Thought poker was strictly a man’s game?

Think again. Look too long and you’ll quickly lose your chip stacks to this talented group of professional poker players. They may be drop-dead gorgeous, but these ladies are as deadly and sly at the poker tables as the men they go up against at international tournaments such as the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour. 

Name: Clonie Gowen
Age: 38
Current Residence: Dallas, Texas
Relationship Status: Married

Cycalona “Clonie” Gowen (whose name was inspired by a powerful storm during her birth) was expected to make something of her considerable athletic talents, given her varsity high school basketball career and ranking seventh in state track and field’s high jump. But Clonie found her luck behind a poker table when she won the World Poker Tour Ladies’ Night event in 2003, and has made a career of it ever since. When not playing poker –which is all she does right now, the mother of two spends her time scuba diving around the world. Talk about a hot mom!

Clonie’s Top Placings: 2008 Bellagio Cup IV Event 6, $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (1st), 2008 39th Annual World Series of Poker, $910 No-Limit Hold’em with Rebuys (15th), 2007 Five-Star World Poker Classic (WPT Championship) Event 5, $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (11th), 2006 World Poker Finals (WPT) Event 15, $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Championship (25th), 2006 37th Annual World Series of Poker, $1,500 No Limit Hold’em (19th)

Name: Liz Lieu
Age: 34
Current Residence: Las Vegas, Los Angeles & London, U.K.
Relationship Status: Single

Liz Lieu, also known as “The Poker Diva” has been playing her cards right, showing her fans that poker can go well with both beauty and brains. Although very much identified with a glamourous lifestyle, Liz donates her time and money to various charitable causes, as she’s known as a supporter for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Children’s Cancer Hospital – Granting Last Wishes and numerous Vietnamese charities. The Vietnam-born beauty first fell in love with the cards when she played Chinese poker at the tender age of 13. Liz started out her career as a professional poker player in Las Vegas but her real big break was after her win at the $1500 No-Limit Hold ‘Em Event at the 2005 World Series of Poker which put her in fifth place with over $168,000 in prize money. Thanks to her best friend and fellow poker pro John Phan, she continued onto other poker tournaments after the huge win. And yes, she is single, in case you’re wondering. So if you happen to be in Vegas, LA or London, UK, you might bump into her as she has homes in those three places.

Liz’s Top Placings: 2007 APPT Macau, Main Event 1 (7th), 2007 L.A. Poker Classic (WPT), $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Event 12 (1st), 2006 L.A. Poker Classic (WPT), $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em (1st), 2006 Gold Strike World Poker Open (WPT), $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em (5th), 2005 World Poker Finals (WPT), $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (5th)

Name: Erica Schoenberg
Age: 31
Current Residence: Las Vegas, Nevada
Relationship Status: in a relationship with fellow poker player David Benyamine

Erica Schoenberg is a classic example of what you call a lucky beauty. She’s drop dead gorgeous but gentlemen, really sorry to break your hearts as the Ohio-born Erica is currently in a relationship with high stakes poker player David Benyamine. Before going pro at poker, The 31 year-old has worked as a pro beach-volleyball tournament trainer, personal trainer and a kickboxing instructor.

Erica’s Top Placings: 16th in the 2006 World Poker Tour $25,000 championship, 3rd in the 2007 World Series of Poker, won the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em Mandalay Bay Poker Championship.

Name: Veronika Larsen
Age: 24
Current Residence: Europe
Relationship Status: Single

The raising Poker Babe, Veronika Larsen, officially started her professional poker career when she was crowned a “Poker Queen” in 2006 by Swedish gaming operator Betsson and was sponsored on the European poker tournament circuit for a year. Today she is a full-time player and author who plays mostly cash games and the European Poker Tour. The 24 year-old Norwegian has only been playing for 5 years, but at such a young age she’s already made her mark by coming in 7th at the European Ladies Championship.

Veronika’s Top Placings: 7th European Ladies Championship 2, Sky Sports

Name: Erin Ness
Age: 30
Current Residence: New York City, New York
Relationship Status: Married

New Yorker Erin Ness can’t wait to get out of the Big Apple to set up her own bookstore and a vegetarian café at the place she belongs, Las Vegas, Nevada. The 30 year-old has been playing poker since she was a child, growing up at Ocean Beach on the Jersey Shore. She still works at Maxim magazine as a photo assistant although she’s trying to play as much poker as she can. That suits Erin well as the Georgetown grad was the third highest placing woman in the main event of the 2004 World Series of Poker (WSOP), sitting pretty in 207th place.

Erin’s Top Placings: 207th at the WSOP and ESPN

Name: Jennifer Leigh
Age: 26
Current Residence: Las Vegas, Nevada
Relationship Status: Dating

A perfect mixture of nerd/babe, Jennifer Leigh knows everything about poker, computer programming (that’s C# programming and Linux) and looking good on sexy magazines as she has posed for FHM Online and the May 2008 issue of Playboy. Her geekiness is 95% confirmed as she was introduced to poker via the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) by Robert Boyd –that’s professional poker player Dutch Boyd’s brother. Add 5 more percent to that as she had “Jennicide” as a nickname when she was young for she used to hack bulletin boards –which continued to be her nickname as she thrive on the online poker site PokerStars.

Jennifer’s Top Placings: 2006 Legends of Poker (WPT), $9,700 No-Limit Hold’em Championship (45th), 2006 37th Annual World Series of Poker, $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em (18th), 2006 PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure (WPT), $7,800 No-Limit Hold’em Championship (42nd)

Name: Isabelle Mercier
Age: 34
Current Residence: Hotel rooms in Paris, France and Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada
Relationship Status: Single

Isabelle Mercier originally wanted to be a lawyer but she ended up… a poker player (see any parallels here?). In fact, she was so serious about her law career that she obtained a law degree from the University of Montreal and a Master’s degree in international law at Sorbonne University. In Montreal, Isabelle worked as a blackjack dealer at the Casino de Montreal and while in Paris, she worked at the Aviation Club and got hooked on poker, which lead her to become a professional poker player and got her first win at the WPT Ladies Invitational.

Isabelle’s Top Placings: 2007 Five-Star World Poker Classic (WPT Championship) Event 15, $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship (41st), 2007 Bellagio Friday/Saturday No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, $5,000 No Limit Hold’em (3rd), 2006 37th Annual World Series of Poker, $5,000 No Limit Hold’em (5th), 2006 EPT French Open, $4,810 EPT French Open Championship Event (7th), 2005 World Series of Poker Event 33, $3,000 No Limit Hold’em (95th)

Name: Carmel Petresco
Age: 27
Current Residence: Las Vegas, Nevada
Relationship Status: Dating

Carmel Petresco grew up in Eastern Europe and New York and traveled a lot as a child, giving her critical adaptation skills well-suited for poker. Her first brush with the poker world was through free online casino games and by watching her male friends playing. Carmel Petresco did a lot of reading on high-stakes poker especially Super/System. Although she’s now known as an aggressive poker player, Carmel actually has a very girly background. Before entering the world of poker, Carmel worked as a personal shopper and wardrobe stylist. Carmel is rumored to be dating professional poker player, Daniel Alaei, and she showers him with praise: “Daniel Alaei has been the biggest influence and an opinion shared”.

Carmel’s Top Placings: 319th 2008 WSOP, Event 54, Main Event No-Limit Hold’em, 107th 2008 WSOP, Event 36, No-Limit Hold’em, 12th 2007 WSOP, Event 31, World Championship Heads-Up No-Limit, 26th 2006 WSOP, Event 37, No-Limit Hold’em, 71st 2006 WSOP, Event 5, No-Limit Hold’em Short-Handed, 6/table

Name: Chantel Mcnulty
Age: 25
Current Residence: Las Vegas, Nevada
Relationship Status: Single

Probably the most controversial lady in the poker world, Chantel McNulty started her career very early. As a teenager she participated in underground card games in Dallas and even got a fake ID to play in Las Vegas poker tournaments by the name Ashley. The most talked-about topic about Chantel seems to be her breast implants but the Texan doesn’t seem to mind so much. She even came clean about her poker personality: “When I’m playing poker, I’m very mouthy. I’m like Gavin Smith, Matusow and Tony G combined. I get along with other players really good, or they don’t like me at all.” Oh and she’s single. Wow, is it getting hot in here or what?

Chantel’s Top Placings: 17th WPT Season 6, Mandalay Bay Poker Championship, 23rd 2006 WSOP, Event 18, Pot-Limit Hold’em, 56th 2006 WSOP, Event 15, Ladies Event No-Limit Hold’em

Name: Evelyn Ng
Age: 34
Current Residence: Las Vegas, Nevada
Relationship Status: Single

Evelyn Ng grew an interest in gambling by playing pool for money when she was 14 years old. By the time she was 17, she worked as a blackJack and poker games dealer in Toronto. As a teenager, Evelyn dated fellow Canadian poker player, Daniel Negreanu who later featured her as one of the characters in the video game Stacked with Daniel Negreanu.

Evelyn’s Top Placings: 2008 39th Annual World Series of Poker, Event 15 – $910 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em World Championship (48th), 2007 38th Annual World Series of Poker, Event 28 – $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em (25th), 2006 Five-Star World Poker Classic (WPT), $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship (39th)

Name: Cecilia Nordenstam
Age: 25
Current Residence: Gotheburg, Sweden
Relationship Status: In a relationship

Swedish hottie Cecilia Nordenstam mostly plays in Europe, and she’s made her huge break by joining a Swedish poker team which helped her gain visibility as an up and coming poker player at the 2005 Five-Star World Poker Classic. In this tournament, she placed in three events out of four: 34th, 13th and 5th. Cecilia first got acquainted with poker when she worked as a dealer for for Casino Cosmopol. She is currently dating Alexander Stevic, who got her into higher stakes poker games.

Cecilia’s Top Placings: 4th at Partypoker.com Women’s World Open III, 24th Fourth Annual Five-Star World Poker Classic, 15th Fourth Annual Five Diamond World Poker Classic

Hellmuths’s last few hours of tweets from the late night poker drinking binge:

>> I am so drunk I cannot lose!!!! Going to play high stakes limit Hold’em at UB now!!

>> Lost 16k at no limit

>> Now throwing my cell phone accross my desk in disgust…And still drinking…12 down, i hate alcohol…

Poker superstar Phil Hellmuth, who first started twittering December 18th last year has taken to Twitter like it’s his personal diary. Like many other “B” celebs, Hellmuth is using Twitter as a live outlet to express himself. In this case his frustrations after a losing hand during online poker play get a tweet, so the rail birds at UltimateBet can experience the full flavor of a Hellmuth outburst. It’s like a personal version of ESPN’s coverage of the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

From earlier that night while playing online poker:

>> I am drinking tonight, in fact way too much! Maybe 6 total shots in 5 hours. Just landed in bay area…

>> I have never had a drinking problem, never. But here i am having another beer! Moosehead Beer is good! Thats 6 in 6 hours.

>> Called Layne Flack to tell him to tell me to stop drinking! But he said, ‘U have everything, enjoy yourself.’ Opening another Moosehead

>> What the F@&/k is going on here? 7 drinks in 6 hours, and i just cracked another Moosehead…Watching ‘Supertramp’ on youtube at home

>> I am Dissapointed in myself…8 drinks in 6 and 30 mins. And I want more! F it, opening 1 more Moosehead!!

>> I guess I will have a hangover, just finishing 9 drinks in 7 hours! Listening to Beatles ‘Something in the way she moves’ on youtube

>> 9 drinks down in 7 hours…Trying Red Tail Ale, yuck! Michelob, pass. Blue Moon Rasberry Cream, horrible!!

>> Ok, completely wasted now. Listening to Beatles ‘Strawberry Fields’ and opening a bottle of Innskillin ‘Vidal’ pouring a glass.

>> Listening to Beatles ‘I am the walrus’ by myself while drinking number 10 drink…Embarassed to drink so much!! Help!

If it’s any reconciliation, Hellmuth has posted a few more tweets speaking to his embarrassment of the drunken text rampage. It appears he removed all the Twitter updates as well, some cleansing was needed — You can follow him if you say choose — Phil Hellmuth on Twitter. I’ve decided to pass on inviting him to my next home game.