Is She Tournament Poker's Next Big Thing?
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Tiffany Wong was mostly just a recreational poker player with a passion for the game a few months back. Now she's one of the hottest mid-stakes tournament players in the US, and has quite a story to tell.
The New Yorker who lives in Manhattan spoke with PokerNews to explain how she came out of nowhere to win three big poker tournaments since March.
How She Got into Poker
Wong, who also spent some time growing up in Hong Kong, sort of accidentally began playing poker a little over five years ago.
"My parents were anti-gambling, so I always stayed away from casinos and gambling," Wong explains. "Then I went to Vegas with friends, who encouraged me to play $1/$3, knowing that I'm interested in topics around human psychology, statistics and game theory, and have a strong intuition."
Her first experience playing cards was at the Venetian and she "didn't know anything about poker" at the time. She sat down at a $1-$3 game and hit quad aces within the first 30 minutes.
"I didn't know what to do with the quads, so I just kept checking and the guy just kept betting into me," she said.
The monster hand, on top of scooping the pot, paid out a high hand jackpot. She booked a winning session and fell in love with the game. But five years would pass before she realized her potential to make some serious cash playing poker, with some encouragement from her supportive friends.
On a Heater
Wong entered the $600 No-Limit Hold'em Monster Stack event at the Horseshoe Las Vegas World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) event in March with just 10 live tournament scores, all for small amounts, on her The Hendon Mob resume. She was mostly a cash game player at the time, although poker wasn't her main source of income, it was just her "side hustle."
When the tournament began, she didn't even know she was playing for a gold ring. Not only that but tournament poker wasn't even the purpose for her March trip to Las Vegas.
“I just happened to be in Vegas in March because I wanted to check out the Sphere," Wong said.
Wong, who says she's always been an aggressive player who loves to three-bet, spun up a stack and spent much of that tournament among the chip leaders. She would go on to win the ring, beating out a field of 607 entrants, for a $59,076 score and her first tournament victory.
The Circuit win wasn't a fluke as she proved in June at The Orleans in Las Vegas when she accepted a heads-up chop with John Ciccarelli in the 2,726-entrant $600 Orleans Main Event. That paid the up-and-coming poker pro $160,022, a new high score.
And then earlier this week, at Parx Casino near Philadelphia, she entered the $750 Parx Big Stax XXXIII, a no-limit hold'em tournament that attracted 916 entrants, and once again took it down, this time for $117,888, her second six-figure score within less than two months.
When the Parx final table began, she held a massive chip lead. But by the time she was heads-up with Tommy Laviano, the gap had closed. Early in heads-up play, the chips stacks had become nearly identical. As such, the two discussed a chop arrangement, and had unofficially come to an agreement. But they ended up deciding to play it out for the trophy and title, which went Wong's way. The runner-up received over $70,000, so a nice consolation prize.
Jonathan Little to Help Her Poker Game?
Wong competed in a few events at the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) this summer, including the Colossus, but didn't have any luck. As she was struggling in the Series, her friend suggested to head over to The Orleans instead to play, and it turned out to be a wise decision. Now that Wong's had great success in tournament poker the past few months, she wants to step up her game even further.
"I'm going to watch every single Jonathan Little course on tournament poker," she said.
She admitted she hasn't spent time studying solvers and the extent of her poker study has been mastering preflop ranges, which she's learned from following Little, the PokerCoaching.com founder and a longtime poker pro.
Wong plans to start studying more and also focusing on her mental game. She admits she's often played out of control and a bit too reckless. While she is still an aggressive player, since the beginning of the year, she's worked on doing a better job of picking her spots, and it's clearly working.
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"I'm still naturally fearless and bold."
Wong is motivated to continue improving her game, but says she's now more focused on tournaments than cash games. She plans to compete in the East Coast tournaments, and Las Vegas, that have longer blind levels and overall good structures.
“The thrill of winning a tournament, nothing compares to running deep and winning a tournament," Wong said.
