little League program, and never misses a session at the HarbourCats Players Club at the Edwards Family Training Centre. His siblings, home-schooled by Adrienne and Ryan, can’t wait to join him. In fact, now all three kids are registered with Beacon Hill LL and both Carrick and Cian are in the Players Club now — with Ryan now helping as a coach, and Adrienne pulling double duty as registrar and coach.

“Carrick is very good at math,” says Ryan, “and has learned the majority of his math through baseball. Baseball is used as a reference in a lot of their learning. We’ve been looking for a house, and one of the main considerations is about access to a park, about how it relates to baseball and the kids.”

Carrick attended his first baseball instructional camp at age 3. He wouldn’t take no for an answer when the camp nearly declined his participation — the next oldest kid was 10. He played t-ball as a 4-year-old when the family spent a summer on Long Island, NY, and then followed up there with a second summer.

“Why Victoria?” repeated Adrienne. “We analyzed like poker players, made charts — turn and river. We were in Peachland (just south of Kelowna, B.C.) for seven years, then moved to Victoria — we vacationed here, loved the climate, that you can be on the fields year-round. Carrick was one of the first to sign up with the new HarbourCats Players Club. We went to West Coast League games in Kelowna, and a Victoria HarbourCats player gave Carrick a ball, that stuck with us.”

THE TURN

The three kids were all born in the Okanagan. Ryan and Adrienne have shifted away from poker — kind of. COVID has limited everyone’s ability to get involved these last 20 months, or the people of Victoria would know their new neighbours quite well. They’d have been at all HarbourCats games, and having the kids involved in every program possible.

But now, you see the three running around at games of the Victoria Golden Tide, the newborn entry in the Canadian College Baseball Conference. Carrick — if it’s possible to predict a future as a MLB manager at age seven, Carrick is THAT kid — is seen wearing a black and orange B hat for his fresh voyage with Beacon Hill Little League. The three have an imagination for the game that recalls days of old before PlayStation, before Jays in 30, even before slow motion replays — they’d have fit in the 1920s, playing stickball wherever they could find an open space.

“We were looking for childcare help, and we were very open about it — candidates had to love baseball, Lego and Star Wars, in that order,” said Adrienne. “And not just be ok with those things, you have to LOVE them. Or it won’t work, it’s that simple.”

Carrick and Cian are members of the HarbourCats Players Club, which provides foundational youth instruction based first and foremost on one enduring principle — fun. Structured, yes, tailored for each young player, yes, but the program leaders never lose sight of the fact you play baseball, you don’t work baseball.

“Carrick wears baseball pants every day, the only time isn’t wearing baseball pants is when we force him to put something else on,” said Ryan. “That’s just what he wears.

“Only Rawlings. His R pants, that’s what he calls them.”

THE RIVER

This is where the back story gets very, very interesting.

Adrienne and Ryan met in one of the most mentally-taxing atmospheres — a pair of aces in the world of professional poker. Ryan, now 37, has a couple of wins under his belt, including his biggest — $600,000-plus in an online tournament just weeks after taking on a new mindset coach (more on that shortly) . Adrienne found success as an elite mixed games player and a leader in the industry, representing how dynamic and accessible poker could be to players all over the world.

Ryan was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and attended the University of Michigan. He took up poker at 18. “But I haven’t played in about seven years, since Carrick was born — you have to play a lot to keep sharp, kinda like baseball,” he adds.

Online poker players will likely recognize the name Talonchick — that’s Adrienne, nee Rowsome, who did some live events but was mostly successful as a fully sponsored PokerStars pro.

THE RAYS

The one obvious question is their family choice in favourite MLB teams, but it makes complete sense when you apply the poker mentality. If you have the analytical mind to be successful as a poker player, no franchise would better mirror the poker psychology that has kept the small-budget Tampa Bay Rays fully competitive in the big-spending American League East.

Ryan grew up a Tigers fan, Adrienne would go to Trappers games with her dad, Paul, when the current ReMax Field in Edmonton was named for John Ducey, and you could smell the wood of the rafters, the oozing of baseball history.

Methodically, she picked her team while waiting for Carrick to arrive. What she wanted was an AL team, didn’t want a big budget team, and Joe Maddon was managing and doing things using poker-like statistics to gain advantages, to hedge his bets. He’d deploy seven infielders and two outfielders, willing to try things others weren’t doing, one-third of the budget of the Yankees. “They have never let me down — they hustle, they play hard,” said Adrienne.

Ryan bought in, too. They watch every game, planning family trips (pre-covid, of course) to see the Rays play live.

“You’re always either overperforming, or underperforming, with the value of your salary — future potential or past success, and the Rays are good at valuation and letting players be themselves,” said Ryan. “They find value where others don’t. They fit with our life goals and what we do, finding potential.”

Adrienne started in poker at 22, and played in the World Series of Poker at 24. Not unrelated, the side hustle turned into a house and a BMW by 25 — she loved her job as an Occupational Therapist, but didn’t like punching the clock. The couple met through a mutual friend, at the Rio in Vegas, in 2011, the same year she signed with PokerStars. She remained a sponsored pro until 2018.

What they do now is coach, and advise. Ryan’s success in the game inextricably coincided with working with Elliot Roe, a former Brit now based in Utah who used hypnosis to overcome a fear of flying and became enthralled with the untapped potential of the human mind. They have now combined on an app and company called Primed Mind, coaching mindsets and performance, and Ryan has developed programs directed toward, you guessed it, baseball.

It doesn’t stop there. Golfers, poker players, and top athletes are working with Primed Mind — including multiple medal-winning American Paralympian Nick Mayhugh, who set three world records in sprinting (T37, Cerebral Palsy) at the recent Tokyo Games.

“What started focusing on poker players has branched out to Wall Street, to top athletes, to anyone in high performance industries who feel they have hit a ceiling,” said Adrienne. Added Ryan — “We work with CEOs, athletes, crypto traders, MMA champions, and poker champions with more than $200 million in earnings.”

And with all that, Ryan’s face lights up more with a baseball note, than with all their collective success at the real or virtual tables. It comes from a recent Victoria Golden Tide game, the Canadian College Baseball Conference team in its inaugural fall session at Wilson’s Group Stadium in Victoria.

“I caught my very first foul ball last weekend,” he beamed. “All those games, never got one. That was awesome.”