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Gambling has long coveted an interview with model, poker player and presenter Lacey Jones. Put simply, she’s one of the hottest ladies in the business and by all accounts a great girl too. As she jetted into London, we grabbed our chance. Chris Lines showed her around the city and found her in determined mood to prove herself as a proper poker player
"Hiya London!" read the tweet on her Twitter page. I was working from home that day but this was too good a chance to miss. I was straight on the phone to the office. "Lacey Jones is in town. Yes, that Lacey Jones. Get on the phone to her people and get an interview set up for this week, it's about time we did a piece on her." An encouragingly short amount of time later comes the reply: "Yep, she's up for it. Friday morning. But I'm out of the country, so you'll have to do it." Well, needs must.
And so it came to be that I was stood outside Green Park tube station looking forward to showing Lacey around central London followed by a Soho lunch. Typically, the tube station is shrouded in development work and so there’s no chance Lacey’s going to find the specific meeting point that I’d suggested. And my phone’s on the blink – so I resort to ambling around a bit, looking for my presumably rather lost interviewee.
Eventually I track her down wandering around the actual park from whence the tube station gets its name. I could hardly have missed her, as her shock of brilliant blonde hair is being thrown about dramatically in the brisk wind. She’s just about managed to tame it behind her ears as I greet her. “Wow, it’s windy,” she gasps. “Shall we get inside somewhere? I need some breakfast.” Fine with me. Famished.
For the uninitiated, Lacey Jones is, in many people’s opinion, the best-looking girl in poker. She’s a poker television presenter, and a decent player in her own right, although work commitments hamper the number of tournaments she plays as she juggles her poker and media work with regular modelling gigs. Lacey’s got that combination of looks, brains and personality that always goes a long way – the kind of all-American girl that your partner does their best to dislike at first but ends up begrudgingly admitting she’s a class act.
Search the net for video clips of Lacey and you’ll notice that she’s a consummate professional. Always polished, but without that grating over-enthusiasm that seems to inflict so many broadcasters in the US.
And so it comes as something of a surprise that Lacey seems to be a little on edge as we sit down to breakfast. I’d assumed this would be an enjoyable if slightly formulaic interview with a girl who knows it’s not in the interest of her career to let her guard down. But there’s definitely a few nerves going on; a hint of fragility that I hadn’t really picked up on as I researched her the previous day. I think maybe the camera round my neck isn’t helping. Lacey knows that we’re going to shoot a few snaps as we pound the streets, and she also knows I’m not a proper photographer – one that brings things like tripods and ideas – so maybe she’s wary of how things will go.
Coffee and breakfast devoured, we head off past the Ritz hotel before hanging a right for a walk along Jermyn Street – famous for its gentlemen’s outfitters, bootmakers and cigar shops. It’s an interesting slice of old London that perhaps a lot of tourists miss – but I’ve taken the detour to show her the statue of Beau Brummell.
Brummell (1778-1840) was the original dandy, credited with introducing and establishing as fashion the modern man's suit. It seems somehow appropriate to grab a few snaps of fashion model Lacey next to one of London’s most fashionable sons.
Lacey seems a little uneasy as I get the camera ready – oops, still got the lens cap on, damn it, where’s that autofocus switch? – but as soon as I point the camera at her something happens. Suddenly she’s striking stylish poses, flashing her immaculate smile, even hopping up next to Brummell on his little plinth. Even the bumbling buffoon of a photographer faffing about in front of her can’t fail to get some good photos with such an engaging subject.
Perhaps relieved that our little photoshoot is passing without major incident, Lacey is now warming up nicely. In fact, she’s rather enjoying our little stroll as we approach Piccadilly, deep in discussion about our shared love of Jimi Hendrix. The conversation meanders around and we get on to discussing London, its inhabitants and British culture in general.
“I actually get along very well with the Brits,” says Lacey. “I love to go out and have a good time. Sometimes in America going out drinking can be frowned upon – as if you’re acting crazy – but here it seems everyone’s a little bit crazier than me so I fit in just swell.”
Good, so we’re bonding. We’re bonding over what a bunch of raging alcoholics we Brits are, but bonding all the same. By now we’re into Soho and one of my favourite little haunts, where a waitress makes the mistake of showing us the cocktail list.
Things get a little Pavlovian as we drool over the drinks menu, Lacey opting for a chocolate martini and myself a zingy, citrus concoction with a name that I’d forgotten before it even arrived.
There’s a strong Parisian feel in this place, and conversation turns to the time Lacey spent a semester in the French capital during her student days. “The chance to go there was only open to a few people. I don’t know what it was, but something stirred inside of me and I thought ‘I have to do this’. I jumped at it, and it turned out to be the most amazing experience of my entire life. I was placed with a family that didn’t speak much English, and was forced to just get on with it. I was 21 at the time and I didn’t know anyone there. I just had to cope on my own – it was amazing.”
It certainly seems to have been the making of the girl – and the desire to return to the city remains. There’s a history of politics in the family, and Lacey’s embarrassment at the way American politics is run – and the way that nation conducts itself overseas in particular – could see her look to make a difference by becoming an ambassador to a French-speaking country in the future. “I’ve always felt drawn to Paris,” she says. “I’d love to work there in future. Have you ever been to a city or place that you just felt a connection to? I even like getting lost there.”
So what would be her ideal day in Paris? “That’s a funny question because I’m actually going to Paris tomorrow. There’s a really old bookstore called Shakespeare & Company across from Notre Dame. It’s the oldest bookstore in Paris. It has this fantastic smell of old books, and when you buy a book they stamp it with their logo, which is a nice touch. It’s a great place to buy presents for people at home, and you can meet people there too as it’s a popular place with travellers.
“Another cheap thing I liked to do with my fellow students in Paris was to go to a store and buy some wine, brie and bruschetta and sit in Jardin des Tuileries, outside the Louvre. We’d have raspberries too; our own little fun picnic, and we’d sit and do our homework or just talk for hours.
“The Louvre can also be lovely at night, outside around the pyramid where it stays open. There’s always people playing music there and it echoes around. It’s a beautiful spot to sit down with a bottle of wine – you’ll see people getting proposed to; it’s just a really nice experience that a lot of people don’t know about.”
This all makes for very pleasant chatter as our chorizo and other tapas arrive. So, to business – and by business I mean poker – how does such an in-demand girl find time to perfect her game when she juggles so many other things in life – surely it’s exhausting?
“Yes and no,” she says calmly. “A lot of people try to play as much poker as possible, in order to get their big break right away. I take more of a studious approach – analysing every hand when I’m watching a final table, and thinking ‘How would I approach this?’ I ask people what their strategies were. Some people play so many tournaments that they don’t enjoy it.
“If you look at the times I have played, compared with what I’ve won, I’ve actually done well. I just haven’t had that breakthrough yet, but I know it’s coming. I’ve learned so much that I don’t think people will be able to figure out my game – it’s not one technique that I use. It’s not like I’ve read [Dan] Harrington’s book or someone else’s book and just copied that.” Instead she’s taking little bits and pieces and finding out what works for her. She tries it in tournaments and if it doesn’t work then she takes it out of her playbook.
“But there’s also this weird aspect of being a female at the table that people don’t realise,” she says, smiling wickedly. “Yes, girls get run over sometimes, but guys will lay down some big hands against me because they don’t want to knock me out, or they’ll play a hand really soft against me because they don’t want to take all my chips. Other guys will try and bluff me and I can exploit that. Some guys don’t know how to play against women; don’t know how to read us.”
It’s been an almost lifelong love affair with poker for Lacey. As a child she always had a head for maths and card games, as the family would sit around playing gin rummy or 21. But it was always poker that really got her going: “Mainly because I could win nickels, dimes and pennies to go and buy candy with!” she jokes.
The poker bug continued into adulthood and when Lacey (then predominantly working as a model) got spotted playing in a charity tournament, everything kick-started from there. Lacey picks up the story.
“My agent knew I played poker in home games and put me forward for a charity event for cystic fibrosis – they’d wanted some models to play just for the attention that would get. All the other models busted in the first level. People were waiting for me to bust out too so they could interview me but I didn’t want to; I was doing too well. They were saying ‘Who is this model? She can actually play’.
“In the end I busted 30th out of hundreds. Word got out on the grapevine and a week later my agent called me and said ‘You won’t believe this but there’s this online poker site that wants to fly you to Vegas and get a poker pro to tutor you!’ So I was delighted; my dad was living in Vegas so I could catch up with him at the same time. I was tutored in preparation for playing the World Series in 2005, and it all started from there and turned into something I never thought was going to happen. My mum thought I was joking when I told her. It’s been amazing. I’ve had a lot of attention from being in poker and I get to travel a lot too – I love it.”
But surely it’s not all a bed of roses, being thrown into all these daunting poker tournaments with an online poker site [Absolute Poker in Lacey’s case] paying you’re entry, and looking for a return on their investment. It’s got to be in the back of your mind that you’re not only there for your poker abilities, but for the commercial possibilities around your marketable good looks – no?
“It did add pressure,” she admits. “Especially at the very beginning because there were only five other women who were sponsored and it made some other women upset. Everybody thought I was a gimmick – and I guess I was. There was a certain amount of hostility towards me. But given the choice between taking a photo of a girl that stands out and a regular guy who’s a good online player, people are going to photograph the girl because – in poker terms – there’s not too many of us playing. So it’s a good idea from an advertising perspective. People don’t get mad at Kate Moss for being in so many ads, but people hire her because she’s so recognisable. So you can understand why companies would want some of that in poker too. People shouldn’t get upset about it. It is hard though; I feel like I do have to prove myself.”
Thankfully, poker isn’t a constant source of pressure in Lacey’s life. She really knows how to have fun with it too – especially in Vegas. “I love playing at the Venetian and Caesars. I like picking on tourists,” she says, grinning. “I love the fact that they have these great poker rooms right next to the nightclubs. So I’ll play on Friday and Saturday nights with a beer in front of me looking like this dumb little blonde girl. With my blonde hair I look like any other girl on the west coast, so most people don’t even know who I am. I’ll say things to guys like ‘If I fold, will you show me your hand?’ and they’ll do it, which gives me information about their game. That’s not going to happen to another player – so you have to play up the girl factor. If I don’t use the one aspect that these guys don’t have, then I’m the loser.”
Such tactics are less successful on the top pros though. On her first televised poker table, a nervous Lacey tried the friendly, flirty approach to help her cope with an intimidating table featuring Erik Seidel, Patrik Antonius, Padraig Parkinson, David Benyamine and Ian Frazer. The wily Parkinson saw straight through her, saying: “I know what you’re doing and it won’t work!”
But aside from the understandable enjoyment in taking away drunken tourist’s poker chips, there’s a genuine steeliness to Lacey Jones; a sense that she’s resolved to deliver some strong results pretty soon. “I just know this big win is coming and I want it to come now. I guarantee you that once I start playing more, I’ll be consistent and winning more. Then it will become obvious that I’ve really spent the time and effort to become a good poker player.”
Most of the pressure is coming from within. No doubt her sponsors see her as a great asset regardless of how she performs in poker tournaments – but Lacey knows she’s better than her results show. Nothing would make her happier than to prove any doubters wrong and bring home a big win in 2010. We’ll certainly be rooting for her. |
