10 Of The Best Female Poker Players In The World 2024

NUMBER 1

Vanessa Selbst, New York, $11m+

Twitter – @VanessaSelbst

With winnings that comfortably put her on top of the all-time female winners’ list, Vanessa Selbst’s position at the top of our list is likely to be assured for some time.

Her record boasts over a dozen high-profile tournament victories including multiple WSOP bracelets, as well as wins in European Poker Tour, North American Poker Tour and World Poker Tour events. She is also the only woman so far to have topped the Global Poker Index, a worldwide ranking of poker players.

Selbst retired from poker in 2018 to pursue a career in law, but her accomplishments in poker will surely take some beating.

NUMBER 2

Kathy Liebert, Nashville, $6.8m+

Twitter – @Pokerkat

Liebert has been a regular presence at the WSOP tables since the 1990s, with her first WSOP final table coming back in 1997.

A bracelet winner in 2004, she has also amassed dozens of tournament victories in Las Vegas and throughout California, while her biggest win to date was a $1,000,000 first prize at the PartyPoker Million Cruise in 2002.

In addition to her successes at the WSOP, Liebert also has winnings of almost $2m in WPT events. She was inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame in 2010.

NUMBER 3

Kristen Bicknell, Ontario, $6m+

Twitter – @krissyb24poker

Canada’s Bicknell has been busy on the tables since discovering poker at college, rising to become the number 1 ranked female for live tournaments in 2017. Extensive experience in online games gave her the bankroll and the knowledge to challenge the best in the world in live tournament play, and her live results include multiple WSOP bracelet wins.

A former sponsored pro for PartyPoker, Bicknell has also appeared on numerous televised poker games including ‘Poker After Dark’, and has won the Global Poker Index Female Player of the Year award on multiple occasions.

NUMBER 4

Maria Ho, Los Angeles, $4.5m+

Twitter – @MariaHo

Ho has been a part of the professional poker scene since her breakthrough at the 2007 WSOP where, as the last woman standing, she finished 38th for a score of $237, 865.

Since then, she has become a successful tournament regular, clocking up multiple cashes at the WSOP (including eight in-the-money performances at the 2014 World Series) as well as a WPT title in her native LA. When not playing high stakes games, this Taiwan-born pro also lends her skills to various poker broadcasts as a commentator.

NUMBER 5

Annie Duke, Oregon, $4m+

Twitter – @AnnieDuke

Duke may have retired from the world of high stakes poker, but the former leading female money winner at the WSOP still casts a long shadow, with tournament winnings that see her take 4th place on this list despite not playing for a decade or more.

Duke was encouraged to take up poker by her brother, WSOP bracelet-winner Howard Lederer, and has since coached others in the finer points of the game – notably including actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

She’s made multiple WSOP final tables, with her bracelet win coming in 2004’s $2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo event.

NUMBER 6

Annette Obrestad, Norway, $3.9m+

Twitter – @Annette_15

The Norwegian phenom hit the ground running with a poker career that allegedly started online at the age of 15, claiming that she never once made a deposit but rather managed to build a professional bankroll via freerolls.

Aged 18, and finally able to play poker legally, Obrestad travelled to the UK to play the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe. Winning the Main Event the day before her 19th birthday gave Obrestad the record as the youngest ever bracelet winner.

She has recently enjoyed a different kind of success, creating popular makeup and beauty content on Youtube and Instagram.

NUMBER 7

Liv Boeree, Kent, $3.8m+

Twitter – @Liv_Boeree

England’s Boeree, known affectionately as the ‘Iron Maiden’, got her start in poker thanks to the help of former WSOP champion Phil Hellmuth. The coaching she received from Hellmuth as part of a reality show gave her the knowledge and passion to pursue a career which has encompassed notable wins on the European Poker Tour and the WSOP.

Boeree’s focus has shifted in recent years to content creation and public speaking, but her accomplishments as a poker player cannot be ignored, and with career tourney winnings of more than $3m she is fully deserving of a place on our list.

NUMBER 8

Vanessa Rousso, New York, $3.5m+

Twitter – @VanessaRousso

French-American Rousso turned pro in 2005, and despite a career that’s taken in significant diversions into DJing, music production and reality TV (she was a contestant on season 17 of ‘Big Brother’), her tournament winnings are still sizable enough for her to take 8th place on our list.

While she hasn’t yet won a bracelet event, Rousso’s results at the WSOP have been positive, with cashes recorded every year from 2005 to 2016. In 2017 Rousso announced a break from poker to concentrate on music projects.

NUMBER 9

Joanne ‘JJ’ Liu, Taiwan, $3.5m+

Twitter – @jjliu9065

This Taiwanese-Californian picked up poker while working as a software engineer in Silicon Valley, and has been chalking up tournament victories since the mid-1990s.

Over a decades-long professional poker career, Liu’s results include wins on the World Poker Tour, the Asia Pacific Poker Tour and at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, while her best WSOP performance to date saw her finish runner-up in a mixed Hold’em/Stud event in 2003.

Liu’s busy schedule sees her continue to record more and more tournament wins each year, so don’t be surprised to see her rise up the rankings in our top 10 list!

NUMBER 10

Victoria Coren Mitchell, London, $2.5m+

Twitter – @VictoriaCoren

The UK’s Coren Mitchell may be best-known to her compatriots as a writer and broadcaster, with a string of successful television and radio credits to her name as well as numerous magazine and newspaper columns.

As a poker player, she became the first woman to win a European Poker Tour Main Event when she took down EPT London in 2006. She then became the first player to win two EPT Main Event titles when she won EPT San Remo in 2014.