Top 10 Female Poker Players (Updated for 2024)

Nickname: fslexcduck
Residence: Brooklyn, New York
Born: July 9, 1984

Born in 1984 in Brooklyn, New York, Vanessa Selbst first started to play poker during her years at Yale where she studied Political Science. She attended her first World Series at Las Vegas in 2006, and made a name for herself with her back-to-back wins at the 2010 and 2011 Northern American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun Main Events.

With three World Series of Poker Bracelets to her name, she is hands down the best female poker player in the world. She even fairs competitively against the men, having attained the recognition of one of the best tournament players overall.

She’s the only female player to break through the $10 million live earning barrier, with her nearest competitor trailing more than $5 million behind. This puts her on the top half of the 100 All Time Money List, demonstrating that female players can also compete at the elite levels in a male-dominated game of poker.

Nickname: PokerKat
Residence: Las Vegas, Nevada
Born: October 1, 1967

Kathleen H. Liebert, born in 1967 in Nashville, Tennessee began her professional poker career as a prop player in Colorado.

She first started to dabble in poker at the young age of 12 where she would play nickel-and-dime home games around the kitchen table with her family and parents’ friends. She then went on to pursue a degree in business and finance at Marist College, NY, which would ultimately provide her with the calculative approach that has proved to be very advantageous in her poker path to greatness.

Her first big break came in the form of a six-figure pay day which she attained from placing second in the 1997 World Series of Poker $3,000 No Limit Hold’em buy-in event. She continued to enter tournaments one after another until she finally made a name for herself when she became the first woman in poker history to win a $1 million top prize in 2002 where she bested the likes of Phil Hellmuth at the Party Poker Million tournament.

She is widely considered as the pioneer of female poker, and also 1 of only 2 woman to earn more than $5 million in live earnings.

Nickname: The Duchess of Poker
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Born: September 13, 1965

Anne LaBarr “Annie” Duke, born in 1965 in Concord, New Hampshire, had card and competitions in her blood. She regularly credits her teacher-parents’ love for skilled thinking pastimes for her success in poker.

Graduating from Columbia U and then becoming a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, Duke’s poker path started from necessity where she hit poker rooms in Colorado in a bid to make money to pay the household bills. It wasn’t long before this blossomed into a love affair.

She is the only woman to have ever won in the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship and she even bested a star-studded field for her 1st bracelet in the 2004 WSOP Tournament of Champions for a whopping $2 million.

Nickname: Annette_15
Residence: Sandnes, Norway
Born: September 18, 1988

Annette Obrestad, born in 1988 is a Norwegian poker player who got her start from playing online poker at the age of 15, hence her nickname.

Most impressively, she built up her huge online bankroll without making a single deposit as she only entered freeroll tournaments. From there, she continued her remarkable achievements by becoming the youngest ever World Series of Poker champion just before her 19th birthday, and also taking home a massive $2 million.

Although she hasn’t made quite the same big splash in the poker industry since, she remains highly competitive, reaching several main event final tables and placing 8th in the 2012 $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha/ Heads-Up for $28,409.

Nickname: Pokerness, Lady Maverick
Residence: Hobe Sound, Florida
Born: February 5, 1983

Born in 1983 in White Plains, New York, Vanessa Ashley Rousso is a poker beauty that is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

Graduated as valedictorian in 2001 from her high school in Wellington, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in economics from Duke, which she has taken full advantage of in her poker career, crediting much of her poker success to the focus on game theory during her studies in economics.

She initially played online until she reached the legal casino gambling age, then she commenced her live tournament journey. Up till now, few female players have been as consistent as Rousso over the last decade. She has recorded multiple 6-figure paydays in 2006, 2009 and 2011, with her most impressive performance occurring in the 2009 Grand Final, Monte Carlo €25,000 European High Roller Championship where she placed 1st and took home over $700k.

Nickname: Iron Maiden
Residence: Kent, England
Born: July 18, 1984

Stunning poker beauty Olivia “Liv” Boeree was born in July 1984 in Kent, England. She earned a First Class Honors degree in Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Manchester.

Commonly listed as one of the top 10 hottest female players in the world of poker, Boeree got her start in poker from a reality tv show in 2005 where she was coached by top poker pros Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, and Dave Ulliot. From there, she went on to achieve her biggest breakthrough in the 2010 EPT Sanremo where she finished 1st and pocketed $1.7 million. Though she has yet to top her own record, she has continued to record several cashes on both side of the pond.

Nickname: J. J.
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Born: April 10, 1965

Born in 1965 in Taipei, Taiwan, Joanne Jishung Liu is a professional poker player from Palo Alto, California. She moved to the United States to pursue a master’s degree in computer engineering at Bradley University. After graduation, she started working as a software engineer in Silicon Valley in 1996, and it was there that she discovered her love for poker. This slowly turned into a lucrative part-time income, until in 2004 when she decided to quit her full-time engineering career to focus on poker full-time.

She is perhaps best known for her eccentric dress sense, but don’t judge a book by its cover. After all, she didn’t make it to this top 10 list based on her fashion style alone.

Since going pro, J.J. has amassed a laundry list of poker tournament cashes, including her best career performance at the 2007 WPT Championship Event where she placed 2nd, netting her $600,000.

Nickname: None
Residence: Reno, Nevada
Born: November 29, 1964

Jennifer Harman is an American professional poker player, born in 1964 in Reno, Nevada.

With 2 World Series of Poker bracelets to her name, she most definitely deserves to be part of this top 10 best female poker list. One amazing fact about her first bracelet win is the fact that she had never played that game prior to the No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball event in 2000. All she had to help her was a quick five-minute tutoring session from Haward Lederer before the event started.

Primarily a cash game player, harman is the only one in this list that regularly participates in the “Big Game”, a high-stakes cash game at the Bellagio.

Nickname: Teacups
Residence: London, United Kingdom
Born: August 18, 1972

Born in 1972 in Hammersmith, west London, Victoria Elizabeth Coren Mitchell is an accomplished journalist and professional poker player and member of Team PokerStars Pro. She writes weekly columns for The Observer and The Guardian, as well as hosting the BBC Four television quiz show Only Connect.

Multi-talented Coren spent a lot of time playing poker in the Victoria Casino in London, the place where she got her first major poker title and became the first woman to win a European Poker Tour main event for more than $900,000. Her other 2 six-figures scores also came from tournaments within the UK.

Nickname: Black Mamba
Residence: Berlin, Germany
Born: July 11, 1981

Born and raised in Berlin, Germany, Sandra Naujoks is a the only German professional poker player in the top 10.

Naujoks initially worked as a teacher, but later changed to working as a graphic designer while modelling on the side. During her free time, she would play online poker under the username “Black Mamba”. She started small, but eventually moved on to more live tournaments which she finished very strong at. Her biggest breakthrough was when she became the second woman ever to win a European Poker Tour main event at the 2009 German EPT where she cashed for more than $1 million.