- Nationality:
- USA
- Nickname:
- 'LadyMaverick'
- Age:
- 38 years
- Poker Earnings:
- $3.5 million
Mom-of-3, #Lawyer, #Poker Player, CBS #BigBrother Finalist, #Music Producer @N1TEL1TE, #DJ, Follow my family @theroussofamily www.soundcloud.com/n1tel1te. Vanessa is the No. 2 female poker player in the world when it comes to online and live tournaments. She's been pro for the past 10 years and has won $4.5 million dollars since she began. She's a tomboy who has always been extremely competitive, whether it's playing lacrosse in high school or beating men and women all over the world at the poker table.
Vanessa Rousso (Big Brother 17) Vanessa Rousso competed on BB17 and made it all the way to finale night, finishing in third place overall and becoming the final jury member of the season. Vanessa won many comps during her time on BB, but she was also known for lying to her co-stars about her job as a professional poker player. Vanessa Rousso, born Vanessa Ashley Rousso, is a French-American professional poker player. Born on February the 5th in 1983 in White Plains, New York, Vanessa holds.
Vanessa Rousso, born Vanessa Ashley Rousso, is a French-American professional poker player.
Born on February the 5th in 1983 in White Plains, New York, Vanessa holds dual nationality with both France and America.
She is known by the online screen name Lady Maverick, which is the name you will see her playing at the tables of online poker site Pokerstars where she is a member of Team Pokerstars.
As well as being a prominent member of Team Pokerstars she has also received a mainstream sponsorship deal away from Poker with internet giant GoDaddy.
Growing up on Two Continents
Vanessa Rousso Poker Player
Coming from a business background, Vanessa's parents operated their own company; Hobe Sound. Vanessa's mother states that she began talking at a very early age and was reading fluently well before the average child.
Born in White Plains, New York, USA, Vanessa moved to France with her parents aged just 3, before returning to the USA when she was a little older.
Vanessa moved to France at the age of 3 with her family, residing in Paris where she attended French schools and became fluent in the language. Rousso's parents later divorced and she moved back to the United States to be closer to her maternal grandparents.
In Florida, she attended Wellington Landing's Middle School and was an avid member of the school's sports teams, participating in swimming, lacrosse, softball, basketball and as a leading member of the debate team. Her mother is a guidance counsellor in a Florida high school and in 2001 Rousso graduated with a 4.0 GPA whilst also participating in the National Honor Society as well as the French Honor Society.
The Excitement of Poker lead her away from Law
From an early age, Vanessa has been noted as enjoying a challenge, whether abseiling across a cliff-face, bungee jumping or facing off against some of the toughest veteran poker players in the world.
Rousso was elected as her high schools valedictorian in 2001, which is the academic title given to the student who delivers the closing statement at a graduation ceremony. After this she went on to graduate from Duke University in 2003 with honors before deciding to attend a law school in Miami, Florida.
Whilst studying at Duke University, Rousso became an adept practitioner of a style of mathematics that dealt directly with strategic situations and how these strategies can be applied to events in everyday life.
Vanessa is a fun and popular character at the poker tables
Rousso had always played poker recreationally but didn't really start to take it seriously until she discovered that a lot of this mathematical theory can be applied whilst playing poker. As she got more and more with this academic approach to beating poker games she started to consider becoming a professional poker player.
She is noted as stating that the excitement and anticipation of playing poker led her away from her studies and in to the clutches of professional gambling as a career. Her professional poker career began in 2005.
Earning Respect with a Rising Poker Career
Just a year after becoming a professional poker player, Rousso finished in a respectable 7th place in her first World Poker Tour championship, collecting $263,625 in winnings and getting herself noticed on the circuit.
With this result, she had proven to her family and herself that she had to skill to participate and hold her own in the toughest events around the globe. This gave her the impetus to continue to study and perfect her style of play and has since gone on to walk away from a dozens of professional poker tournaments with prize money and her name high up the leader board.
Vanessa's good lucks and high profile in the poker world means that she regularly features on television poker shows.
During the 2007 Pokerstars World Championship of Online Poker, she obtained one of her best results to date when she came second in the main event, cashing in $700,782.
With a repeated influx of further cashes, her next achievement came in NBC's National Heads-Up Championship in 2009. Vanessa took on some of the best poker players in the world 1 on 1 and finished in second place in the championship and a fantastic prize of $250,000. She also walked away with a new found respect from her fellow veterans.
In 2009, she took part in the European Poker Tour in Monte Carlo, taking first place in the No Limit Hold ‘Em High Roller Championship and pocketing almost Euro €532,500 and perhaps her biggest victory to date.
She has also had strong results in the World Poker Tour, most notably in 2010 at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic Championship where she came 3rd for a prize of $359k.
Vanessa also won the 2013 WPT Foundation Ladies' Night Invitational event, beating a strong field of female poker players
She has concentrated her efforts on her consistency as a player and although still considered a rising star, Vanessa is certain to be placed amongst some of the most highly ranking professional poker players and is set for many more good results in the future.
Vanessa Rousso's Major Title Record
- WSOP Bracelets
- 0
- EPT Wins
- 1
- WPT Wins
- 0
Playing Poker with Her Fans
In her spare time, Rousso spends time with her friends and family and is a frequent visitor to the local beaches of Florida. She has several pets that reside with her in her home in Nevada. She enjoys spending time at the local casinos and is fondly welcomed by the staff who consider her a regular, even reserving a seat for her at a number of tables.
Vanessa loves to play and talk to her fans, and does this on Pokerstars where she is a sponsored player on their Team Pokerstars. She also has a twitter account.
If you want to play with her, then all you have to do is download the Pokerstars software by clicking on the box below, register for a free account and do a player search for 'Lady Maverick' and you will find the table she is playing at. Feel free to sit down and play with her, or just talk to her in the chat box.
- Who are the top 10 women in poker based on their winnings?
Who are the top 10 female poker players playing professionally in 2021? You might think of poker as a ‘man's game' — but you'd be wrong. While women might not match men in number when it comes to poker professionals in the industry, there are many women making impressive moves at the felt, and making even more impressive sums of money that deserve your attention.
Did you know that women make up less than 7% of poker professionals, and since its inception in 1970, a woman has never won the World Series of Poker Main Event?
There's a lot of different criteria you can consider when you decide how to rank a definitive list of the best female poker professionals of all time — some key indicators of poker performance include who's won the most World Series of Poker Bracelets, who's been inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, and overall monetary winnings. For the purpose of this list, we're counting down the top 10 female professional poker players by their highest winnings.
10. Joanne 'JJ' Liu
Topping off the top 10 list is Joanne Jishung 'JJ' Liu, a Taiwanese poker player ranked 2nd on the Taiwan All Time Money List. JJ hadn't played poker until she moved to Silicon Valley to work as a software engineer in 1996. From then on, she began playing in live tournaments and has collected over $3.2 million in winnings since.
In 2007, JJ was the highest placing female in a World Poker Tour Championship event, finishing as the runner-up at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars event.
9. Maria Constanza Lamprópulos
Maria Constanza Lamprópulos playing a game of poker.
Greek-born but representing Argentina, Maria started playing poker after she started dating Iván Lucá, an Argentinian professional poker player. Although she has only been playing in live tournaments since 2014, her total career winnings exceed $3.3 million.
She has played in numerous poker tournaments, most notably the main event of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas in 2018, where she became the first woman to win the main event and collected a prize of just under $1.1 million.
8. Vanessa Rousso
Like Maria Ho, Vanessa often ranks higher than 8th place when other criteria are taken into consideration. Since beginning her professional poker career in 2005, Vanessa has won over $3.5 million, placed 5th at the final table of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Circuit Event in Atlantic City in 2006, and won the €25,000 European Poker Tour High Roller Championship.
Vanessa doesn't play in tournaments that often anymore, and has a wide array of professional skills & experience, having worked as an attorney, DJ, and TV personality in-between her poker stints. Fun fact—in 2015, she placed 3rd on the 17th season of the reality TV show Big Brother.
7. Liv Boeree
Liv Boeree at a WPT tournament.
Hailing from Kent, England, Liv began her professional poker career in 2005 when she was chosen as one of five contestants for the reality TV show Ultimatepoker.com Showdown, where she was coached by poker pros Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, and Dave Ulliott.
In 2014, Liv co-founded an organization called Raising for Effective Giving, which consists largely of poker professionals and financial investors who pledge to donate a percentage of their income to selected charities. As of July 2020, REG has raised over $14 million for charity. In 2017, Liv also joined Giving What We Can, a similar organization to REG, and pledged to give at least 10% of her income to charities.
She is a WSOP champion and a European Poker Tour champion and is the first and only female poker player in history to win a WSOP bracelet and an EPT event. In 2019 she announced that she was quitting professional poker with her total winnings clocking in at $3.8 million.
6. Annette Obrestad
Annette Obrestad in one of her YouTube videos on 'Annette's Makeup Corner'.
Annette is a successful Norwegian YouTuber who specializes in makeup tutorials, but also boasts an impressive $3.9 million total winnings from poker games and tournaments. The day before her 19th birthday in 2007, she won the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event (a $2.01 million prize), and just barely broke the record for the highest single-event payout to a female player which was previously held by Annie Duke. This same tournament, she also became the youngest person to ever win a WSOP bracelet.
Annette currently is 2nd place in the Norwegian All Time Money List.
5. Maria Ho
Maria is often higher than 5th place when ranked based on other criteria. She is definitely one of the most successful female poker players currently playing and has won over $4 million in tournaments.
Maria was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and moved to the United States when she was four. She began playing poker in college after being told she couldn't participate in a boys' poker game because it was 'no girls allowed'. Seeing that poker was a male-dominated industry combined with her strict upbringing, Maria's rebellious side pushed her to pursue poker—and her hard work has definitely paid off.
She was inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame in 2018 and was introduced by poker pro and her close pal, Daniel Negreanu, who said 'I think poker is actually very lucky to have someone like Maria in it because she's the best ambassador you could ask for.'
Maria has made it to five WSOP final tables, four WPT final tables, and a WPT win at the LA Poker Classic $25,000 High Roller Tournament. She also won the Global Poker Award for Broadcaster of the Year in 2019.
4. Annie Duke
Annie Duke's author photo.
Though she no longer plays professionally, Annie is an accomplished player and author. She won her first and only WSOP bracelet in 2004, and her total winnings amounted to $4.2 million. Before her 'retirement', she was the leading female money winner in WSOP history, a title that is now held by Vanessa Selbst.
Other accomplishments include winning the 2004 World Series of Poker Championships, and the 2010 National Heads-Up Poker Championship. She set the record for the highest single-event payout to a female player by winning $2 million at the 2004 Tournament of Champions.
She has published five books – one about her experiences playing poker professionally and four strategy and instructional books about how to play poker (two co-authored with John Vorhaus). From 2011 to 2012, she also served as the co-founder, executive vice president, and commissioner of the Epic Poker League, a series of poker tournaments in 2011.
Annie co-founded the non-profit Ante Up for Africa in 2007 with actor Don Cheadle to benefit charities working in Africa. Through playing in and hosting charitable poker tournaments, Annie has raised money for a number of other non-profits.
3. Kristen Bicknell
Kristen Bicknell playing in the 2017/2018 WPT season.
Vanessa Russo Bb
Kristen represents the Great North as the only Canadian woman on this list, hailing from St. Catharines, Ontario. She first played poker in her freshman year of college and immediately fell in love with the game, and later began playing online in 2006.
Her total live cashes are currently over $5.1 million and include winnings from her three WSOP bracelet wins – the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Ladies Championship in 2013, a $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Bounty event in 2016, and the $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em 6-max event in 2020.
2. Kathy Liebert
Kathy started her career as a prop player and later began entering tournaments. She made it to her first WSOP final table in 1997, and in 2004 she won a gold bracelet in a $1,500 Limit Texas Hold'em Shootout event at the WSOP. She has made six World Poker Tour tables and made history as the highest-finishing woman on the WPT when she placed third at the 2005 Borgata Poker Open until JJ Liu finished as a runner-up in the 2007 Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament.
Kathy nearly made the Top 100 All Time Money List, but is currently placed at 101st. How do slot machines pay. She has made four separate cashes at the World Poker Tour of over $250,000. Her total winnings are currently just over $6.3 million.
1. Vanessa Selbst
Whichever criteria you're going by, Vanessa Selbst is the clear #1 winner. Her total winnings are higher than any other female poker professional by a landslide at $11.9 million. She has 21 live poker tournament wins of 6-figure amounts or more.
Vanessa Selbst in 2019, playing in the WSOP despite her retirement from professional poker.
Vanessa has quite a few accomplishments under her belt, from being the only woman in the Top 100 All Time Money List to having three World Series of Poker bracelets. Along with these, she is also the first openly lesbian professional poker player.
Vanessa Rousso Poker Player Net Worth
Other noteworthy wins include the 2010 North American Poker Tour $5,000 Mohegan Sun Main Event for $750,000, and successfully defended her title in 2011, winning $450,000. She is the first – and only – person to win two back-to-back NAPT Main Events. She is also the first woman to play in a Super High Roller event and placed 3rd in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 buy-in tournament in January 2014.
Vanessa is now retired from professional poker and works as a hedge fund manager for Bridgewater Associates. She still gambles for fun from time to time and encourages her coworkers to buy-in to bets around the office.
Honorable Mention: Barbara Enright
Barbara Enright's total winnings don't bring her into our top 10, but she is definitely a force to be reckoned with when it comes to poker. She first learned the game around the age of four while playing with her older brother, and the rest is history.
She currently works as the editor-in-chief of Woman Poker Player magazine and an ambassador for Poker League of Nations, the world's largest and most internationally represented women's poker organization. She has won three WSOP bracelets and her total winnings exceed $1.7 million.
- Nationality:
- USA
- Nickname:
- 'LadyMaverick'
- Age:
- 38 years
- Poker Earnings:
- $3.5 million
Mom-of-3, #Lawyer, #Poker Player, CBS #BigBrother Finalist, #Music Producer @N1TEL1TE, #DJ, Follow my family @theroussofamily www.soundcloud.com/n1tel1te. Vanessa is the No. 2 female poker player in the world when it comes to online and live tournaments. She's been pro for the past 10 years and has won $4.5 million dollars since she began. She's a tomboy who has always been extremely competitive, whether it's playing lacrosse in high school or beating men and women all over the world at the poker table.
Vanessa Rousso (Big Brother 17) Vanessa Rousso competed on BB17 and made it all the way to finale night, finishing in third place overall and becoming the final jury member of the season. Vanessa won many comps during her time on BB, but she was also known for lying to her co-stars about her job as a professional poker player. Vanessa Rousso, born Vanessa Ashley Rousso, is a French-American professional poker player. Born on February the 5th in 1983 in White Plains, New York, Vanessa holds.
Vanessa Rousso, born Vanessa Ashley Rousso, is a French-American professional poker player.
Born on February the 5th in 1983 in White Plains, New York, Vanessa holds dual nationality with both France and America.
She is known by the online screen name Lady Maverick, which is the name you will see her playing at the tables of online poker site Pokerstars where she is a member of Team Pokerstars.
As well as being a prominent member of Team Pokerstars she has also received a mainstream sponsorship deal away from Poker with internet giant GoDaddy.
Growing up on Two Continents
Vanessa Rousso Poker Player
Coming from a business background, Vanessa's parents operated their own company; Hobe Sound. Vanessa's mother states that she began talking at a very early age and was reading fluently well before the average child.
Born in White Plains, New York, USA, Vanessa moved to France with her parents aged just 3, before returning to the USA when she was a little older.
Vanessa moved to France at the age of 3 with her family, residing in Paris where she attended French schools and became fluent in the language. Rousso's parents later divorced and she moved back to the United States to be closer to her maternal grandparents.
In Florida, she attended Wellington Landing's Middle School and was an avid member of the school's sports teams, participating in swimming, lacrosse, softball, basketball and as a leading member of the debate team. Her mother is a guidance counsellor in a Florida high school and in 2001 Rousso graduated with a 4.0 GPA whilst also participating in the National Honor Society as well as the French Honor Society.
The Excitement of Poker lead her away from Law
From an early age, Vanessa has been noted as enjoying a challenge, whether abseiling across a cliff-face, bungee jumping or facing off against some of the toughest veteran poker players in the world.
Rousso was elected as her high schools valedictorian in 2001, which is the academic title given to the student who delivers the closing statement at a graduation ceremony. After this she went on to graduate from Duke University in 2003 with honors before deciding to attend a law school in Miami, Florida.
Whilst studying at Duke University, Rousso became an adept practitioner of a style of mathematics that dealt directly with strategic situations and how these strategies can be applied to events in everyday life.
Vanessa is a fun and popular character at the poker tables
Rousso had always played poker recreationally but didn't really start to take it seriously until she discovered that a lot of this mathematical theory can be applied whilst playing poker. As she got more and more with this academic approach to beating poker games she started to consider becoming a professional poker player.
She is noted as stating that the excitement and anticipation of playing poker led her away from her studies and in to the clutches of professional gambling as a career. Her professional poker career began in 2005.
Earning Respect with a Rising Poker Career
Just a year after becoming a professional poker player, Rousso finished in a respectable 7th place in her first World Poker Tour championship, collecting $263,625 in winnings and getting herself noticed on the circuit.
With this result, she had proven to her family and herself that she had to skill to participate and hold her own in the toughest events around the globe. This gave her the impetus to continue to study and perfect her style of play and has since gone on to walk away from a dozens of professional poker tournaments with prize money and her name high up the leader board.
Vanessa's good lucks and high profile in the poker world means that she regularly features on television poker shows.
During the 2007 Pokerstars World Championship of Online Poker, she obtained one of her best results to date when she came second in the main event, cashing in $700,782.
With a repeated influx of further cashes, her next achievement came in NBC's National Heads-Up Championship in 2009. Vanessa took on some of the best poker players in the world 1 on 1 and finished in second place in the championship and a fantastic prize of $250,000. She also walked away with a new found respect from her fellow veterans.
In 2009, she took part in the European Poker Tour in Monte Carlo, taking first place in the No Limit Hold ‘Em High Roller Championship and pocketing almost Euro €532,500 and perhaps her biggest victory to date.
She has also had strong results in the World Poker Tour, most notably in 2010 at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic Championship where she came 3rd for a prize of $359k.
Vanessa also won the 2013 WPT Foundation Ladies' Night Invitational event, beating a strong field of female poker players
She has concentrated her efforts on her consistency as a player and although still considered a rising star, Vanessa is certain to be placed amongst some of the most highly ranking professional poker players and is set for many more good results in the future.
Vanessa Rousso's Major Title Record
- WSOP Bracelets
- 0
- EPT Wins
- 1
- WPT Wins
- 0
Playing Poker with Her Fans
In her spare time, Rousso spends time with her friends and family and is a frequent visitor to the local beaches of Florida. She has several pets that reside with her in her home in Nevada. She enjoys spending time at the local casinos and is fondly welcomed by the staff who consider her a regular, even reserving a seat for her at a number of tables.
Vanessa loves to play and talk to her fans, and does this on Pokerstars where she is a sponsored player on their Team Pokerstars. She also has a twitter account.
If you want to play with her, then all you have to do is download the Pokerstars software by clicking on the box below, register for a free account and do a player search for 'Lady Maverick' and you will find the table she is playing at. Feel free to sit down and play with her, or just talk to her in the chat box.
- Who are the top 10 women in poker based on their winnings?
Who are the top 10 female poker players playing professionally in 2021? You might think of poker as a ‘man's game' — but you'd be wrong. While women might not match men in number when it comes to poker professionals in the industry, there are many women making impressive moves at the felt, and making even more impressive sums of money that deserve your attention.
Did you know that women make up less than 7% of poker professionals, and since its inception in 1970, a woman has never won the World Series of Poker Main Event?
There's a lot of different criteria you can consider when you decide how to rank a definitive list of the best female poker professionals of all time — some key indicators of poker performance include who's won the most World Series of Poker Bracelets, who's been inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, and overall monetary winnings. For the purpose of this list, we're counting down the top 10 female professional poker players by their highest winnings.
10. Joanne 'JJ' Liu
Topping off the top 10 list is Joanne Jishung 'JJ' Liu, a Taiwanese poker player ranked 2nd on the Taiwan All Time Money List. JJ hadn't played poker until she moved to Silicon Valley to work as a software engineer in 1996. From then on, she began playing in live tournaments and has collected over $3.2 million in winnings since.
In 2007, JJ was the highest placing female in a World Poker Tour Championship event, finishing as the runner-up at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars event.
9. Maria Constanza Lamprópulos
Maria Constanza Lamprópulos playing a game of poker.
Greek-born but representing Argentina, Maria started playing poker after she started dating Iván Lucá, an Argentinian professional poker player. Although she has only been playing in live tournaments since 2014, her total career winnings exceed $3.3 million.
She has played in numerous poker tournaments, most notably the main event of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas in 2018, where she became the first woman to win the main event and collected a prize of just under $1.1 million.
8. Vanessa Rousso
Like Maria Ho, Vanessa often ranks higher than 8th place when other criteria are taken into consideration. Since beginning her professional poker career in 2005, Vanessa has won over $3.5 million, placed 5th at the final table of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Circuit Event in Atlantic City in 2006, and won the €25,000 European Poker Tour High Roller Championship.
Vanessa doesn't play in tournaments that often anymore, and has a wide array of professional skills & experience, having worked as an attorney, DJ, and TV personality in-between her poker stints. Fun fact—in 2015, she placed 3rd on the 17th season of the reality TV show Big Brother.
7. Liv Boeree
Liv Boeree at a WPT tournament.
Hailing from Kent, England, Liv began her professional poker career in 2005 when she was chosen as one of five contestants for the reality TV show Ultimatepoker.com Showdown, where she was coached by poker pros Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, and Dave Ulliott.
In 2014, Liv co-founded an organization called Raising for Effective Giving, which consists largely of poker professionals and financial investors who pledge to donate a percentage of their income to selected charities. As of July 2020, REG has raised over $14 million for charity. In 2017, Liv also joined Giving What We Can, a similar organization to REG, and pledged to give at least 10% of her income to charities.
She is a WSOP champion and a European Poker Tour champion and is the first and only female poker player in history to win a WSOP bracelet and an EPT event. In 2019 she announced that she was quitting professional poker with her total winnings clocking in at $3.8 million.
6. Annette Obrestad
Annette Obrestad in one of her YouTube videos on 'Annette's Makeup Corner'.
Annette is a successful Norwegian YouTuber who specializes in makeup tutorials, but also boasts an impressive $3.9 million total winnings from poker games and tournaments. The day before her 19th birthday in 2007, she won the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event (a $2.01 million prize), and just barely broke the record for the highest single-event payout to a female player which was previously held by Annie Duke. This same tournament, she also became the youngest person to ever win a WSOP bracelet.
Annette currently is 2nd place in the Norwegian All Time Money List.
5. Maria Ho
Maria is often higher than 5th place when ranked based on other criteria. She is definitely one of the most successful female poker players currently playing and has won over $4 million in tournaments.
Maria was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and moved to the United States when she was four. She began playing poker in college after being told she couldn't participate in a boys' poker game because it was 'no girls allowed'. Seeing that poker was a male-dominated industry combined with her strict upbringing, Maria's rebellious side pushed her to pursue poker—and her hard work has definitely paid off.
She was inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame in 2018 and was introduced by poker pro and her close pal, Daniel Negreanu, who said 'I think poker is actually very lucky to have someone like Maria in it because she's the best ambassador you could ask for.'
Maria has made it to five WSOP final tables, four WPT final tables, and a WPT win at the LA Poker Classic $25,000 High Roller Tournament. She also won the Global Poker Award for Broadcaster of the Year in 2019.
4. Annie Duke
Annie Duke's author photo.
Though she no longer plays professionally, Annie is an accomplished player and author. She won her first and only WSOP bracelet in 2004, and her total winnings amounted to $4.2 million. Before her 'retirement', she was the leading female money winner in WSOP history, a title that is now held by Vanessa Selbst.
Other accomplishments include winning the 2004 World Series of Poker Championships, and the 2010 National Heads-Up Poker Championship. She set the record for the highest single-event payout to a female player by winning $2 million at the 2004 Tournament of Champions.
She has published five books – one about her experiences playing poker professionally and four strategy and instructional books about how to play poker (two co-authored with John Vorhaus). From 2011 to 2012, she also served as the co-founder, executive vice president, and commissioner of the Epic Poker League, a series of poker tournaments in 2011.
Annie co-founded the non-profit Ante Up for Africa in 2007 with actor Don Cheadle to benefit charities working in Africa. Through playing in and hosting charitable poker tournaments, Annie has raised money for a number of other non-profits.
3. Kristen Bicknell
Kristen Bicknell playing in the 2017/2018 WPT season.
Vanessa Russo Bb
Kristen represents the Great North as the only Canadian woman on this list, hailing from St. Catharines, Ontario. She first played poker in her freshman year of college and immediately fell in love with the game, and later began playing online in 2006.
Her total live cashes are currently over $5.1 million and include winnings from her three WSOP bracelet wins – the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Ladies Championship in 2013, a $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Bounty event in 2016, and the $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em 6-max event in 2020.
2. Kathy Liebert
Kathy started her career as a prop player and later began entering tournaments. She made it to her first WSOP final table in 1997, and in 2004 she won a gold bracelet in a $1,500 Limit Texas Hold'em Shootout event at the WSOP. She has made six World Poker Tour tables and made history as the highest-finishing woman on the WPT when she placed third at the 2005 Borgata Poker Open until JJ Liu finished as a runner-up in the 2007 Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament.
Kathy nearly made the Top 100 All Time Money List, but is currently placed at 101st. How do slot machines pay. She has made four separate cashes at the World Poker Tour of over $250,000. Her total winnings are currently just over $6.3 million.
1. Vanessa Selbst
Whichever criteria you're going by, Vanessa Selbst is the clear #1 winner. Her total winnings are higher than any other female poker professional by a landslide at $11.9 million. She has 21 live poker tournament wins of 6-figure amounts or more.
Vanessa Selbst in 2019, playing in the WSOP despite her retirement from professional poker.
Vanessa has quite a few accomplishments under her belt, from being the only woman in the Top 100 All Time Money List to having three World Series of Poker bracelets. Along with these, she is also the first openly lesbian professional poker player.
Vanessa Rousso Poker Player Net Worth
Other noteworthy wins include the 2010 North American Poker Tour $5,000 Mohegan Sun Main Event for $750,000, and successfully defended her title in 2011, winning $450,000. She is the first – and only – person to win two back-to-back NAPT Main Events. She is also the first woman to play in a Super High Roller event and placed 3rd in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 buy-in tournament in January 2014.
Vanessa is now retired from professional poker and works as a hedge fund manager for Bridgewater Associates. She still gambles for fun from time to time and encourages her coworkers to buy-in to bets around the office.
Honorable Mention: Barbara Enright
Barbara Enright's total winnings don't bring her into our top 10, but she is definitely a force to be reckoned with when it comes to poker. She first learned the game around the age of four while playing with her older brother, and the rest is history.
She currently works as the editor-in-chief of Woman Poker Player magazine and an ambassador for Poker League of Nations, the world's largest and most internationally represented women's poker organization. She has won three WSOP bracelets and her total winnings exceed $1.7 million.
Barbara was the first woman to win an open event at the World Series of Poker, and in 1995 she became the first and only woman to have reached the final table of the WSOP main event. Even though Dan Harrington was the actual winner of the WSOP championship in 1995, Barbara is commonly regarded as the most notable player that year.
Vanessa Rousso Personal Life
In 2007, Barbara was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame and became the first woman to do so. Veteran poker commentator Mike Sexton has called her 'the most dominating, relentless, aggressive woman on the tournament circuit', and that is a badge Barbara wears with pride.