There has been plenty of talk about slow games in the poker tournaments. Many well known players have demanded that something should be done about it, and I agree. There is no better way of getting rid of the casual players than making the game so slow it becomes boring...more

Everyone who has played poker knows the feeling: the feeling when you want to jump over the table and knock the other guy's teeth in. I don't get that feeling often. Actually, I haven't got it in years. But when I started playing poker it was very different. One of...more

When I started playing online poker I was perplexed with all the acronyms that I encountered. People were writing these weird letter combinations in the chat box, and I had no idea what they meant. I didn't have much experience with online gaming, so most of the expressions were completely...more

I'm not a poker player 365 days a year. I also own a chain of retail stores in the Bronx and I tend to them when I'm home in New York City. This year they did extremely well and I'm very happy. Sometimes, to acquire inventory for my stores, I...more

Happy holidays, everyone. It's kind of a quiet period for me poker-wise -- I'm "hibernating," you might say. I'm playing online some and am really looking forward to the PCA in January, but right now I have a few other things on my plate. People know I work a lot...more

Can you believe I didn't win the Main Event again? If you can believe it, I didn't even make the final nine. Sorry! I know it hasn't aired on TV yet. I'm always bad at giving away spoilers. Another World Series of Poker has come to a close. Once again,...more

I didn't have much sleep before going to the EPT Final, because my nephew was born at 5am on day 1a. Obviously I had to stay in London to rail that in. Luckily, I was playing day 1b. So, after an hour's sleep and a dawn hospital visit to meet...more

I think some people scale down their poker playing in August. The big tournament circuit goes quiet: it's the gap between the end of the World Series and the start of the EPT. The card room at the casino is quieter, which makes me wonder whether the regulars are off...more

The forthcoming Manchester UKIPT event will be the first tournament I play on this exciting new British and Irish tour, and I'll be very interested to look at the style of play. The buy-in (£500) is sized to make it possible for recreational players to try a significant tournament -...more

Moving our United States home base recently meant packing two adults, two huge suitcases, several large carry-on bags, one mostly-deflated air mattress, three pillows, and two five-pound dogs into a cherry red hybrid, New York City bound. Although I had driven cross-country before, I usually crammed all of the driving...more

Going to London is always exciting for me. It feels like a home away from home. I've probably been there a total of ten times, and I lived in London briefly last spring. It feels similar to New York City, which is where I grew up, and I realized that...more

People are always surprised to hear that one of my passions is cooking. I don't know why that is. I'm not sure if it's because cooking is seen as a traditionally feminine thing, but for some reason, people (especially poker players) are always surprised when I wake up early to...more

I was really excited that the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship returned this year as it has always been one of my favorite events! There are always some interesting backstories happening, it's on an international stage, and in the past it's been one of the most highly rated poker television...more

Over the last five years I've been taking music classes online. I studied sound design, music theory and composition, digital production and lyrics and songwriting. At this point, I consider myself a well-rounded musician. I can compose songs, take the instrumentation and produce it, put it all together into a...more

I recently returned to Las Vegas after six weeks of traveling for poker. I went from Vancouver to Germany, then made my way south through Switzerland to France, Italy, and eventually Morocco. With the constant need to adjust sleeping patterns and the stresses of living out of a suitcase (or...more

Before I got into poker I was a professional billiards player. I had quite a bit of success in my home country of Romania and in the rest of Europe. As a professional, I practiced a lot. If a big tournament was coming up, I would practice seven to eight...more

Over the last few months, about 80% of my time has been dedicated to poker. Sometimes it almost feels like too much, like all I do is play and sleep, play and sleep. I've been thinking about cutting back, but the games are so good I don't want to miss...more

I am down in Thailand with the family reloading the batteries before EPT London in the beginning of March. It's a much needed getaway after a home robbery that included two shots in my leg. The leg is on its way to total recovery, and so are we as a...more

Last week, I told you about my fight with Gus Hansen, a bet I could've escaped if I'd really wanted to. As I told you then, I'm always getting myself into prop bets, and some are impossible to out run. This is one of those. We were invited to a...more

Somehow I seem to be sucked in to different kinds of--more or less--insane bets. Okay, at times everything--or most of it--is well thought through. Other times I get sucked in. And then there's the times where it's just plain stupidity taking charge. The boxing bet with Gus Hansen back in...more

In recent years, I've become a little tired of city life. I used to live in Berlin, but when you're traveling around all the time to major metropolitan cities, it gets to be a bit much. I wanted to live in a completely different way than I do when I...more

People often talk about how much tougher poker is today than it was four years ago. They're right about that but that doesn't mean that the games are unbeatable. It just means that the old ways of improving aren't the best ways anymore. When I started to play poker 8...more

For the last 10 or 11 years I've lived in Budapest. It's probably my favorite place on Earth. Everyone talks about Paris and Rome and London. I've been to each several times. They're fabulous cities, no doubt about it. But Budapest is a little different. Every time I come home...more

Open-Face Chinese Poker has been dominating my life the last few months. I saw on Twitter that everyone went crazy about the game so I just started playing it with my friends. We tried to figure out a scoring system and a strategy together. In my Hungarian poker circle, with...more

My PLO results since the middle of last year have been kind of frustrating. They've forced me to think about Omaha and poker in general in ways that I never did before. I thought back across my poker career. I started off playing limit hold'em. Then I transitioned to no-limit...more

Over my seven year poker career, I've had the privilege of visiting some unique destinations. Cebu is one of my favorite places with a picturesque tropical area towards the south of the Philippines. The macro of the entire Cebu area speaks nothing short of leisure, hospitality, and serenity. The oceans...more

I was a heavy junk food eater in high school and college. It was pretty much all I wanted to eat, so it's no surprise that I started to have digestive problems. Doctors kept telling me, "You need to have a balanced diet. You need to have more vegetables and...more

Earlier this year I spent 45 days away from Argentina. Back in 2010 or 2011, that would have been one of my shorter trips. These days, 45 days seems like a long time to be on the road. It got me thinking about selling action and taking backing. During my...more

I had a horrible downswing after the World Series. Not only was I running bad, but the variance was pretty whack. I was feeling pretty awful as I got ready to travel to the EPT San Remo but once I got there, something clicked inside of me and everything changed....more

By Nacho Barbero It has been an interesting last couple of months. Probably the most interesting -- and fun -- moment came when my friend and fellow Argentine Leo Fernandez won the LAPT Panama event back at the end of September. When the LAPT announced it was going to Panama...more

Hello from Germany, where we are basking in the afterglow of the European Poker Tour returning to Berlin. It's always a great time, and one aspect of the schedule I really liked this year was the inclusion of a couple of seven-card stud events, one of which is a pot-limit...more

Things are going well for me in 2013, as I'm playing a lot of poker and also having a chance to do other fun things like play golf and enjoy myself. I'm also getting increasingly involved in hosting poker tournaments for some businesses and other groups, thereby introducing poker to...more

As a Team PokerStars Pro based in Germany, I do what I can to help poker achieve some mainstream exposure here. I try to find ways to introduce the game to people who aren't necessarily familiar with poker otherwise, as well as help shape public opinion regarding the game. For...more

I've talked before about my visa problems. They forced me to stay home in Russia all winter. As a result I spent a lot of time playing online poker and working on my game. Eventually it all paid off in a big way. March was an amazing month for me....more

The last time I wrote a blog, it was all about my travel problems in 2012. Sad to say, it was a bad start to 2013 for me. My travel woes continued as I was unable to make it to the PCA. It was the same situation as EPT Prague...more

2012 has been a trying year for me. As you know, back in April when I turned in my documents to apply for a U.S. visa to come out for the World Series of Poker, the U.S. embassy lost my passport. Not only was I forced to skip the WSOP,...more

It's springtime, and if you're like me you're starting to think about the Spring Championship of Online Poker on PokerStars. SCOOP is a great series and I always look forward to starting the grind of playing all of those tournaments. One very nice aspect of SCOOP is how accessible it...more

The year has gotten off to a good start for me as far as poker goes. I'd been in a little bit of a cold streak for the second half of 2012, but I've started out the new year pretty well. The year began with me traveling -- to the...more

Hello from Antwerp! It's a new year, and like everyone I'm thinking about the future -- both 2013 and after as well. As far as poker goes, when I look ahead to the coming year and think about my goals, obviously winning an EPT Main Event would be great. I...more

It's been just a couple of weeks since PokerStars removed the beta tag from Zoom - the fast-paced ring game where your opponents change every hand - and Zoom's popularity continues to grow. We asked Team PokerStars Pro Martin Staszko for a few of his Zoom tips. Here is what...more

Hello from the Czech Republic! It's a cold winter here, which began back in December when I celebrated Christmas six times! I got together with my family, my wife's family, my ex-wife's family, and some friends, too, so we were ringing in the holidays over and over again. I have...more

The biggest change in my life this year is unquestionably the birth of my daughter. She is eight months old now and after traveling to so many tournaments this fall, I'm happy to settle down and spend some time at home with her and my wife. I've been playing online...more

The EPT is visiting Deauville, France and I wanted to tell you all why it's my favorite stop on the tour. I love Deauville because it's a very peaceful town, especially in winter. In summer, it's a busy sea resort in the north of France, but in winter it's actually...more

In my opinion, one of the greatest innovations on the EPT in recent seasons has been the EPT Concierge. It's a service that helps players set up non-poker activities and excursion while they're at EPT events - things like restaurants, golfing, and other fun, local activities - often for discounted...more

I am a big fan of all the tournament series on PokerStars. WCOOP, SCOOP and TCOOP have always been big successes and I try my best to get as good results as possible. When I first heard of MicroMillions my first thought was its another great idea but I assumed...more

I think many poker players are dreamers. I certainly am, and it's not just because I'm a Pisces. Poker players are trained to look at the bigger picture, the long run, and are always setting goals. Without goals, we are lost and I'm always trying to reach a higher level...more

A few weeks ago I went for the first time to a small poker club near where my family lives to see how live-action, low stakes games are coming along in Holland. Inside the club, 90 people were playing a €60 tournament to win a ticket for the Master Classics...more

Editor's note: This weekend, PokerStars will host a $1 million guaranteed first anniversary Sunday Storm with $150,000 guaranteed for first place. We asked Team PokerStars Pro Marcel Luske to tell us how he plans to win this weekend. First: feel lucky . Be alert and on top of it. Don't...more

Over the years I have turned my passion into a job. I've gotten results and satisfaction. I have a major sponsor. I have created a successful business. Inevitably, this has put me in a position to perceive a feeling of envy toward me. I'm not surprised to be envied, I...more

Last summer I went to the States to play in the World Series of Poker. I was supposed to stay for a month and a half, but I decided to extend my trip after the WSOP was over. I was in need of business inspiration and went looking for it...more

In my last blog, I wrote about my involvement in the business and media side of the Italian poker industry. This time, I want to talk about my broader role as an ambassador for the game. Even though the "boom" was several years ago now, there are still a lot...more

I returned from EPT Berlin to find a really sweet and uplifting message in my Facebook inbox. It was from a fellow named Michael who wrote to say he'd been grinding the small stakes MTTs online for a few years and had developed a huge love for poker, but had...more

My plans to fly home to London and finally go about furnishing my flat were temporarily derailed when I was invited to the NBC Heads-Up Championship. I was delighted to get the opportunity to play, but since it was taking place only a few days after the PCA, it didn't...more

I'm excited to report that I finally bought an apartment! Ever since I won EPT San Remo I wanted to invest wisely, and I thought that a flat in London would not only be a solid investment, but will also put a permanent roof over my head. I've essentially been...more

I spent some time in Canada this spring trying to get in some relaxation time. I've been playing a lot online, but also trying to take breaks, too, to keep myself alert and focused. One thing I like to do when not playing is to watch various television series like...more

I don't really believe in new year's resolutions. For me if you want to quit smoking or lose weight, you should just do it and not necessarily look to the calendar to prompt you to make a change. That said, now that we're already more than a month into the...more

Greetings from Toronto, where I'm spending the holidays this year. Toronto is kind of like the Bermuda Triangle for me. That is to say, it's a place where I can go and feel like I'm unplugged from responsible life -- like a vacation, but with all the luxuries you have...more

I started playing at poker at the age of 19. I was already a professional backgammon player at the club where I used to play. There were people at the club who played poker, so I decided to participate and learn on my own. I consider myself self-taught at the...more

This blog post is for you: good players with good results on the Internet and occasional live tournaments or online tournaments where you have performed well. You have good results and you play better than the others. Is that enough to try to go further? Can you become a professional?...more

I arrived in Panama with a lot of expectations. Every time I'm about to play a tournament on the Latin American Poker Tour, I have faith. Don't ask me why, but this time I felt something special. Something big was about to happen. The first day found me sharing a...more

2012 was a tremendous year for me. I hit a high point in poker when I finished 2nd in the SCOOP Main Event on PokerStars.fr and won over €110,000. It was a three-day tournament and I made the final table as the chip leader. Although it wasn't too difficult getting...more

I have a story to share, kind of what you might call a Kafkaesque poker story. It happened in Budapest, Hungary, which I guess is appropriate since Franz Kafka was from central Europe. This happened about five years ago. I was playing in a poker tournament, and while I can't...more

I am back now from the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific. Poker went well for me there, highlighted by a final table in the first event (the "accumulator") where I finished fourth. It was a lot of fun being in Australia, too, where it was my first time ever...more

I'm back on the road as usual, traveling all over for poker. Among the places I have visited already this year was Deauville, France where the EPT stopped in February. I always like playing in France both because of the people and because I'm Francophone, too. My accent is different,...more

Hockey is back! Hockey is back! Can you tell I'm excited about hockey coming back? A lot of people know I'm a huge Montreal Canadiens fan, and thus like a lot of other NHL fans I'm thrilled that the lockout has been resolved and the season is finally underway. It's...more

It has been another busy year of traveling again, with a big highlight so far being the Norwegian Championships in March. As far as playing went, I came in third in the heads-up event, although the rest didn't go so well. But it was still great fun and I wanted...more

I'm writing from freezing Norway, where the winter is super cold as usual. Not a lot to do, really, except stay indoors. For me that is working out okay, because I'm playing a lot of online poker this winter, and I'm enjoying it, too. I often prefer live poker to...more

by Johnny Lodden I've spent the ten last days abroad playing PLO. It went pretty bad - I lost almost every day and didn't feel that I played that well in the end. Additionally, you can safely say the poker gods were not on my side. I think the main...more

Now that I'm a regular commuter between Michigan and Canada, I realized that I should have made this move a long time ago. First of all, it's not even a bad drive--it only takes about 45 minutes to get from my house to the border, and once I come out...more

After a long break from online poker, I'm finally getting back to the tables. I recently went up to Canada to look at some places so I can set up a second residence and get back on PokerStars. I haven't played online since Black Friday, and I'm really excited to...more

Before Black Friday, I used to play online poker all the time. Some weeks I'd play for 80 hours. I'd just wake up and play poker and that's really all I did. Then once Black Friday happened, I haven't played online since. It's a whole different life I've been living...more

For the fourth time in the last five years, January gave me the chance to live ten dream days in Paradise Island, Bahamas. That's because PokerStars keeps picking this dream location to start the calendar year of poker in a place where, besides the vacation environment, players can find 40...more

The last couple of months looked like they were going to be completely normal, but they have turned out to be anything but. I've been presented with a number of challenges. First off, I'm now writing for the PokerStars Blog and hope to be doing so on a monthly basis....more

There are so many different formats for tournament poker. I played in two unique tournament formats recently, one I didn't much like and one that I really enjoyed. The first, the one I didn't like, was the Premier League VI event in London. I had been invited to the Premier...more

If you look at my Hendon Mob entry for last year, you probably think I had a good year. It shows that I had $523,587 in tournament cashes for the year and three WSOP final tables. But I can honestly say that 2012 was pretty brutal for me. It was...more

Today, I'm playing in Day 2 of the PCA $100,000 Super High Roller, and if I survive until tomorrow it's going to put a serious dent in my plans to play the PCA's first Open-Face Chinese Poker tournament. After spending over two months traveling around Europe for tournaments, I was...more

I haven't been playing too much to start the year, other than at the PCA where I enjoyed serving as the captain of the German team for the World Cup of Poker. That's always a cool event with a fun atmosphere. Now I'm playing in some events in Germany and...more

Last year was a great year for me poker-wise -- the best of my career, in fact -- highlighted of course by a deep run in the WSOP Main Event where I finished 26th. The year then concluded with a very enjoyable trip just before Christmas to Saalbach Hinterglemm, Austria...more

Between live tournaments, doing commentary for German TV, and coaching players, it's been a crazy year. But the highlight for me was becoming a father for the second time. My older daughter is 22 months old and my little one is six months old now. It's been a really beautiful...more

When I'm facing a big life decision, I try to take a short break from my everyday routine. I find that the time away brings me a lot of clarity. After the PCA I needed to unplug for a while, so I took a ski holiday in France with my...more

My story is not unlike what every professional poker player has gone through if he's been in the game for a long enough time. When I started playing over seven years ago, poker was only a hobby. I liked beating people at such a challenging game and it also had...more

I haven't been traveling much the last few months. Normally I play every EPT and every Russian Poker Series event, in addition to the WSOP and the PCA. I play a lot of tournaments. But the Russian Poker Series went on hiatus recently for various reasons, and there are fewer...more

Even after the World Series of Poker, I'm hungry for more poker. After the WSOP, I used to stay in the United States for WPTs, but now I have a more familiar feeding ground: Latin America. Only ten years ago, it was almost impossible to find a game of No-Limit...more

Online poker is becoming tougher every day. Competition is fierce. I've found it helps to re-focus on doing the easy things, the things people don't think about much, making it a good foundations to play our best poker. First of all, you should try to have zero distractions while you're...more

My birthday is October 30th, and in fact this year I spent the day in kind of an unusual way. I went to Paris with my friend and fellow Team PokerStars Pro João Nunes to shoot a new poker show for Portuguese television! Poker shows are pretty popular in most...more

Moving house is always a tremendous amount of work, but this time, it's worth it. My girlfriend and I have been settling into our new apartment in Salzburg, Austria. It's a beautiful city and I love our neighborhood. It's lovely to walk around and full of restaurants we enjoy. Also,...more

Over the last month I've been playing the high-stakes mixed games on PokerStars. After many months of not finding anyone playing above $50/$100 in the 2-7 section, the action came back all of a sudden. Games at the $500/$1,000 and $1,000/$2,000 level are coming together regularly and I'm happy I...more

EPT Berlin. The Big one. For me. Often I went deep in tournaments but did not quite get the result I expected. But it never hurt more than in Berlin. One year I got a big stack of chips and then made a superb hero call for it. He had...more

Back in my field hockey days, I was tested for doping all the time at major events. They'd do it at the Olympics, the World Cup, the European Championships, all the big tournaments. Sometimes they'd even test us during our training periods. One time, I got the results back and...more

Right before Christmas and almost six months after filming ended, the final episode of Benelux Survivor aired and I was at last able to reveal what I'd been holding back for so long... I won! I'm pretty good at keeping a secret, right? The night of the final episode, my...more

For three years in a row, the producers of the Benelux version of Survivor approached me about being a contestant on the show. I turned them down the first two times because I had just started playing poker and really wanted to go to the World Series, but when they...more

For the last 18 months or so I've been working out six or seven days per week with ElkY and our trainer, Lincoln. I first ran into them during EPT London in October 2011, when ElkY was training for his boxing fight with Lex Veldhuis. I had just spent four...more

When's the last time you closed a bank account? Unless you've made a major move in the last few years, I'll bet it's been a while. I was forced to close one a few months ago - and it had nothing to do with my recent move from New York...more

When you're a poker pro, you wind up spending lots of time on the road. It's almost unavoidable, especially if you're constantly seeking out the best games and the best tournaments. Three or four years ago I was playing poker, but not the way I am now. Back then New...more

I just got back a few weeks ago from a trip to Japan. I went right before WSOP Asia Pacific, and I am really glad I did because I'll be busy over the next couple of months with the EPT and SCOOP, and then with the WSOP this summer. I...more

People sometimes ask me about my career playing Starcraft, something I did very seriously for quite a while before becoming a full-time poker pro. At the time I started it was only possible to be a full-time player in South Korea, and so I moved there when I was about...more

The WCOOP ended not too long ago. Some of you might have heard about a WCOOP prop bet I made with fellow PokerStars Team Pro Eugene Katchalov, and I thought I'd give a report on how that went. Eugene and I really wanted to come up with some sort of...more

I look forward to the PCA every year, not only for the awesome tournaments, but also for a chance to continue a long-running tradition. Noah Boeken is one of my best friends from the Magic community and for years now we've shared a room at PCA. This year, Nacho Barbero...more

After busting not one, but two entries in the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic at Bellagio, poker was pretty much done for me in 2012. The next weekend, I was supposed to fly to Toronto for a Magic tournament and part of the reason I was excited to go was because...more

Since my last update, I took a couple of short trips with my fiancé Yvette and our daughter Liliana. A few days before Thanksgiving, we flew to Texas to visit my mother. She got to spend some quality time with Lili and for Thanksgiving dinner, we drove out to my...more

I've been continuing to grind a lot on my way to earning Supernova Elite, and so thought I'd write a little about what I've been learning along the way. In order to earn FPPs for Supernova Elite, I've been playing a lot of heads-up sit-n-gos and heads-up cash games, and...more

I have been playing a lot on PokerStars.it so far this year, where the games are good and the traffic is good as well. I actually have a goal this year of being the first to make Supernova Elite on PokerStars.it, and so it has been fun for me to...more

So as most of you know, recently at EPT London three members of Team PokerStars Pro took on "The Professionals" from FTP in a heads-up battleship style duel. It all started via Twitter with some friendly needling between Gus Hansen and me. We discussed it, and I went to the...more

I've been traveling the tournament circuit since the late 90s and a lot has changed since then, both in terms of where I go and also what works for me in terms of a schedule. When I first started playing the circuit, I just couldn't imagine missing a tournament! The...more

Whether you play poker for a living or just travel to play tournaments for the enjoyment of it, I assume your goal before getting on that airplane is to win the tournament. The question I have for you, is do you do everything you can to best prepare yourself for...more

It's been a good year so far. As far as live poker goes, in March I played in the 2013 Championship of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava. I've been playing in that series for seven years now, and it is always a lot of fun. Unfortunately I busted the Main...more

I just returned home from Bulgaria where I won the Main Event at the Pravets Poker Masters. The tournament drew mostly French, Swiss, and Bulgarian players and was held at a beautiful spa and golf resort. I loved the property and enjoyed the spa nearly every day. The Main Event...more

I am happy that WCOOP is coming. It's going be the largest series of online tournaments worldwide and there will be 62 chances to win the title. And 30,000,000USD guaranteed - which is a great figure! For me it is my first WCOOP where I'm going to play more events...more

I don't have too much to report regarding my own play of late. However, I have been delivering some seriously good vibes to my friends who keep going deep in big tourneys. In fact, it seems like recently everyone around me in our little entourage has been doing well, and...more

There's a situation that arises in poker when a player raises and let's say you decide to call with a speculative hand. Then another player decides to put in a reraise. Suddenly you find yourself caught in the middle, which can be a pretty uncomfortable spot. Sometimes it's hard to...more

It's a new year, and like always the new year inspires thoughts of doing things better, improving oneself, loving more, being friendlier and more helpful to others, and changing the world for the better. So I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do in 2013 to make...more

I set two goals for myself in poker this year. The first one is to play more EPTs. If you can believe it, I've only been to two! At the end of 2012, I traveled to Prague for my second one ever, and had such a wonderful experience I vowed...more

I got pretty sick and missed a lot of this year's World Series of Poker. Normally, this would upset a lot of player, but it really didn't bother me that much. I've been part of the most important poker scene in Latin America. Just recently, Mexico City legalized live poker....more

Hi everyone, I hope you are doing fine. I write to you from Mexico City to talk a little bit about the LAPT. For Season 4 of LAPT, it has been announced that Colombia will be its next stop, this time to host the Colombia National Poker Championship. In a...more

In addition to playing a pretty full schedule this year, I've gotten back into teaching poker more regularly as well, and it has really been rewarding to do so. I obviously started out as an amateur player, then shortly after winning the WSOP Main Event in 2003 I began to...more

If you happened to see All In: The Poker Movie, you know that I'm in there telling my story, especially everything leading up to the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event. One of the things I talk about was how I used to bet on sports, which as we...more

Probably the most common question I get asked -- other than "Is Moneymaker your real name?" -- is "What does it take to become a poker pro?" In some ways it's an easy question to answer. What does it take to be classified as a poker pro? Quit your job....more

Remember when I told you how nervous I was about studying for my exams during the PCA? Well, I'm happy to report that I made it through and passed every one! It's really important for me to be able to successfully balance poker and school and I'm glad I'm able...more

I come from a very geeky family that plays a lot of game. I love games. My boyfriend loves games. My sister games all the time, and so does her boyfriend. Whenever our whole family gets together, things often turn to games. At the last party we had, we played...more

When it comes to poker, it's been another quiet month. School is still in session and I've had to spend a lot of time studying and working on a few group projects for class. I did manage to get away and play one live event, though: the PokerStars Hold'em Challenge...more

I'm writing this post from the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific where Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu were among those winning bracelets. In the tournament Ivey won (the 8-game mixed event), he actually knocked me out in a no-limit hold'em hand with around 20 players left. In fact, that's...more

Ever hear about the time James Bond came looking for me at a hotel in Switzerland? No? Let me explain. During the time I was active in modeling and just starting out as an actor, I found myself in Paris for a couple of weeks. I'd made some friends over...more

I've been a professional poker player for a while now, but as many know I pursued a couple of other passions before this one -- baseball and acting. In fact, at one point early on I had to make a choice between the two, and ended up forgoing a minor...more

At this year's World Series of Poker Asia Pacific, I won my entry to the $10,000 Main Event via satellite. I have to say - it feels great to satellite into a big event. Since I was planning to play the Main Event no matter what, winning a seat via...more

As a poker player on the Asian tournament circuit, it can sometimes be a headache trying to organize a trip that gives you poker action, fun, a comfortable hotel, and relaxation. Well, your super trip advisor is here! Run--don't walk--to your calendar and mark off April 19 to May 5...more

In January I went home to Melbourne for the Aussie Millions. I have a special attachment to that tournament series. Crown Poker was where I learned to play but, for whatever reason, I've never had any great results there. This time around I made a deep run and finished in...more

It's tough to be a live-plus-online pro in Asia. Unlike Europe, which has lots of live events fairly close together and friendly online tournament times, Asian live tournaments are far-flung and major online tournaments start in the middle of the night. Since the start of the year from Singapore to...more

My wife's grandma is from Shanghai, so this year we spent Chinese New Year there. We had a "reunion lunch" in Singapore with my side of the family and then hopped on a plane to Shanghai so we could have the reunion dinner with hers. At the reunion dinner, the...more

Recently, PokerStars Macau announced details about their new poker room which will be rebranded 'PokerStars LIVE at the City of Dreams'. I, along with a lot of other people, have been speculating where the new home would be for months and City of Dreams (COD) is at the top of...more

We have good tournament directors around the world, but sometimes they and their partners make really bad decisions, and often the reason that they do is they aren't playing poker every day. What we need to have happen at all major events is to have a committee of players who...more

Open-Face Chinese Poker has really taken off. For example, during previous years at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure we always had a $200/$400 or $400/$800 mixed game. But this year rather than a big mixed game, there were four tables of Open-Face Chinese Poker going. I've just started to play the...more

We are a little more than a month into the new year, and with the new year comes thoughts of how I'll be spending it in terms of my poker-playing. When I plan out my year in poker, there are certain things that are already marked off on the schedule....more

For the last year I've been trying hard to improve my online cash games. I'd always played cash games before I got into tournaments, but when I started having tournament success I stopped playing them for a while. When I got back to them I kind of felt stuck. The...more

2013 is shaping up to be a busy year for me. By the time the WSOP ends in mid-July, I'll only have spent about a month and a half at home in Mexico. In January I split my time between the Bahamas for the PCA and Australia for the Aussie...more

It's not often that I travel without thinking about poker. Maybe I'll go see some tourist attraction or go out for dinner or for drinks or whatever else people do when they travel, but at some point during the day I'm going to grab my computer and play a bit...more

Last fall, I watched my friends Eugene Katchalov and ElkY roll into the EPT San Remo on bicycles. Drenched in sweat, they popped champagne and smiled for the cameras, having cycled almost 100 km from Cannes, France. It was the result of a prop bet they came up with during...more

I have some really exciting news to share. I've been signed as a client by 9ine, one of the top sports and entertainment agencies in Brazil. The owner and president of the company is a man many of you might be familiar with, especially if you follow soccer--Ronaldo Nazario, one...more

With all the traveling that I do for poker, I don't usually get to take non-poker trips. But I've spent lots of time recently planning for a non-poker trip. My club soccer team, Corinthians, won the 2012 Copa Libertadores for the first time ever last July. They advanced to the...more

My last few months have been so busy I've hardly had time to stop and take a breath. After playing WCOOPs every day for a month straight, I packed up and went straight to Cannes for the World Series of Poker-Europe with my boyfriend, Bryn Kenney. I ended up doing...more

The MicroMillions on PokerStars is a great new idea for any kind of poker player! It gives everyone a chance to play in a big tournament, and to experience a deep run in a major tournament is very fun, which is why it is great that they run so many...more

These days it seems like everybody is trying to get in shape in some way. People are exercising. People are changing their diets. More people are beginning to understand that even though poker is a mind sport, good physical form is still very important. Tournament days require a great deal...more

In late October I traveled to Baden, Austria for the 2012 Poker EM series. This year marked my 9th year in a row traveling to this fantastic spa town near Vienna. To be honest, I've never understood why this event isn't more popular. Baden is located about 25km south of...more

If you've been looking forward to another series of PokerStars SCOOP - the Spring Championship of Online Poker - then the good news is we've now got the schedule. As usual the list of SCOOP tournaments covers all the main poker formats, with small, medium and large buy-ins for each...more