Clonie
Gowen - Betting Her Way to the Top
By Barbara Feiner
Her
real name is Cycalona, a choice inspired by the storm
that was raging when she was born.
The
rest of us know her as Clonie
Gowen, one of the top pros on the tournament
circuit and winner of the World Poker Tour’s 2003
Ladies Night event—and if you underestimate this
former Miss Teen Oklahoma, you’re in for some bad
poker weather.
Gowen
first captured the poker world’s attention as an
unknown amateur player. She entered a
WPT tournament in 2002 while vacationing in
Costa Rica
, where she was enjoying the scuba diving. To everyone’s
surprise (except hers), she placed 10th—only
a few seats shy of the final table.
“When
you first entered the tournament, did you have major
expectations?” I ask her.
“Of
course,” she replies, without hesitation. “I was
better than the rest of them.”
This
kind of confidence is what it takes to compete at the
professional level—and Gowen has a fierce sense of
competitiveness, not to mention confidence in
spades (and hearts, diamonds and clubs). As an athlete
throughout her teenage years, she knows what it takes
to win.
“You’re
either competitive or you’re not,” says Gowen, a
team member for Full
Tilt Poker, an online site where you can play
against the pros. “You have to have the drive and
the heart to be successful in anything that you do in
life. This has always helped me—even in basketball.
I played it for the first time when I was in 7th
grade, and I was absolutely horrible. I was the worst
player on the team, but I loved it. I loved the
competitiveness of it.
“In
8th grade, I became a starter on the team
because I practiced,” she continues. “During the
entire summer, I was never without my basketball. I
practiced every day. Then, in the 9th
grade, I was a starter on the high school varsity
team. So, I went from not being able to play at all in
7th grade to being a starter on the varsity
team in 9th grade. It was not that I was
more gifted or anything like that. I just practiced.”
Gowen
has applied the same principles to her poker game.
“I’m
not a genius like Chris
Ferguson, Howard
Lederer or those guys,” she says. “It’s that
I continue to want to improve my game, so I am always
learning. I’m willing to do that.”
To
see Gowen in action, look for her on Full Tilt Poker,
where she and 25 other pros are now playing in the “Greatfull
Red” Series. Winners of daily online $50 + $5
tournaments take home 1% of the combined winnings of
every participating Full Tilt pro playing in World
Series of Poker preliminary events (in addition to
their piece of the prize pool).
The WPT’s 2003 Ladies Night tournament has just been released on DVD
(retail price: $14.98), so you can watch how Gowen bet
her way to the top in this invitation-only event,
taped at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. Click
here for ordering information.
__________________
About
Barbara Feiner:
Barbara Feiner is a Los Angeles-based journalist who
covers the poker world.
