Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself . . .

My apologies to the Rolling Stones for the blatant rip-off , but it just works so well I couldn't resist. I promise to be more original from here on out--really. I also promise you I don't have aces, . . . really . . . , no really, I mean it.

Now that you realize I can't be trusted and am probably neurotic to the core I will go ahead and tell you a little bit about myself. Feel free to snooze off here, if you want. But some people may want to know if there's anything about me that makes this thing worth reading. They will probably not be convinced from this introduction, but I will forge on nevertheless.

I'm a woman, as my screen name suggests, and I recently moved to Oklahoma from Texas. Having casinos nearby seems like heaven to me after driving for hours to the nearest casino from where I lived in Texas. Texas--the home of Texas Hold 'Em, where poker is illegal (except for home games)--go figure.

I play mainly tournaments, both online and in the local casinos, and in Vegas when we visit--usually once or twice per year. I've won a number of online tournaments on PokerStars and have cashed in the Sunday Million a few times. Nothing huge yet--but I plan to win it soon--that's my goal. I play satellites to get into the Million, and that's my favorite tournament to play. You can win so much money for such a small investment.

My biggest win so far is an entry to this year's PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas that I won for an investment of $36 (a $3 rebuy satellite--investment of $6--which got me entry into a $30 rebuy (I did the add-on, but no rebuys). I was amazingly lucky in that one and won it on my first try. It starts in just a few weeks (January 5-10) and I am getting more and more excited by the day as I anticipate getting to play with some of poker's biggest stars--Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer, Daniel Negreanu, Kathy Liebert, and many of the online world's well known players, as well.

I will be writing more about that as the time gets closer, and will give you all the details (and tell you all about the famous players I rub elbows with at the table). In the meantime, I'll update you on some of the low limit tournaments I play and some of the characters, good and bad, that I run into. . . . Oh well, why not start now? I know you're waiting with bated breath. Here's a little story about a guy at my table tonight.

He got knocked out when a woman called his all-in with a pair of fours. He then called her the most vulgar four-letter word you can imagine for a woman--yes, that's it--as he lurked around later spewing his b.s. The woman who beat him ignored it, but I couldn't. I called him a loser and told him if he couldn't take it he shouldn't be playing. I know it fell on deaf ears, but I wanted to rub salt in the wound, nevertheless.

I see men call women names like that all the time online, but when a man beats them they just say "nice river, man" or something like that. On the other hand, if a woman beats them with a marginal hand or gets a lucky river card they suddenly morph into something resembling that bleached out slimy looking worm at the bottle of a tequila bottle--but a worm that speaks broken English and only knows the curse words. I do have to admit though, that it's this kind of thing that makes beating them SO MUCH FUN! Don't get me wrong, most guys are nice to me and to other women at the tables, both in casinos and online, but guys like this make winning even sweeter. What do you think, ladies? Do you feel that men are unnecessarily vulgar and rude to women when they lose? I'd love to hear what you think because maybe it's just me. It just seems that being beaten by a woman turns some men into total cess-pool bottom dwellers.

Well, 'till next time, folks, thanks for listening.
Ms Merciless

COMMENTS PLEASE!!! Do you agree with my take on male/female interaction at the tables? Let me know your experiences. I need feedback.