Poker has always had big personalities. Some players are remembered for bracelets. Some are remembered for one wild TV hand. The best female poker players have all of that. They have titles, deep runs, cash game respect, huge tournament scores, and careers that helped change how women are seen in poker.
Money is important, but poker is a game of results. Some became poker stars on TV, some made their names online, and some earned respect in high stakes games that were never fully tracked. Together, their careers show that women’s poker history has many eras, styles, and ways to win.
1. Kristen Foxen
For years the best woman poker player was Vanessa Selbst. Then Foxen kept winning. She kept showing up in tough events and adding results in fields filled with serious pros. Eventually, she passed Selbst on the women’s all time live tournament money list.
What makes Foxen so impressive is that she is building this record in today’s much tougher poker scene, where players study more, prepare better, and make fewer easy mistakes. Even mid level tournament fields are tougher than they used to be. The same shift is easy to see away from live events too, with more players learning the game, watching strategy content, and playing poker online at Stake casino. At the high stakes level, there are very few soft spots.
Foxen has still managed to build one of the best records in women’s poker history. Her 2024 WSOP Main Event finish gave that record a very public boost. Foxen finished 13th for $600,000, just short of the final table, after spending the late stages as one of the players everyone was watching. Her exit came against Joe Serock: he opened with A♠K♣, Foxen defended the big blind with K♠Q♦, then called on an A♥K♥J♠ flop. When the 5♠ hit the turn, she check raised all in over Serock’s second bet, trying to put pressure on him with the second pair and a straight draw. Serock called with the top two pair, the river missed, and Foxen was out in 13th.
That hand showed that she was willing to take a difficult, aggressive line with huge money jumps in play, even if that final move didn’t work.
2. Vanessa Selbst
Vanessa Selbst had the kind of poker peak that people still talk about. At her best, she was fearless. She really made opponents uncomfortable. She attacked pots. She applied pressure. She forced players into difficult decisions and made them prove they had a hand.
That style made her one of the most exciting players of her era and one of the toughest players to play against.
Selbst won three WSOP bracelets and built a tournament record that stayed at the top of the women’s all time list for years. Her biggest score came at the 2010 Partouche Poker Tour Main Event, where she won more than $1.8 million. She also became the first woman to reach No. 1 on the Global Poker Index.
Selbst was not ranked as the best woman. She was ranked as the best tournament player in the world at that time.
Her game was not built around waiting. She pushed, challenged, and played like someone who believed she could outthink and outfight the table. That approach sometimes created chaotic games, but it also created a lot of wins.
3. Kathy Liebert
Kathy Liebert is one of poker’s great survivors. In poker, that means a lot. Plenty of players have one big year. Some win one major tournament and then fade. Liebert has stayed relevant across different versions of the game, which is much harder.
She was winning before poker exploded on television. She kept winning during the boom, and cashing after the game became more technical. Her career is built on repeat results, not one lucky run.
Liebert has more than $7 million in live tournament earnings, a WSOP bracelet, six World Poker Tour final tables, and hundreds of recorded cashes. That’s a proper career. It’s the kind of record that only comes from years of discipline.
Her 2002 Party Poker Million win was especially important. At the time, it helped put her among the biggest female winners in the game.
Liebert never needed to be the biggest personality in poker. Her strength was showing up in determination and discipline. Poker punishes people who stop adapting, and Liebert kept adjusting as the game changed which earned her a place in the history of poker.
She also helped open the door for later generations. When women were still fighting for serious respect in major open events, Liebert was already building a record that no one could dismiss. She didn’t need anyone to call her a pioneer. The results made the point.
4. Liv Boeree
Liv Boeree became one of poker’s most recognizable names, and the results backed it up. She was not just a familiar face from interviews and broadcasts. She won major events, played against strong fields, and proved she belonged at the highest level.
Her breakthrough came in 2010 when she won the EPT San Remo Main Event. That was a massive result. EPT titles carry real weight, and San Remo was one of the biggest stops on the tour at the time. Winning that event made Boeree famous overnight.
She later added a WSOP bracelet and built a career that put her among the top female tournament earners ever. In 2024, she made another huge run at WSOP Paradise, finishing fourth in the Super Main Event for $2.8 million. That became one of the biggest payouts ever recorded by a female player.
Boeree’s appeal has always been a little different. She brought intelligence, confidence, and a natural ability to explain the game. Her background in astrophysics also helped her look at poker through probability, risk, and decision making, which gave her analysis more weight than the usual table talk.
In poker, players rarely have full information and their game is based on guessing, adjusting, and trying to make the best move with what they have. Boeree understood that side of poker clearly.
She also helped make poker feel more modern. Boeree wasn’t an old-school grinder hiding from the spotlight. She was comfortable on camera, comfortable with interviews, and with being one of the game’s public faces.
5. Maria Ho
Maria Ho is one of the most respected all around figures in poker. She’s a strong tournament player, a great commentator, and one of the best known women in the game.
Her tournament record is also strong. She has millions in live earnings, many WSOP cashes, and several high finishes in major events. She has also been the last woman standing in the WSOP Main Event more than once, which is one of the highlights of her career.
She finished 38th in the 2007 WSOP Main Event for $237,865, then added another Main Event last woman standing finish in 2014, when she placed 77th. Her closest bracelet call came in 2011, when she finished second in a $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event at the WSOP for $540,020. She has also built a long WSOP record with more than 100 cashes and nine final tables listed by WSOP, plus World Poker Tour results that include a WPT title and a third place finish in the 2017-18 WPT LAPC Rockstar Energy High Roller for $188,875.
She also brings credibility to broadcasts because she has been there herself. When she talks about pressure, she’s not guessing. She has played those spots and understands what it feels like to make a decision with real money.
Maria Ho’s place in poker is bigger than one trophy count. She has helped keep women visible in serious poker tournaments as experts and competitors.
6. Jennifer Harman
Jennifer Harman’s greatness can’t be measured only by tournament earnings because much of her reputation comes from cash games, especially the famous high-stakes mixed games in Las Vegas. Those cash games were mostly private, so the wins and losses were not tracked like tournament results. Harman’s place in poker history comes from the fact that she was invited into the biggest games and respected by the elite players sitting in them.
In that case, Harman is a legend.
She won two WSOP bracelets in open events, but her real place in poker history comes from the fact that she played in some of the biggest cash games in the world. For instance, the Bellagio “Big Game” was filled with elite players, huge egos, and massive pressure and Harman was part of that world at a time when very few women were.
That kind of respect is difficult to fake in poker. At lower levels, an image can carry someone for a while but at the highest cash game levels, weak players get exposed. The money is too big, and the players are too sharp, but Harman still managed to get her seat at the table.
Harman’s career is a reminder that poker history is not only written in tournament payouts. Some of the toughest poker is played away from final table lights and she chose to build her name there.
7. Annie Duke
Annie Duke is one of the most complicated names in poker history. At her best, Duke was one of the most successful and recognizable women in poker. She won a WSOP bracelet in 2004 and also won the WSOP Tournament of Champions that same year, taking home a $2 million prize.
Duke also understood the public side of poker. She wrote, appeared on television, gave interviews, and became part of the poker boom.
Her reputation is also tied to the online poker site that became infamous after insiders used “superuser” access to see opponents’ cards. Duke was a public face of the site, and even though she was not officially proven to have taken part in the cheating, the association still damaged how many poker fans view her career.
In poker, trust is everything. When online poker scandals come up, people remember who was connected to what. That part of her public story hasn’t gone away.
8. Annette Obrestad
Annette Obrestad’s rise was iconic. Before she became a major live tournament winner, she was already famous online as “Annette_15.” That name became part of the poker scene because she was beating games as a teenager. While many players were still learning basic strategy, Obrestad was already building a reputation as a serious online player.
In 2007, she won the WSOP Europe Main Event and became the youngest WSOP bracelet winner ever at only 18 years old. The win also came at the perfect moment in poker history. Online players were beginning to take over live events. They had played huge volume, learned quickly, and approached poker in a more aggressive, mathematical way. Obrestad was one of the clearest examples of that new generation.
Even though she later moved away from poker, her name remains one of the poker fairytales, a teenage online prodigy walks into a major live event and wins the whole thing.
9. Maria Lampropulos
She’s one of the best examples of a player who earned her place through major wins rather than constant publicity. She didn’t become a poker celebrity first. She won, and the record followed.
Her two biggest titles are both impressive. She won partypoker MILLIONS and then won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event in 2018. The PCA win was especially important because it made her the first woman to win that event. She also took home more than $1 million for the victory.
Her game is not flashy but patient and tough. That kind of style can be easily underrated because it doesn’t always create viral moments. But big tournaments are not won by being entertaining. They’re won by making strong decisions for several days in a row.
10. Joanne “J.J.” Liu
Joanne “J.J.” Liu is one of the most respected long term players in women’s poker. Her career has been built over time. One of her biggest results came at the 2007 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event, where she finished second.
Liu also has one of the more memorable table presences in poker with her style, confidence, and a relaxed way of carrying herself. But underneath that, there is a serious player. She knows live poker. She understands pace, the people, and the pressure.
Liu represents the kind of long poker career that requires respect. She didn’t need one massive media push. She built a record the hard way.
