Diary of a Poker Diva - Liz Lieu

Quick update. Sorry for the week long delay between updates. I’ve been busy in Vancouver, playing poker, partying and even doing some commercial promos for the River Rock Casino.

Congratulations to Daniel Negreanu for winning the Main Event of the BC Poker Championships. Daniel took home the first place price worth $371,910. A bunch of poker players celebrated with Daniel at Republic on Sunday night.

I will give you more details in the next blog. I am still recovering from the trip. Who says girls cannot get along? Lacey Jones, Maria Ho, Tiffany Michelle and I stayed at the same Penthouse Suite Wednesday through Monday. The girls had some great bonding moments in Vancouver this past week! Unfortunately none of us made it deep in the main event tournament.

We arrived at River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, British Columbia and the Poker staff and Resort were awesome! They went out of there way to make accommodations for us and make us feel welcome. I want to give a special thanks to Alex Lee Behan. Alex handles the PR for all seventeen casinos in B.C. In addition to that, Alex is a close friend of Lacey Jones and she went out of her way to make sure we had the very best experience during our time in BC. Thank you Alex!!

There were many aspects of my trip to BC. My brother Kenny Lieu lives in BC so I spent some time visiting him and his family. As most of you know my dad passed away last year and my brother Kenny looks almost identical to my dad. I cannot help but think of my dad when I visit my brother.

The second part of my trip was the actual poker. I only planned on playing the Main Event and unfortunately for me I didn’t last past the first day. I wasn’t able to pick up any chips and before I knew it I was short stacked and forced to move all in. I ran into a better hand and my tournament was over.

That only freed up more time to play online. This was difficult at first because we only had a cable modem in our Hotel Suite. I had to call the Casino Exec and he was able to coordinate with the resort to get us a wireless modem. Four girls in the penthouse suite all wanting to get internet access and play poker or get work done on our lap tops. We couldn’t do it without the wireless access and the hotel was very accommodating in helping us get wireless internet.

Lots and lots of pros were in town for the tournament. Some of the big names who also tried their luck at the table included Brad “Yukon” Booth, Gavin Smith, Lacey Jones, Mark Napier, Gabe Kaplan, Dennis Philips, Isabelle Mercier, Maria Ho, Tiffany Michelle, David Williams, and Steve Sung. The nearly 700 player field had a really good mix of amateur and professional poker players. Many recognizable online players rounded out the field. Once I was knocked out the Resort asked me if I could do some promos for them and light hosting duties.

The third aspect of the trip was just good ole fashioned fun. On Thursday night a large group of us went out to dinner. Some of the other poker players such as Michael Binger, Steve Sung, Todd Bui and all of the ladies went out to dinner. Later that night we just had a chill time in our Hotel Suite. We had drinks and laid low.

The next night, Friday, a large group of us headed into Downtown Vancouver. Lacey, Tiffany, Maria, Gavin, Brad, Steve Sung, Todd, Brian “Devo”, and about 10 other friends headed into a night club called Caprice. Lacey’s good friend Alex Lee Behan booked us a table at Caprice. We had a terrific time.

On Saturday, the girls stayed in for the night. I filmed some cutaways for the River Rock Casino Resort. To promote the Resort and the BC Poker Championships. There was also an autograph session.

On Sunday, we all stuck around the final table area to watch Daniel Negreanu win the BC Poker Championship. Once again, congrats to Daniel!! I’m back in Las Vegas and next on the Horizon is the Five Star Diamond Classic at the Bellagio in December.

I will post another blog very soon. I have some other thoughts and stories to share. But for now I need to get some rest and recover from the busy week in BC!!

Cheers!

I am writing this blog from my sick bed! Yes, I caught the stomach flu that’s kicking my butt harder than anything I watched at UFC 91 this weekend!!

For starters, my weekend started off grand. My friend Jewels flew into Vegas for one day. She is a close dear friend of mine from Israel and it’s been 2 years since I’ve seen her last. Unfortunately she is travelling for business and was only able to stop by Vegas for one day. Jewels and I headed to the Wynn to eat at the very upscale Alex Restaurant. It is absolutely superb if you have never been there. We caught up on each others lives and shared some girl gossip. Love you Jewels! xoxo

The very next day I had another visit from another good friend, Eddie Ting. Eddie flew in with six of his friends. A few of them were staying at the Luxury Villas at the Bellagio. The Villas are 6500 Square-foot estates. It was my second time going to the Bellagio Villas. It is simply amazing. The Villa has its own private pool and Jacuzzi. It comes with 24 hour Butler service and the guests get treated like Royalty. The Suites are only available by invitation only.

If you haven’t received your invitation to stay at the Villa don’t worry, I am still waiting for my invitation too!! But at $10,000 per night I think I would possibly pass even if I was invited.

At the last minute my friend Eddie sends me a text asking me to go with him to UFC 91 Event at the MGM. I don’t know how he got his tickets at the last second but when you are staying at the Villas I don’t think getting tickets to any event is a problem. Our seats were pretty amazing. (Thanks Alan!)

A few of my friends were surprised I wanted to watch the UFC when I told them about it. Little did they know huh? I guess I’ve been around guys too much all of my life! That’s what happens when you are a female poker player. To most people’s surprise, this wasn’t my first fight. I’ve been to several other fights in the past and I really enjoyed it.

It’s never any fun going to any of these fighting events without placing any bets right? So Eddie and myself placed a couple prop bets on some of the matches. Result ending with Liz +2 Eddie -2. LOL! 

The Randy Couture vs. Brock Lesnar fight really lived up to the billing. Randy was the Heavyweight champion and UFC legend. Brock was probably the freakiest person I’ve ever seen in my life. He looked like the real life embodiment of the Hulk!! Despite the size difference most people seemed pretty confident about Randy’s chances. Because of his experience and history of beating all of the top guys in the UFC. The crowd was really behind Randy Couture but Brock Lesnar was too much.

And then comes this final ending, with Couture on the ground getting pounded on the head full strength -non-stop! It’s over! Sigh… Lets just say with Brock Lesnar winning the fight.. A large sum of money went down the drain.. WT*!

Afterwards, the 4 of us who attended the fight together - Eddie, Nick, Lisa, and myself, headed back to the Bellagio and ate a sushi feast before meeting up with Eddie’s friends Liberty and her husband, who also joined us at the Bank where a table was waiting for us. I finished out my night at The Bank and midway through I started to feel a stomach ache coming on. Ever since then I’ve pretty much been feeling like a dead fish the last couple days. I’m sure it was the sushi I ate! Argh!! I would love to be playing some online poker right now but it’s never a good idea to play poker when you are feeling sick.

I’d like to send my Congrats to Eddie and his beautiful wife on having an adorable healthy new born son Tyler Ting. (And Eddie if your reading this, you can ask me a thousand more times who your son looks like and you’ll still get the same answer, your wife! :P)

The last two days have been miserable but I am starting to feel better now. My next journal entry will probably be from Canada. I fly into Vancouver on Wednesday and plan to play some poker with our friendly neighbors in the North. Until then.

Cheers!