The FTOPS VII are coming soon, and the FTOPS VII are played on Full Tilt. Clonie Gowen plays on Full Tilt, even hosts an FTOPS VII event, and Clonie Gowen is hot, really hot. The logic behind this week’s choice for Hottie of the Week is simple enough. Gowen was born in Florida, but grew up in Kiowa, Oklahoma. Her odd first name was inspired by her being born during a powerful storm in 1971. Shortly after winning Miss Teen McAlester, Oklahoma, she moved to Corsicana, Texas where she played on the varsity basketball team and received seventh place in the state high jump. Clonie’s introduction to poker came while living in Dallas, Texas, driving down to Shreveport, Louisiana on weekends, making a couple hundred dollars and then returning.
According to her website, Clonie gained national recognition when she earned a top-ten finish in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Costa Rica Classic and then followed it by winning the WPT Ladies’ Night event in 2003. At the time, her winning debut was the highest rated WPT show ever broadcast; hm, I wonder why. In 2005, she made two more televised appearances, placing seventh in the $2,000 No-Limit Hold ’em Ultimate Poker Challenge tournament and third in the Full Tilt Poker.Net Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. Since then, Clonie has placed third in the Full Tilt Poker.Net Pro Showdown at the Red Rock Casino, and has also won twice on the “Poker After Dark” series, putting her on par with the likes of Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, and Howard Lederer, as the only people to win “Poker After Dark” more than once.
Off the felt, Gowen has been a guest commentator Ultimate Poker Challenge, The Gaming Club World Poker Championship, the 888.com Women’s Poker UK Open, and the World Poker Championship in Dublin. She has also been a regular columnist for Bluff and All In magazines and is on the Board of Directors for the United States Poker Association. Coming up on February 5th she’ll be hosting the FTOPS VII Event 5, a $200 + $16 Limit Hold’Em 6-max for a guaranteed 150 thousand dollars.
Gowen seems like every man’s dream girl, she enjoys camping, hiking, traveling, especially to Costa Rica, sports, and obviously playing poker. She is tough though, according to parisplayspoker.com, Clonie’s dreams for the future include “being the first woman to win the World Series of Poker, becoming a role model for women with non-traditional careers.” Like Tilly, she also advocates women joining the game, “some women are intimidated by the idea of playing poker,” she said on her MySpace page. And in an interview with Nancy Peterson for onlinepokercenter.com, she continued, “[Women] have this notion that it’s an extremely complex game, one that is very tough to learn, let alone master. This is an idea that’s reinforced by men, in the hopes of discouraging women from crashing this clubby world. Well let me give you the real scoop. Poker is a simple game to learn. My twelve year old daughter, Morgan, learned how to play at the age four.” Well, Clonie is getting closer to her goals in every way. It is easy to see how popular she is, and what a role model she has become. According to ISF, when she plays the 100 dollar buy-in tables at FullTilt, the waiting list goes over 100 players long, just to get a chance to chat with her. Clonie’s poker skill, ambitiousness, and of course her good looks, make her a shoo-in for Hottie of the Week number three.