Erin Ness
Erin Ness - “Poker Girl”
By
Barbara Feiner
“Hey, Maxim
Girl!”
It’s a familiar
shout-out for Erin Ness. She hears it when she’s
having lunch, walking down the street or simply going
about her normal routine.
“It’s
so funny to me,” says the 26-year-old photo
coordinator for Maxim
magazine, whose ascendance in the poker world has
generated major buzz.
“I’ve been in a deli, buying a sandwich, and have
had people say to me, ‘Hey, wait a minute! Are you
that…?’ ”
And
then recognition sets in: “You’re that Maxim
girl! You’re the poker girl!”
“A
couple of guys were driving down the street one time,”
she tells me. “I was standing at the corner, and
they yelled out the window, ‘Maxim!’—and I was
like, ‘Oh, my God! How do they know?’ And I’m in
my gym clothes and a ponytail!”
Erin Ness
first rose to fame when she
participated in an office poker tournament at Maxim headquarters. As she chronicled in her October 2004 feature
article for the magazine, aptly titled “The River
Queen”: “I
was at my desk in the photo department when an
interoffice e-mail popped up with the subject headline
‘Chance of a lifetime!’ The message invited all
employees to play in the company poker tournament,
with the winner getting an all-expenses-paid trip—including
the $10,000 buy-in—to the 2004 World Series of Poker
in
Las Vegas
.”
Erin
Ness
was
confident. She knew her male colleagues were regular
players, but she instinctively knew that “it’d be
me going to
Sin
City
to represent”—and, indeed, it was. When the 2004
WSOP ended, she placed
207th—the
second-highest-ranking female player.
For Erin Ness
, poker has been a lifetime pursuit.
“I
come from a card-playing family, in general,” she
explains. “It wasn’t poker; it was hearts or gin
or solitaire. My grandparents are obsessive bridge
players. When the family gets together, we play cards.
That’s how we’ve bonded. I love social gatherings
that have a focus, where everyone is doing something.
So, for me, cards is a very natural thing. When my
brother and I used to get punished when we were
growing up, usually for fighting, we’d get sent to
our rooms. Then we’d open our doors and play poker
between our doors. It’s sort of ironic that we found
a way to work out our differences through poker.”
Erin Ness
attracted more media attention when she competed on the Game
Show Network’s (GSN) “Poker
Royale: Young Bloods” tournament, which aired in
May. Several top players were eliminated early, which
left
Ness
and poker superstar David Williams to battle it out in
heads-up competition. Many viewers were surprised to
find that Erin Ness
could hold her own against Williams in more than 30
hands, and while he held the chip lead through much of
the match, she managed to put a dent in his stack with
a few pivotal hands. She finished second and gained
respect, leading many poker analysts to conclude that
she’s no flash in the pan.
And
while I haven’t caught up with her since her return
to Maxim, she has already taped new tournaments for GSN and is sure to
see her star rise on the poker horizon. Watch for “Poker
Royale:
Battle
of the Ages,” where Erin Ness
and her fellow “young bloods” will compete against
an older generation of poker legends. The new series
debuts this month.
About
Barbara Feiner:
Barbara Feiner is a Los Angeles-based journalist who
covers the poker world.
