One of the brightest faces in poker belongs to the lovely Evelyn Ng. Better known around the circuit as Evy or Evebabee, she has become one of the most recognizable players in the game today. She made her splash on the scene back in 2003 when she finished second in the WPT Ladies Championship. Since then she has made over $285,000 in tournament winnings.

She, like many professionals, got her start in gaming by dealing blackjack and poker. She was dealing in Toronto at the age of 17 and eventually moved to Vegas where the real action is. She is also one of the best at chip tricks; that and her good looks keep the camera pointed at her wherever she’s playing. Players have been trying to do her butterfly trick ever since she displayed it on the 2004 ESPN segment of “The Nuts”.

You can’t talk about Evelyn without mentioning Daniel Negreanu. They met at an early age in their hometown of Toronto, Canada, and both were heavily into playing billiards. The two dated for a period of time years ago and remain good friends today. She is one of the characters in Daniel’s popular video game “Stacked”, and he has helped her become a force to reckon with at any table she decides to join.

She was part of the PokerStars team for awhile but now she’s a member of the Team Bodog squad. She recently started to do some poker broadcasting, working for NBC commenting on poker of course, and seems to be quite at home with a microphone in her hand. The combination of those two skills will keep her in the public eye for some time to come, and none of us are complaining about that.

Ng will eventually win a big tournament and her career will take off to the grandest of levels. She has the potential to be the biggest female poker star in the world once she wins that big tournament – it’s only a matter of time.

There are many poker stars that have had legendary performances, but few have had a legendary career. One player has dominated the game more than any other; he led the creation of the modern poker era, and continues to be one of the game’s best players at the age of 72. He has been the king of poker for close to 40 years now, and he’s not about to stop anytime soon.

Doyle Brunson literally wrote the book on poker, “Super System”, and was the first top player to reveal the power of aggressive play and the importance of getting a read on your opponent’s actions and habits. He has since added the sequel to the book with “Super System 2”, and some other publications are due out soon.

His accomplishments are so numerous it would take up too much space in this article to detail them all. Some highlights include back-to-back WSOP Main Event Championships, ten WSOP Bracelets, a WPT Championship and over four million dollars in tournament earnings. Brunson plays in the highest cash games in the world, and he led the infamous “Texas Rounders” group in the 50’s and 60’s playing high-stakes poker in Texas.

His poker abilities pale in comparison to the man that he is. He has overcome situations that would destroy the average man. His spirit did not weaken after he crushed his leg at work, on the summer before he was starting his professional basketball career, or when he was diagnosed with cancer. He continued to pursue his dream of playing poker regardless of how things went along the way.

For all this he has become the ambassador of the game, and everyone cheers for Doyle if he’s sitting in. He is the face for Doyle’s Room online poker room, and he can be seen at most major tournaments. He brought poker into the mainstream, nurtured it through the changes, and continues to set an example for every player that dreams of being a top pro.

Ever since poker became the biggest thing since sliced bread, everyone who has played a hand of Texas Holdem has thought about what it would be like to be a professional poker player. The glamorous lifestyle, millions of dollars resting on one card, and having the opportunity to sleep as late as you want and still make lots of money all combine to make the life of a professional poker player seem so appealing.

So, should you take the giant leap into the world of professional poker? It’s not as easy as you might think. First of all you need a bankroll – a big bankroll. This can’t just be money you have stashed away for emergencies either. This needs to be money you can use only for poker; not rent or food money, or the money you’ve been saving to take your next vacation. One of the best ways to discern if you’re truly ready to be a poker pro is if you’ve built your bankroll by actually playing poker. If this is the case, at least you know you’re good enough to make some cash at the game.

The next thing you have to figure out is how much you need to win in order to accommodate your lifestyle. It’s great that you’re making a couple hundred dollars a day playing poker, but when you tally that up out over the entire year is it really enough to live in the manner to which you’re accustomed? Let’s see, $200 X 365 days = $73,000. That’s not a bad number, but do you really plan on playing every day of the year? And what about cold streaks? Could you survive a bad streak on that poker salary?

Once you work out the financial aspects of your new poker life you have to look at it from the mental side. You may be able to handle playing poker once or twice a week for some extra cash, but can you honestly say you can handle it as an everyday vocation? Sitting in a chair for a few hours may seem pretty easy, but the toll playing poker can take on your mind can be brutal. Winning streaks can fill you with life, but bad losses and bad beats can suck that life right out of you. Poker pros have to be strong-willed, thick-skinned, and have a short memory at times. It’s comparable to being a closer in baseball. If you don’t think you could stare down Albert Pujols a day after he put one of your pitches in the upper deck, then you might not be able to handle the pressures of poker either.

Before you turn pro be sure to check your game, check your bankroll and check your head. If it all checks out, good luck to you in your new life.

It’s been a number of years since an established poker pro won the World Series of Poker main event. According to veteran poker pros, the last true professional to claim poker’s biggest prize was Juan Carlos Mortenson in 2001.

Since Mortenson’s victory, the champions have been Robert Varkonyi in 2002 (an investment banker), Chris Moneymaker in 2003 (an accountant), Greg Raymer in 2004 (a patent lawyer), Joel Hachem in 2005 (a chiropractor), and Jamie Gold last year (a TV producer). Almost all of these WSOP champs started playing poker professionally after their big win, but only Mortenson used it as his sole means of income before winning the bracelet.

If the established poker pros hope to strike back and retake poker’s crown jewel back from the amateurs, this looks like the year to do it. With all the problems online poker rooms are having with U.S. online gambling legislation, and the announcement by Harrah’s that they won’t be accepting entrants from online poker rooms, the field in the main event should drop for the first time since 1992.

Last year’s main event field of 8773 players was a new WSOP record. With the new online poker difficulties the estimates for this year’s event have been ranging from 4000 to 5000. Some pessimistic people in the poker world are even predicting a huge drop in numbers, with as few as only 2000 players lining up to play.

If that’s the case the poker pros may finally take back what once belonged to them every year. The larger the field in the poker tournament, the more luck you need to make it through the early riff-raff. If you want proof, just look at last year’s main event final table. Basically you had poker pro Allen Cunningham and eight guys no one had ever heard of. The year before that was pretty much the same, with Mike Matusow and Andy Black surrounded by unknowns, including eventual winner Hachem.

The farther you go back, the more poker pros end up at the final table. Coincidentally the field also gets smaller. With this year’s field expected to drop heavily, expect a blast from the past and a poker pro to make a few million dollars.

The World Series of Poker* pulling the plug on allowing online poker rooms to pay a player’s tournament buy-in will be a negative for the event, but it should be sweet music to the ears of poker pros.

The World Series of Poker* is owned and run by Harrah’s. The Harrah’s people better not be looking at last year’s figures when drawing up their profit expectations for this year’s event. By distancing itself from online poker Harrah’s is costing itself a lot of money. Not only will this surely reduce the number of competitors from last year’s tournaments, but the cash being thrown around by the dozens of online poker rooms in attendance at last year’s event will dry up as well. Last year the lobby of the Rio’s tournament poker was filled with booths from all the major poker rooms. Bodog, PokerStars, Full Tilt; they were all there. With the current online gambling situation in the U.S.A. and the WSOP’s* new stance on online poker in general, these booths may not be around this year and the cash and people they pulled in won’t be there either.

The people who should be happy about what will surely be a reduced field in this year’s main event are the poker pros. With an estimated 3000-5000 players this year (down from 8773) the pros will have a much better chance at winning the title as poker’s world champion. No matter how good a poker player you are, you still need a lot of luck to be the last man or woman standing out of an 8773-player field. With the field whittled down the WSOP* will likely revert back to the way it used to be with an already-famous poker professional winning the big prize, instead of a Chris Moneymaker or a Jamie Gold making a name for himself by winning poker’s biggest prize.

These feelings were already being echoed by some poker pros at last year’s main event after the incredibly large field kept them from making it as far as they had in previous years. These pros seem to have got their wish for a smaller event, but that wish may come with a price that hurts the WSOP* as a whole this year, and in the future.

* World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (“Harrah’s”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with RatePokerPlayers.com.