Evelyn Ng

'Ladies Championship', R&R and Iron Maiden

2009-06-10T10:56:19Z

Some people have a problem with women-only poker tournaments, and I can understand why. There really shouldn't have to be a special tournament for women only, since being female is in no way a disadvantage in poker. If anything, being female might even be an advantage. However, women still only make up a small percentage of the poker world, and if these segregated events encourage more women to play in live tournaments, then I'm all for it.

When it comes to the WSOP, I'm not quite sure if I think that a 'Ladies Championship' should warrant a bracelet, just as I'm not sure that a 'Seniors Championship' should award one either. I think that bracelets should go to winners of open events only. All of the other 'Championship' events are $10K buy-ins (and one $50k buy-in). I propose that if a bracelet and a championship title are at stake, the buy-ins should be higher than $1000, it should be at least a $5000 entry. I don't think that the $1000 events should be done away with, but maybe there should be more than one women's and one senior's tournament.

Besides that, I think it's about time that we start calling it a Womens' Event, instead of Ladies' Event. I'm not a hard-core feminist, but I think that this simple change would help with the perception of these tournaments as serious competitions, and not just a quaint little gathering of 'ladies'. It always makes me envision us dressing up in our Sunday best (incidentally, it was held on a Sunday), along with hats and white gloves, and enjoying our tea and scones while we gossip and discuss things like make-up and who has gotten fat. I'm not denying that these are some of the things we discuss, but I could still go without the subliminal suggestion that the name might imply.

All bitching aside, I'm probably just disgruntled because I busted out late in Day 1, LOL. I really tried to enjoy myself and the feeling of sisterhood and friendly competition, but to be honest, I was pretty miserable inside for most of the day. Message to the Rio: Your chairs suck. My back was killing me from those cheap chairs! I'm almost six feet tall, and if I'm stuck in any of the seats besides the end seats, it makes it very difficult to get any back-support out of those uncomfortable things. I was also really tired, but that's my own fault, I guess.

Me looking slightly less energetic.

I've been pretty busy and haven't been able to feel rested lately. In my nocturnal world, it's not uncommon for me to stay-up all night and get by on very little sleep without feeling too crappy... but for some reason, even though I've gotten to bed at an almost-reasonable hour every night, I am constantly exhausted and just not feeling well. I think that just being busy and having a lot on my mind has really effected my sleep and state of mind. I decided that it was best for me to take a few days off after the 'Ladies Championship', even though it meant that I had to miss the $2500 6-Handed NLHE. I had planned on playing about 20 events, but I might have to skip a lot of events just to keep myself from stressing out and maybe playing badly as a result of it.

Yesterday, I spent a whole blissful day of doing absolutely nothing. Man, was that fun! Today I had two Bodog TLB matches, which was my only resposibility scheduled. I won both of my heads-up matches, so maybe it's a sign that I might be playing better because I'm not stressed-out and tired! Aside from that, I spent a few hours playing the new Iron Maiden track-pack for Rock Band 2 which came out today, and then Lex and I went to see the movie Up in 3D at the Palms with some friends. I highly recommend both activities

Here's a YouTube video I made of me playing 'Hallowed Be Thy Name' by Iron Maiden (there's even an added shout-out to Toronto in the end!):

Tomorrow I'll be playing in the $1500 NLHE Shoot-out. I really like shoot-outs, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm also happy that I won't have to play the whole day, whether I win my first table or not. There's always plenty of down-time while all the tables play down to the winner. Maybe I can come home for some Xbox in between rounds!

Also, happy birthday to David Williams (June 9th), who celebrated in true Vegas style all weekend

***You can find me on the Evelyn Ng table on Bodog http://www.bodog.com***
***Follow me on Twitter! http://www.twitter.com/evybabee***

WSOP 6 Handed Limit Event #14

2009-06-07T09:13:54Z

Even though I was a limit cash game player for over a decade before I started playing tournaments, I was never that excited about playing in limit tournaments. It always seemed like you had to run well pretty consistently the whole time to get deep. And due to the nature of limit games, it was too difficult to protect yourself from taking bad beats. I often found myself doing well in them for a while, but then inevitably, I always ended up frustrated and scolding myself for entering them at all.

My attitude completely changed after the $2500 Limit 6-Handed event at the WSOP. I had planned on playing in the $2500 NLHE event which started at noon, but Lex and I had slept in, and decided to give the short-handed a shot. This is the first time that they have hosted this particular event, and even though I did end up being frustrated by it, I have to say that this event was still the most fun I've had in the last couple years of playing tournament poker. In full-ring limit tournaments, a lot of the times I would find myself waiting for good cards, only to get suck-out on with little for me to do about it.

On a short-handed table, you have to be active in a lot of pots so there's not that much time to be bored, and it's also much easier to take advantage of the tighter or weaker players. My starting table was ok. Barry Shulman was two seats to my right, and Matt Woodward (a young limit games specialist) was to my left. The other 2 players seated seemed to lack live experience, and the 6 seat remained empty for a late sign-up. I had a very good start, getting a lot of hands and hitting flops, and I was able to pick up a lot of chips in the first level. By the 2nd level of play, I had nearly doubled my initial chip-stack and had established a strong image as well.

Barry Shulman

I wasn't thrilled when the 6th seat was filled by Gavin Smith, who had recently busted out of another tournament. Gavin and I had some history of playing limit cash games together, from playing $20-$40 limit in the late 90's at the Mirage. He was considerably a much more aggressive player than I was, and he was one of the toughest opponents in those games back then. I was happy that I had a lot of chips and that he seemed slightly tilted from his recent bustout. I knew he would be playing fast, but I was prepared to stand-up against him. It was good that Barry, who is also pretty aggro, was to his immediate left, so I was able to avoid getting involved in raising wars, without having the goods.

Gavin had lost a big chunk of his stack, when he pretty much told us in his own words that his plan was to go big, or go home. He came in raising with every hand until eventually I knocked him out. I was relieved that he hadn't ever gotten a hold of a big stack, because he was too fearless and dangerous to have in the game. Matt Woodward didn't have much luck either, and without the chips or cards, he didn't have a lot of room to maneuver, and he got knocked out in the 3rd or 4th level as well.

Three players had been knocked out from the original six, and each new player who replaced them was someone I knew... a very bad sign. Gavin's seat was filled my Justin Filtz (who I had gotten deep in a Bellagio tourney with), Matt's seat to my left was taken by John "PearlJammer" Turner, and David Baker--not 'Bakes' or 'WhooooKidd', but the other really good David Baker, who is also a limit tournament specialist and excellent tournament player.

That David Baker.

Early on I had been getting good cards, flopping sets and making flushes, but then unfortunately, things started to turn. I had gone from a very impressive 20k, all the way down to about 4k. I was very tired after the dinner break (a very unnecessary break IMO), and I was getting grumpy too. Even though I wasn't feeling too great, another thing I really liked about this tournament was that the atmosphere at the table was much more social and jovial than most tournaments. Being limit, players didn't put on their No-Limit-Don't-F-With-Me faces on, and it felt more like a fun limit cash game than a WSOP bracelet event. Everyone was talking and being nice and polite, and it was really refreshing.

By the last few levels, the cards seemed to like me again, and I picked up pocket aces a few times and got paid-off on all of them too. I had gotten to a high-point of 39k, and finished the night with 26k, which I wasn't unhappy about. Lex was sitting at a table nearby, and over the course of the night I watched his chips grow and grow, and he finished off the night with a whopping 65k, 4th in chips going into Day 2.

Lex looking intimidating and euro with a huge stack.

We got home a little after 3am, and promptly went to bed exhausted. We got up nice and early for Day 2, but like one of those mornings when everything just seems to go wrong, we ended up running late and missing the first couple hands by the time we took our seats at our new tables. I hate missing hands. I also really don't like having no time to get settled into my seat and to size-up my opponents and their relative chip stacks.

I don't want to go over bad beat stories, but it was kind of a mean cosmic joke what went down as soon as I got there. In 3 hands in quick succession, I got out-flopped and out-drawn in total cold-deck situations. I felt like I had turned down the wrong street and gotten mugged! I comforted myself with the fact that there really wasn't anything I could have done about it, and that I was happy that I played the event and gotten that experience. It was nice to see that PokerNews had reported that I made "an elegant exit" after my bust-out...

Evelyn Eliminated

Evelyn Ng has been sent to the rail after getting her last chips into the middle with top pair holding
on a board of , but her opponent Bryan
Horton had turned two pair with .
The river bricked and Ng made an elegant exit from the Brasilia Room.

What really bummed me out was that Lex had taken a lot of bad beats and cold-decks. From the little I got to talk to him after I got knocked-out, and from his texts messages, I knew that he was really getting tortured and I was proud of the way he was handling it. A few hours later he busted-out, and it really showed how strong his character is that he was able to smile and joke about the sick series of events which had led to his demise. We decided that videogame therapy was in order, and headed over to GameStop to pick up some new games to chronic-out on!

Off to bed now... the Women's Championship is tomorrow. Wish me luck!!

***You can find me on the Evelyn Ng table on Bodog http://www.bodog.com***
***Follow me on Twitter! http://www.twitter.com/evybabee***

And... They're off! 2009 WSOP begins!

2009-06-05T07:05:11Z

The 40th Annual World Series of Poker kicked off for me this year as a spectator and not as a participant. I didn't play in the $40,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em event, but I got to be a total fan-girl and live vicariously through my boyfriend, Lex Veldhuis. Lex made the final table along with my Bodog teammate, Justin Bonomo. It was really exciting sweating the televised final table action, and I came fully prepared with completely dorky signs to cheer them on! Lex ended up finishing 7th place ($277,940) and Justin took 5th place ($413,166). Even though neither of them got to take home the jewelry, I was so happy for both of them. What an impressive way to start off the WSOP!

My first events were the $1500 NLHE, and the $1500 6-Handed NLHE, events #7 & 9. Unfortunately I wasn't playing my best, and I busted out pretty early in both events. I think not getting enough sleep and having too much on my mind has led me to stray away from my plan of sticking to a "small ball" strategy. I took the day off today to get some writing and cleaning done, and also some time to relax and regroup for tomorrow's $2000 NLHE.

Besides all the excitement of the $40k, another thing that has been distracting me lately has been my recent obsession over getting a Vespa. I had always liked them, but I didn't seriously entertain the idea of buying one until my friend Maridu (Maria Mayrinck) came to town. Maria rents a scooter every year during the WSOP, and in the last week or so, she has been super sweet-- giving me rides here and there and also personal scooter lessons here in my parking garage

After my early departure from the 6-handed event, I bumped into ZeeJustin who had also just busted-out. With a suddenly free afternoon with no other plans, Justin was really nice to take me over to the Vespa dealership. After a couple hours of negotiating and choosing my upgrade options, I left the dealership as a proud new owner of a 2009 Vespa LX50 in Capri blue! It might be only 50 cc's, and reach a top speed of 39mph at full-throttle... but it's so cute and absolutely perfect for me! Since I don't drive or have a car, getting the Vespa is kind-of a milestone for me- I no longer have to rely on taxis and friends for rides. It won't be ready for another week or two, but once I get it... I'm free!

Here is a pic of the same model (without the chrome, top case and cute windsheild I got):

I'm gonna go get my Xbox on now and then get some sleep for tomorrow... Wish me luck!

***You can find me on the Evelyn Ng table on Bodog http://www.bodog.com***
***Follow me on Twitter! http://www.twitter.com/evybabee***