Card Player Profile: Erica Schoenberg

Erica Schoenberg has roughly $600,000 in lifetime tournament earnings, even though she has only played professionally for a few years. Before she became a professional poker player, she worked as a model, a personal trainer, a professional volleyball player, and a professional blackjack player. Schoenberg went deep in the first major poker tournament in which she played, the 2006 World Poker Tour Five-Star World Poker Classic Championship, and left Bellagio with more than $117,000. Earlier this month, she came in second in the $1,000 buy-in World Poker Tour Ladies event in Los Angeles and pocketed $15,000.


Lizzy Harrison: At the Commerce Casino you recently you came in second in the World Poker Tour Ladies event. Did you have to make any adjustments to your game in order to best the field of women?

Erica Schoenberg: You definitely have to make adjustments, but you actually have to know how to make adjustments at every table you play; it doesn’t really matter if it is all women or not. However, when I play in all-female tournaments, I have noticed, for the most part, that the fields are more inexperienced. It is definitely difficult to play against players that have less experience. When I am in a women’s tournament, I try to keep that in mind every time I play a pot.

LH: How are you able to use your experience to exploit the weaknesses of inexperienced players?

ES: I think I am more in tune to looking for certain things; I have an awareness of the table. Sometimes inexperienced players do not pay attention to things like that. They don’t notice the tendencies of the other players at the table. Players like that don’t pay very much attention, and they are often looking around the room. I think I have much more focus than players like that. Also, I play position more. I have noticed that a lot of inexperienced players often call raises out of position. It seems like they do not quite understand how important it is to play position.

LH: How did the WPTL event go from the start? Did you chip up early?

ES: I jumped out to a huge lead in the first level; I tripled up. Then I took a bad beat, and my chip stack dropped back down. From then on, I just chopped away at the pots; I won a bunch of small pots and that really built me back up. I was steady from that point to the end of the tournament. After I took that bad beat, and recovered, it was smooth sailing.

LH: Was there a major hand that helped to propel you to the final table, or were you just picking up the pots nobody else seemed to want?

ES: It was definitely just me chopping away at pots. There was no one defining moment or one defining hand. I didn’t get a lot of big hands. I think I had pocket aces once and I never had kings. Like I said earlier, it came down to me playing position and taking pots. It was smooth and steady; that is just the way that I like it.

LH: Where were you in chips going in to the final table?

ES: I was in the middle of the pack. At that point in the tournament, though, it was about three or four o’clock in the morning. It was one of those tournaments that just played straight through. It began at 3:30 the previous afternoon and it was pretty intense. Vanessa [Selbst] and I did not finish the tournament until 7:30 in the morning.

LH: What was your impression of Vanessa Selbst’s heads-up play?

ES: I think she played well. Honestly, I think that she handled the fatigue better than I did. I was a mess at that point [laughs]! Vanessa was much more adept at being alert all night, and she did play a great heads-up game. She really played well throughout the entire tournament. I only had the chance to play with her at the final table, but the whole tournament I heard about her from the other players. I was really impressed with Vanessa’s play.

LH: The main event of the Los Angeles Poker Classic starts tomorrow, how do you prepare for a big tournament?

ES: I like play in a lot of the smaller preliminary events so that I become comfortable at the particular casino. That way, I can start to feel the flow of the poker room. That’s pretty much it; I play the smaller tournaments. I also rest up, eat well, and work out, as usual.

LH: Do you think finishing strong in preliminary events gives you more confidence entering the main event?

ES: I do. I think that it helps me to play better when I am feeling good about the way I have been playing. There are times when you get a little bit off track and then your game just doesn’t feel right. Doing well in the preliminary tournaments really enhances my confidence, and, of course, it feels good.

LH: The LAPC main event always attracts a huge field. Do you implement any changes to make it through tournaments with a lot of players?

ES: Honestly, one of the best things that I do is not to look around too much. I have noticed that a lot of people are really in a hurry. It seems like some players think that they can win the tournament on day one. In this type of tournament, that is not a good idea. I am in my own little bubble when I play in a tournament. I do not pay attention to who has a huge chip stack, because I know that all of those chips can be gone very quickly. I just focus on playing poker in the moment and not getting ahead of myself.

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