Kitty Kuo had her March calendar all planned out.

Sacramento, for the World Poker Tour Rolling Thunder event, San Jose, for the Bay 101 Shooting Stars where she was scheduled to be one of the bounties, Las Vegas, for tournaments at the Venetian and Wynn, then off to Los Angeles to play Live at the Bike before jetting off to Barcelona.

That’s not how it played out though. Kuo played the Rolling Thunder event, but then canceled her trip to San Jose after the area became a hot spot for Covid-19. She stayed in Las Vegas and attended the Global Poker Awards where she was a nominee.

Kuo knew she had a decision to make. She could either stay in Las Vegas with her friends or head back to her native Taiwan and stay with her family there. Kuo chose the former and bounced between her best friend Jason Mo‘s house and her condominium. Deciding to stay in Las Vegas wasn’t an easy decision.

“All my friends are here and I wanted to keep them company,” Kuo said. “I didn’t know the USA would be as bad as it is now. Also, if I go back to Taiwan, I worry I will have issues coming back to the USA.”

Over the last six weeks, Kuo has kept in touch with her family back home. Restrictions for Taiwanese residents are much stricter than what Americans have been experiencing to date.

“In Taiwan, you need to follow the rules and stay (in isolation) for 14 days, but we can still communicate with families and friends. Everyone I know is safe in Taiwan,” Kuo said.

Time in self-isolation has given Kuo a chance to put in extra time working on her poker game. She’s spent more hours working with her poker coach and challenged herself to play 100,000 hands of online cash games. For somebody who has been focused mostly on tournaments over the past few years, it’s

“Since live events will not be back anytime soon, I’ve decided to focus on online cash games,” Kuo said. “I’ve been mastering Rush and cash. Five years ago, I couldn’t beat online $1/$2 Rush and cash games.”

Like most people who are self-quarantining, Kuo has had some time to plan what she wants to do once the pandemic has passed and life returns to some level of normalcy.

“I finally realized that I can’t stay home for long periods of time. After this pandemic is over, I’m planning to travel the world for a year,” Kuo said. “(I miss) having nice dinners with friends, playing poker on live streams, and traveling to all the WPT and APT stops.”

On Wednesday, after nearly seven weeks of staying in Las Vegas, Kuo changed her mind and headed home to Taiwan. One thing she’ll be able to do is take advantage of the recently-announced Asian Poker Tour online event on Natural8. That series runs April 29 – April 5 with over $1.5 million in guarantees.