Diary of a Poker Diva - Liz Lieu

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!

Picking right back up from where I left off. I made the short drive to the Bellagio to meet up with my friends to go to The Bank. When I arrived I ran into Eric Morris, Owner of Bluff Magazine and Justin Bonomo. I have never met Justin until then. They were waiting on Lacey and Christina.

I decided to book my own table separately on the dance floor since I had out of town guests and decided to invite a couple of girlfriends. It turns out our tables were very close. Jeff Madsen, Nenad Medic, Brandon Cantu, Tiffany Michelle, Maria Ho, Justin Bonomo and Rick Fuller were just a few among many other poker players that decided to come out for the Bluff Party.

(photo courtesy of Spy On Vegas)

We settled in around 11pm and ordered three bottles of Vodka. I don’t drink at all, typically, but I did have half a shot with Nenad towards the end of the night. It was one of those type of nights. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits. The WSOP Main Event was just a day away and I decided to celebrate the occasion.

(photo courtesy of Spy On Vegas and Napkin Nights)

Most of the night everyone bounced back and forth between the different tables. I also ran into the entire Asian Dragon APT Crew, Quinn Do, Nam Le, JC Tran, Steve Sung, as well as Martin Elliott and Tom Hall of the Asian Poker Tour. They had a few tables as well Saturday night. I am a big supporter of the APT and I plan to play in several events.

(photo courtesy of Spy On Vegas)

Sunday was really uneventful. It was a complete recovery day from the two nights before. A chance to catch up on errands. Check emails. I pretty much stayed in my home the whole day and ordered Mexican take out to be delivered to my place.

Now it’s Monday and I just returned from taking my mercedes into the dealership for some routine maintenance and oil check. I plan on driving to Los Angeles tonight. My Chilipoker Sponsor, Alexandre Dreyfus, is in Los Angeles for a few days. I want to catch up on some work with him while he’s in town.

Most of our correspondence in the past month has been over Skype or phone so this is a good chance to meet up with Alex because we are both travelling so much and he is always busy with work. Alex is truly one of the most intelligent business people I know and has a great sense of humor. I look forward to seeing him again.

And I promise you some poker blogs are coming soon!!

Cheers!

It’s Saturday evening and I thought I would post a quick blog before getting ready attend the Bluff Party tonight at The Bank in the Bellagio. I will be joined by some of my good friends.

For the past two days, I have been entertaining a couple friends from out of town and handling some poker business. Many people are in town this weekend for the WSOP Main Event. I will be at The RIO on Sunday to meet up with Matt Waldon to do an interview for Lifes A Bluff and possibly Flush Magazine. While I’m there I’m also gonna swing by the final table to root for David “Chino” Rheem.

Many young players can be cocky and obnoxious but Chino has never been like that. Chino has always been respectful. Chino might still be young but he is a grinder who worked his way up from the cash games and always worked hard to improve. It’s no fluke Chino is at the Final Table and I wish him the best of luck.

I am not all work and NO fun however. I did go out last night for a bit to Lavo, the new club at the Palazzo last night. I met a couple of my friends out there and we had a good evening. If you haven’t been to the Palazzo it has a similar vibe as TAO Night Club but much smaller and more intimate. Right when you walk in there is a main bar area that feels more like a cocktail lounge and the upstairs is a dance floor.

I had friend’s texting me to come to Prive and the Hard Rock as well. Unfortunately by the time I received those texts it was getting pretty late. I grabbed a few late night snacks with my friends before we decided to call it a night. Tonight should be a much more adventurous night. Last night all of my friends were spread all over the place.

Some were saving there energy for the Hoyt Corkins Charity event today. Others were at Prive or the Hard Rock or just staying low key. Most of the friends I’ve talked to are all coming out tonight so this should be a really fun evening.

It is time to go get ready. I am going to grab dinner somewhere. Not sure where yet!! I need to get ready first however. If you happen to come across this blog and see me at The Bank tonight, say Hi. Until the next blog, arrivederci.

I’m Changing…

My blog to make it more personal. Here I will share with everyone my everyday life, new adventures, random thoughts and feelings. I hope you all will enjoy as I take you along with me on my journey through life. I will try and treat this new blog more like a journal. Making several entries throughout the week. I will keep you posted on the latest and greatest.

Welcome to the Diary of a Poker Diva! Why the change? Because I’ve changed as a person in this past year. So much has happened in my life in 2008, having to encounter some very painful experiences off the felt. In many ways this has been a transforming year for me. A year of growth despite the many personal setbacks. I wanted to share those experiences on a more intimate level with my family, fans, and friends who stuck with me through thick and thin. I hope you enjoy this new format and provide feedback.

10-26-08

Well this is a great starting point for this new blog. It was a very interesting weekend. I was able to get out of my condo in Las Vegas and hang out with so many of my close friends. On Friday, I met up with some good friends for dinner. My girlfriend Lacey Jones called me and told me we were having dinner with Michael Phelps at Simons restaurant at The Palms. Yes, that Michael Phelps. He is in town for the Festa Al Lago Classic (WPT) at the Bellagio. I arrived late but my friends Lacey Jones, Maria Ho, and Jeff Madsen were already there to greet me along with Michael and one of his poker friends Scott Freeman. After meeting Michael I thought he was a cool guy, very laid back and down to earth.

After dinner, we all hopped in a limo and headed over to TAO Night Club where Michael had a table on the dance floor under the catwalk. The MC made an announcement that Michael Phelps was in the house at the beginning of the night and everyone applauded. So many other poker players showed up as well including David Williams, Phil Laak, Phil Hellmuth, Roland De Wolfe, and Antonio Esfandiari, to name just a few. It turned out to be a really fun night and since I haven’t gone out to the clubs much at all in 2008, it was a good change of pace for me and everyone was having so much fun.

I had so much fun on Friday I thought I would roll the dice on Saturday too. I met up with Lacey and Maria again. Our plan was to go to the Cathouse at the Luxor but when we arrived, we were waiting around for a few people that we agreed to meet. I’m not a very patient person, hehe, so after awhile I decided lets do something else. Turns out a bunch of poker players had a table at the Bank. So, we decided to go there. We turned around and lost Lacey. We had some other people in our group too so me and Maria decided to head to the Bank and we knew Lacey was safe. When we arrived at The Bank, the club was packed with poker pros partying like rockstars. We partied with them for awhile and eventually I got tired and went home.

All in all it was a pretty eventful weekend. I was glad I came out and I am really excited about what is coming down the road as well.

Cheers!