Women are breaking records and excelling in business, cinema, science, sports – whatever the field happens to be. In poker, women are demonstrating bucket-loads of confidence, competence, and competitiveness on the table and creating milestones by participating and winning in high stake live and online poker events.
Here are this year’s top 10 international women poker players who have graced the game and created history by their extraordinary game play. These ladies are breaking stereotype and changing the way the world looks at women players.
1. Vanessa Selbst
Selbest is one of the most famous and highest earning woman poker players in the world. She is the winner of Partouche Poker Tour, North American Poker Tour, and owns three WSOP bracelets. This graduate from Yale University successfully managed to reach on final tables two times at World Poker Tour. Selbst also finished at final tables at PCA, and collected more than $600,000 each by defeating well-known international poker pros.
Total winnings- $11.6 Million
2. Vanessa Rousso
Although not much active nowadays, Rousso is considered as one of the top 10 woman in history of poker in all-timing money winnings. She reached the finals of the NBC Heads-up tournament in 2009. In 2007, she finished at the 2nd place at World Championship of Online Poker and won hefty $700,000. She grabbed the limelight again when she participated in 2015 season of Big Brother and finished at 3rd place. Rousso was also a member of team PokerStars (2006-2015).
Total winnings – $3.5 Million
3. Jennifer Harman
Herman is one of the most influential high stake poker player who started playing poker at the age of 16. She is among the three female players who won two WSOP bracelets in open events. Harman is part of the Full Tilt Poker professional team. She has appeared on NBC’s “Poker After Dark” and GSN’s “High Stakes Poker”.
Total winnings- over $2 Million
4. Kathy Liebert
Liebert is a very famous and one of the most successful professional poker player from Nevada who won the WSOP $1500 Texas Hold’em Shootout event in 2004 and earned a gold bracelet along with $110,180. She also won the television series “Poker Royale: Battle of the Sexes” in 2005.
Total winnings – over $6 Million
5. Annette Obrestad
Obrestad is from Norway who started playing online poker when she was just 15. She owns a WSOP bracelet which she won at WSOP Europe 2007 and earned more than $2,000,000. With her consistent game play, she managed to made it to the multiple final tables of EPT and Aussie Millions. She finished 2nd at EPT No Limit Hold’em and collected the amount of $429,181 in 2007.
Live tournament winnings – Over $3.5 Million
6. JJ Liu
JJ Liu is from Taiwan who started playing after moving to US. She was pursuing her Computer Engineering master degree when she discovered her interest in Poker. She has had a great amount of success in big live poker events with numerous first finishes.
Live tournament winnings- $3.5 Million
7. Liv Boeree (England)
Stunning Liv Boeree is a TV presenter, model, and also the youngest poker player in the list. She is trained by Phil Hellmuth and has a decent record both online and offline. She is the only woman player who owns the title of both WSOP and European Poker Tour Sanremo 2010 Champion. She was ranked #1 female player on Global Poker Index in 2015.
Live tournament winnings- over $3 Million
8. Maria Ho
A Taiwanese poker player is also a television celebrity. She is the co-host and commentator on “The Final Table”. She rose to prominence when she won the largest cash reward a woman ever had at WSOP $5000 No-Limit in 2011 and took home $540,020. She has taken part in numerous poker events and scored great cash rewards.
Live tournament winnings – over $2 Million
9. Victoria Coren Mitchell
Mitchell is a graduate from Oxford and writes for The Guardian and The observer. She is the first woman who won an EPT event and the first player who won a televised professional tournament EPT London 2006 and Celebrity Poker Club 2005, a televised celebrity tournament. She also won two EPT Main Events in 2006 and 2014. She was also named the women in Poker Hall Of Fame in 2016.
10. Annie Duke
From LA, California, Duke is the only woman poker pro who won the National Heads-Up poker championship in 2010 where she was awarded $50,000. She owns WSOP gold bracelet, 2004 No Limit Hold’em. Duke is a psychology graduate and now a successful writer of poker instructional books.
Total winnings – $4 Million