A top-ranked female poker player has lifted the lid on the glitz and glamour of the underground poker scene. Reyna, who goes by Rocket Reyna online, first started learning the game at 20 years old, before being allowed to play in American casinos at age 21.She went on to become one of the top female poker players in the world after years of playing on and off in tournaments around the globe. By then, poker had taken Reyna far beyond casual casino floors. She has played in Monaco, Australia, Hong Kong and Las Vegas, collecting as many country flags as possible on her tournament record.As she became more confident, Reyna also found herself inside private poker rooms that felt worlds away from the low-stakes casino where she first doubled her money. A top-ranked female poker player has lifted the lid on the glitz and glam of the underground poker scene. Pictured: Rocket ReynaOne game, held at a well-known lavish hotel in Los Angeles, had a $15,000 buy-in and a room filled with wealthy, influential men.’I did meet a couple [A-listers] when I played an underground game in Los Angeles. Those were movie producers, tech startup entrepreneurs,’ she explained.’There was this one game where it was a private game at the Ritz-Carlton in Los Angeles. It was a $15,000 buy-in. ‘I walked into this game and there were girls giving massages, there was a private chef, and there were Hollywood celebrities and venture capitalists there.’But when you go into the general field, it’s everyone, blue-collar, white-collar executives, it doesn’t matter. People who shouldn’t be playing. ‘I think it’s a very feral place where anyone can really be.’Reyna managed to get access to the LA poker game when she got ‘very friendly’ with ‘an older gentleman’ who wasn’t shy about flashing his wealth.’There was an instance where I was getting very friendly with an older gentleman who was big in the poker scene,’ she recalled. Join the discussionShould underground poker games be cleaned up or left wild for the thrill and big money allure?What’s your view? Reyna, who goes by Rocket Reyna online, tells Daily Mail she first started learning the game at 20 years old, before being allowed to play in American casinos at age 21’He was the one that invited me to that LA game, but years before that I knew him. ‘He’s the reason I went to Manila [Philippines] too, but when we were there, he wanted to go island shopping. ‘So we took helicopters with a real estate agent, and he just complained that the sand was too soft in some islands.’He didn’t buy one that day. I don’t think he bought one after that either, so I don’t know what his intentions were. ‘He grew up in Singapore and I believe he had his little talons in a bunch of different tech startups and grew from there.’Reyna says the underground world of poker doesn’t have as many glamorous WAGs as one might find in the F1 or football, but it can still get opulent in poker rooms. ‘It can get glitzy and glamorous. Designer clothes are everywhere in the poker rooms,’ she says. Reyna spent several years in the scene and was previously ranked among the top female poker players in the world’WAGs I can name off of the top of my head include Lala Kent from Vanderpump Rules,’ she adds. ‘She was seeing Randall Emmett, who is infamous in the world for crazy stunts like hiring a marching band through the main event. That was very memorable. ‘That doesn’t really happen. Some people do something fun, like they’ll wear a costume or stuff cause it’s like a big reunion and it’s supposed to be fun.’Lala and Randall Emmett, a film producer, had a high-profile relationship that ended in an explosive split in 2021.The pair began in about 2015 and got engaged in September 2018, going on to welcome their daughter, Ocean, in March 2021.They ended their engagement just months later in October. Reyna goes on to say: ‘It’s not as amazing and glamorous as like the F1 WAGs or the pro athletes. Generally, a lot of the poker players have a hard time finding girlfriends. ‘Just because if they’re playing professionally, they’re at the table like 14 hours a day, and their girlfriends just can’t sit behind them and play with them. ‘WAGs I can name off of the top of my head include Lala Kent (right) from Vanderpump Rules,’ she adds. ‘She was seeing Randall Emmett (left), who is infamous in the world for crazy stunts like hiring a marching band through the main event. That was very memorable”So, if they were trying to find someone, they have to find someone that also plays poker generally or understands that they’re not going to be able to spend much time with them.’ Reyna says things can also get a bit strange among poker players who largely play in the underground scene, claiming there is little regulation. ‘The world of poker is… a lot of it is underground,’ she says. ‘There’s some public poker tours, but because it’s underground, no one can actually go to the police for really anything. ‘And so, there have been stories where some people I’ve known have hired negotiators just to collect dues, and so that’s something that is so interesting.’Reyna says she also knows of one instance where a top-ranked poker player would allegedly put their ‘horses’ through bizarre rituals to help them win. A horse is someone who has part of all of their buy-in paid by someone else, who will receive a cut of the profits made by the horse.Some backers have ‘stables of horses’, meaning they pay for the buy-in of many different players with the expectation of receiving the cut of their winnings. As she became more confident, Reyna also found herself inside private poker rooms that felt worlds away from the low-stakes casino where she first doubled her money'[This poker player] was training a group of guys to become the best poker players ever,’ Reyna claims.’They would get together and practice and who knows what they were doing to get money. ‘But I believe… they went on a retreat or something to see a witch, and the witch had them do a bunch of different things.’I don’t think they called her a witch. She cast some spells… a shaman.’Reyna says the strange rituals the group went through were meant to ‘enhance their brains to the fullest potential’. She goes on to add that there is a darker side to the world of underground poker, saying that ‘gambling issues are very rampant’. ‘Even I’ve had an issue with that too when I very first started,’ she recalls.’I remember I was playing a poker tournament in Manila in the Philippines, and I remember stacking someone for a small amount of money, like maybe $100. ‘And the guy, a local in Manila, he looked like he just lost his life savings. That made me feel horrible. I didn’t want to play anymore.’A lot of poker players won’t care. They’ll be like, “Okay, so they knew what they were going in here for, and they knew that they could have lost money, and if they couldn’t handle it, then that’s their fault. It’s not my fault that I played better than them.” ‘I think that’s a very selfish way to think about it.’Reyna, who has won hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years playing poker, says she no longer plays the game as much as she once did. ‘In the last two years, I haven’t played very much. I tried collecting like one Australian poker flag, and I did it on my first tournament, so then I just stopped,’ she says. ‘But I’ll probably cash a tournament game, like once or twice a year nowadays. It used to be every weekend though.’She says the most she has ever won in a single tournament was US$100,000 [AU$142,298]. ‘Every poker player’s dream is to win something called the WSOP bracelet,’ she adds. ‘It’s the World Series of Poker, and every year during around May, June, the events take place. I think there’s around [100] of them.’The main one that is the mecca of all poker tournaments is called the Main Event. ‘It’s a $10,000 buy-in, and people from all over the world pay, even if they know they’re not great, just to get a chance at the top prize, which is around $10 million.’No woman has ever won it, but there have been women that have been close.’