High Roller Queens: Ten Best Poker Players, Part I.

A compilation of the best poker playing ladies in the world and what they like to do when they’re not at the table

When we talk about the best poker players in the world, we automatically think of men. It’s not like poker is a game based on physique, somehow, however, it is still considered a masculine pastime.

• Online poker is preferred usually
• Youngest player to win WSOP was 19
• Most of them started playing poker in college

Female poker may not have such an awesome marketing plan as male poker does, but we have to take them into consideration, too. So, to be fair, here is a list of all the poker playing damsels (who are definitely not is distress…) and some information on their lives when they’re not calculating odds. Ladies, you have the floor.

Vanessa Selbst

A very successful player, she is the only woman to ever rank number 1 on the Global Poker Index. Right now, she is 8th. She regularly plays on online poker sites in the US, specifically, PokerStars Pro (she is a member of the team,) and uses the name “V. Selbst.”

In total, she made USD 10 million and has three World Series of Pokerbracelets. Another great achievement, she is the only woman to consecutively win the North American Poker Tour Main Event. She graduated from MIT and worked as a producer for an online poker training website. Currently, she and her wife live in New York.

Jennifer Harman

She is famous for the story of what happened before she won her first WSOP bracelet in 2000: she had never played No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball and got a five-minute tutoring session prior to the game from Howard Lederer. She sat down, played, and won. She holds two WSOP bracelets. Due to ongoing kidney problems, she already had two kidney transplants and had to take some time off from playing poker.

She also does a lot of charity work for Creating Organ Donation Awareness, an organization that she created. She starred in TLC’s Sin City Rules TV series, has a husband who also plays poker and two twins.

Xuan Liu

She has been playing poker since college for extra money and started her cards career by playing online poker in Canada. She also organized her own games and some around the Waterloo University campus.

Right now, she has approximately USD 1.2 million in winnings and finished third at the European Poker Tour in San Remo. During an interview with Cardplayer.com, she talked about how much she enjoys working as a financial analyst, but travelling and meeting people due to playing poker is much better. She also stated that among her aims is to make it more final tables.

Maria Ho

Ms. Ho is ranked fifth woman poker player in the world and boasts of many TV appearances. She has a total of USD 2.6 million in winnings and made it to 3 WSOP final tables. She is the spokesperson for WinStar World Casino and participated in American Idol and The Amazing Race, just to mention a few.

Maria Ho first started playing poker in college and when she graduated with a Communications major and a minor in Law, she decided to become a pro. She was a WSOP host and a commentator, a coach and a writer for a book on poker strategies. She was also nominated three times as Favourite Female Player in Bluff Magazine.

Annette Obrestad

The young Norwegian is the youngest person to ever win a WSOP bracelet, which she did at the age of 19 at the European games. One day before her birthday, she won GBP 1 million at the final table and right now, her earnings amount to USD 3.9 million.

She was only fifteen when she started playing on online internet casinos under the username Annette_15. Playing on mobile casinos paid off: she won USD 500,000 on PokerStars and USD 200,000 on UltimateBet. She won a lot more money on other sites, too. She managed to make these wins without any deposits.