My Side of the Story

[JoshNjuice]

First, I should note that Vanessa is a friend of mine. I've been following her progress for the past several months and her results speak for themselves. I have a lot of respect for her and her play. I was very surprised to see accusations that she has etiquette issues. I don't know MsGluck, so I did a little hunting around (searching 2+2 for her posts and using Google) to see what she's all about.

As of this writing, MsGluck has 34 posts on 2+2. I was curious, so I went through and read them all (it didn't take long). I noticed a few patterns: most of her posts are about herself; she hasn't made a single strategy post; many of the posts about herself were promotional ("You can see me on TV here" or "I usually play here" or "Thanks for all the compliments! You guys are the best!"); she broke her usual posting pattern to bash an up-and-coming pro for having bad poker etiquette in a "hot or not" thread that had nothing to do with etiquette.

I also did some hunting around to see what else I could find about this alleged etiquette issue that Vanessa has. The first thing that jumped out at me was that Vanessa has had a lot of recent success, and yet I hadn't ever heard anything about her etiquette issues that MsGluck has mentioned. Vanessa's results for the past year can be seen here: Hendon Mob database

All those cashes for pretty significant amounts of money and not a single peep anywhere about her terrible poker etiquette? That seems odd to me. I also noticed that MsGluck and Vanessa both played at the Bodog tournament in Costa Rica, where MsGluck says "I don't remember seeing her at all." This is only my interpretation, but it seems to me like she's implying, "Vanessa's a nobody. Don't even pay attention to her!" Seems like Vanessa would be easy to spot since she apparently spends most of her time breaking the rules of poker etiquette and generally ticking people off.

I'm not genius, but it looks to me like MsGluck has detected potential competition and is trying to snuff it out. Thanks to the poker boom, there's a lot more to poker than grinding it out in cash games or tournaments. There are endorsements, TV shows and a lot of other sources of revenue. But there are only so many opportunities to go around, and this is a dog eat dog world. Basically, MsGluck's post seems unsubstantiated and unprovoked, except to preemptively defame Vanessa's character in a public forum.

While I was hunting around, I stumbled upon MsGluck's MySpace (here: MySpace profile ). I was surprised to see that one of her Friends is... Liz Lieu! So, her post could basically read, "My good friend Liz, another professional female poker player who could be threatened by Vanessa, says that Vanessa has bad etiquette! Also, I heard she was a jerk when she had a higher flush than some other guy. OH! And someone told me that someone at a table said that Vanessa said she's not even afraid of Doyle!" That seems like an awful lot of he-said-she-said.

Again, I haven't seen any of this information anywhere except in MsGluck's post and Liz' blog entry that was copied and pasted onto 2+2. I think I've made my point.

Why don't we let Vanessa's actual play, results and the poker public's opinion dictate Vanessa's public image? This unprovoked and petty nonsense really has no place in a public forum. If someone (or some people) has a problem with something Vanessa does or says at the table, then that someone should talk to her about it privately.

I'm not trying to attack anyone personally, I'm just trying to speak up on behalf of a friend. Vanessa is a class act and I see no reason for this kind of nonsense.

Best regards to everyone

JoshNjuice