PokerWorks

Where are They Now is a series of an in depth look at all poker players - not just the pros - as they travel through one long game. Some of the players profiled are deceased but not forgotten.

There was a time in the poker scene when seeing a woman at a poker table would cause a stir.  Nowadays the sight of a woman at a poker table is common, and if it does create a stir, it’s because that woman is usually attractive.  Today it seems every woman with good looks can earn a poker sponsorship and it is sometimes difficult to tell who the real players are.  Evelyn Ng stands out at a poker table.  Yes, it’s partly because she’s attractive and because she’s nearly six feet tall, but also because she fits in the category of good poker player, regardless of gender or beauty.  Ng would be one of the first to admit that her looks have certainly given her an advantage over certain people at a table before (see: men), but her hard work and dedication to be among the best players in the game shouldn’t be over looked.

Evelyn Ng was born in Toronto, Canada on September 14, 1975.  As a youngster she concentrated on her studies, but as she got a bit older she began to see what her true calling was.  One way or another she ended up in a pool hall as a young teenager, and by the time she was 14 she was playing pool against much older, male, opponents.  As evidenced, Ng has never been one to back down from a male dominated sport or pastime, and held her own at the pool tables.  As in most pool halls, the ones Ng played in offered poker games.  Ng would occasionally sit down in one of these games while waiting for her turn to shoot pool, but it took a few years for the game to stick.

When Ng turned 17 the pool games began to dry up, and became a bit boring.  In an effort to make more money she began dealing blackjack and poker.  However, she was dealing poker and blackjack in underground rooms, getting jobs through connections she had made in the pool world.  Again, maybe not the safest place for a young lady to be, but making money was a priority and she would do what she needed to do in order to accomplish her goals.
 
Throughout her travels in the underground poker scene in Toronto, and the rest of Canada, she ran into a future poker professional by the name of Daniel Negreanu.  Negreanu had started to make some waves on a bigger poker scale, eventually earning the name “Kid Poker,” and asked Ng if she wanted some help with her poker game.  Through these teaching sessions and spending time together, the pair started dating.  That relationship ended about a decade ago, but their friendship has remained strong since when they first started hanging out.

When Ng turned 21, Negreanu thought her game was good enough to take to the next level.  As both a birthday present, and an opportunity to gauge how far Ng’s game had progressed, he took her to Las Vegas for her 21st birthday.  Ng enjoyed the experience so much that as soon as she returned to Toronto she packed her bags and headed right back to Sin City.  She felt in her heart that she was eventually good enough to play professional poker for a living in Las Vegas.  She wasn’t bankrolled to do that at the time, so she once again got a job as a dealer of blackjack and poker, but she felt that it was only a matter of time.

Like many players in the “Where Are They Now” series, Ng didn’t just absent mindedly deal cards at the poker table.  She took full advantage of her time there to study the tendencies of winning players while also noting the mistakes she saw time and time again from losing players.
 
Ng eventually started participating in higher cash games and more local Vegas tournaments.  She began making a name for herself in the poker community, but didn’t make her big splash until 2003.  She appeared at the final table at the World Poker Tour’s inaugural Ladies Night.  When the televised coverage began, the focus was more on how she was Negreanu’s ex-girlfriend than her poker skills.  By the end of the night, despite finishing second, she was the true star of the show.  Ng outlasted the likes of Jennifer Harman, Kathy Liebert, and Annie Duke before succumbing to two bad beats and losing heads up to Clonie Gowen.

A series of tournament cashes followed, including her first WSOP cash in April of 2004, and a second WPT cash in 2005, finishing 22nd in the PokerStars Caribbean Classic.  Also in 2005 she cashed in three more WSOP tournaments and made her biggest cash of her career up until that point, taking home $64,942 at the WPT’s Borgata Poker Open.

Ng is still searching for her first WSOP or WPT final table, but it isn’t for lack of trying.  Between the two tournament circuits she has cashed 11 times in her short tournament career.  On top of those cashes she has cashed multiple times in other tournament series.

While Ng doesn’t date Negreanu anymore, she still dates “High Stakes Poker” players.  Her current boyfriend is also a current member on the roster of this season’s “High Stakes Poker” on Game Show Network, Lex Veldhuis.  

Ng also has the honor of being one of the select poker professionals to see her likeness as a video game character.  Ng appeared in the Xbox game “Stacked with Daniel Negreanu.”  In addition to her video game work, Ng appeared on the television show “King of Vegas.”  “King of Vegas” was a show that featured tournaments in eight different types of casino games, and Ng naturally appeared in the ones revolving around poker.  Ng also appeared in a British television game show called “Casino Casino” and Criss Angel’s “Mindfreak,” where Angel attempted to hypnotize Ng into picking the losing hand in a game of poker (no spoilers here!).

When Ng isn’t at a tournament or cash game table she can be seen playing on Bodog Poker as a sponsored player in their poker room.

*Read Billy Monroe's Blog*