Carmel Petresco is a new female poker player on the rise and began her professional career only just a couple of years ago. She grew up in Romania in Eastern Europe and moved to New York. Carmel Petresco travelled a lot as a child and feels that this gave her the ability to adapt to new situations, which is a useful skill in poker.

Petresco’s first inclined to poker was through online casino games. At first, she was watching her male friends playing poker online. Being interested, Camel Petresco started reading several books on high-stakes poker, including the Bible Of Poker especially the Doyle Brunson's Super/System. She started playing online poker in small Sit N Go games until she had a decent-sized bankroll built up. After that she began to play in tournaments and lately has made the move to cash games.

Before becoming a professional poker player, Petresco had a small business as a personal shopper and wardrobe stylist. She admit that poker has been somewhat of a calling for her and it is what she was meant to do. Petresco’s holy grail is to win the World Series of Poker or any type of bracelet.

Carmel Petresco is a live poker tournament event player and has played poker since 2004. Her poker tournament results and statistics including her 1st place finish, a 4 final table appearances, and 13 in-the-money finishes for $138,584 in total poker tournament event earnings over the years.

Carmel Petresco in vogue, has a poker tournament rank of 5459 overall games including her 4861 in No Limit Hold'em, not ranked in Limit Hold'em and not ranked in the Pot Limit Hold'em.

At the 2008 World Series of Poker, she proved that she was not just a pretty face at the table. Her aggressive style of play paid off for her. At one point she was holding $80,000 chips while the average stack was around $19,000. As other female players began to drop out, the media began to focus on who would be the ‘last woman standing’. Although a favorite, she didn’t make it to the final table. Out of a field of over 6,000 entries, she ended with a respectable finish. Her skills at the cards and being a pretty face at the table gained her much attention.

Carmel has stated that she does not think being an attractive woman in a male-dominated sport carries any advantage. Being a woman at the table makes one a target for sexists remarks and rude behavior. Her opinion is that men naturally view women as soft and if a woman flashes her charms while at the poker table, then they must be a soft player as well. There is no respect given. The only way to earn respect is to be aggressive and win.