Professional poker has become a hugely competitive industry over the last few decades. There are multiple global organisations dedicated to producing tournaments, leagues and tours, as well as national and local groups. And as the number of participants has grown, so have the prizes and the prestige.
Cards
Undoubtedly the biggest is the World Series of Poker, which runs several events over the course of a year, but the one that everyone wants to win is the WSOP Las Vegas, held during June/July. Last year more than 8000 players competed, and with a $10,000 a head buy-in, that sent the prize pool rocketing to more than $80 million, with a $10 million prize for the eventual winner. Other notable tournaments are the World Championship of Online Poker, hosted by PokerStars and the Triton Million.
While the world of professional poker is mostly male-dominated, but there are a strong group of female poker players who have set up residence on the circuit and are getting the poker world to sit up and listen. Below are some of the best female poker players ever to play a hand.
1. Vanessa Selbst
The undisputed top earning female poker player, even though she retired in 2018, Vanessa Selbst is also one of the most respected professionals of all time, with a reputation for making bold plays and putting the squeeze on her opponents. With two World Poker Tour final tables under her belt and more than $11 million in prize money over her 12 year career, hers is a difficult record to beat.
Selbst started playing online poker while she was studying at Yale University, where she received a law degree. She graduated to live poker events in the mid-2000s, eventually quitting her day job in order to pursue the game full time. In 2006 she made it all the way to her first WSOP final table and never looked back. In 2010 and then again in 2011, she won the NAPT main event, pocketing $1.2 million between the two. Selbst’s largest win was $1.8 million from winning the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event held in Cannes in 2010. She might have stepped away from poker but Selbst still works with odds and figures as a hedge fund manager.
2. Kathy Liebert
Unlike Vanessa Selbst, who came into poker academically through a love of maths and statistics, Kathy Liebert started on the ground, playing small table games and learning as she went. She started playing professionally as a prop player in casinos in Colorado, where she honed her ability to read people and situations on the table, which players who start online often find difficult.
Liebert has been active on the professional poker circuit for more than 20 years and most of her notable winnings came in the 2000s. Her biggest prize came in 2002 when she was the last player standing at the Poker Party Million Limit Hold ‘Em Event, beating poker greats like Phil Hellmuth along the way. She took the 1 million dollar prize money to add to a career worth which is now over $6 million. While Liebert hasn’t pocketed a big win in a while, she continues to play actively in events and always has money rolling in.
3. Annette Obrestad
Hailing from Norway, Annette started playing poker online aged 15, using poker freeroll tournaments to build up her bankroll without ever making a deposit. She’d learnt poker as a child, taught different variations by her father, and it was an interest she continued to cultivate as she grew older. When she was 18, Obrestad won the inaugural WSOP Europe Main Event, pocketing £1 million in prize money. She also smashed a few previous records, becoming the youngest ever player to win a coveted WSOP bracelet and taking the biggest prize ever won by a female poker player. Her lifetime earnings stand at $3.9 million, which doesn’t sound much until you realise that she made that in only ten years, before leaving the scene in 2018.
Obrestad was known as being a very aggressive player, pushing her opponents way out of their comfort zone with big bluffs and bold moves, always played calmly and with confidence. It made her a very difficult player to read, and many times she successfully fooled her opponents into folding winning hands and chasing losing ones. Playing against Obrestad was certainly a unique experience and there are many who hope she comes back to the tables because any hands she plays are riveting viewing.
4. Victoria Coren-Mitchell
More well-known for her career off the tables, Coren-Mitchell is a British journalist and television personality, although poker will always be her first love. She honed her skills in the Victoria Casino in London, where she also met and became close friends with poker’s notorious Hendon Mob. It was also the site of her biggest victory, when she became the first female poker player to win the European Poker Tour Main Event in 2006, walking away with a cool £500,000 in prize money. She netted a big win at the EPT again in 2012 in Monte Carlo, where she won the grand final and came second in the ladies event. While less prolific than other players mentioned here, Coren-Mitchell can be found regularly either at the casino in person or playing online, where she is a sponsored pro at PokerStars and plays on the team for the Uk and Ireland.
There’s no reason why poker should continue to be a male-dominated arena, as these, and many more, successful female poker players are proving. While there may not be legendary players dating back to the 40s and 50s, that only means that the most influential female players are still around today, to inspire fresh faces to join the game. They are often more exciting to watch than their male counterparts, using aggressive tactics and high bets to prove a point around the table, where in the end, everyone is equal, and all that really matters is the cards you hold.