Meet Rania Nasreddine: GPI Breakout Player 2024

Eight Facts About Rania Nasreddine

1. Rania’s parents owned a jewelry store for more than 25 years and she grew up working there.
2. Rania’s mother hated poker for a long time and was very worried about her daughter gambling before her recent success.
3. According to Lawyers.com, Rania is a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics and Political Science (2002) and Doctor of Law (2005). She has been a lawyer in GableGotwals firm since 2005 specializing in litigation, energy and oil & gas and real estate. She has a few regalia in her career: she was one of Tulsa’s Twenty New Leaders in 2007, one of 40 Under 40 in 2009, won a 2009 Barrister Bowl and was 2010 chair of the Barrister Bowl.
4. Rania participated in the sixth U.S. syndicated season of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? where she won $25,000. She could have won more but didn’t know what “C19A” was. Rania thought it was Coca-Cola’s formula name but in reality it is the Earth’s largest iceberg also known as ‘Melting Bob’.
5. Rania founded a startup called Yooze to help people find all kinds of specialists via mouth-to-mouth referrals from verified sources. The main goal of this service is to make reviews easier in a world full of false reviews from paid people.
6. Rania’s first recorded ITM in a poker tournament on The Hendon Mob was in 2008 when she busted from the $150 Ladies Event on Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge V in second place and won $1,725.
7. Rania and her husband Andrew N. Warren are owners of thoroughbred horses — on Horse Racing Nation they are listed as owners of at least two horses named “Someday Is Today” and “Rainbow Rania”.
8. Rania and Andrew are parents of two kids: a daughter and a son, the latter of whom was born shortly before Rania received the GPA award.

Why Rania Nasreddine Became The GPI Breakout Player 2024

2024 was nothing short of a blast in Rania’s poker career. She made a record 16 ITMs in live events with more than $1.2M in winnings. Just for the record, that is $700K more than during all of her career between 2008 and 2023.

Among these ITMs she managed to reach the final tables five times but without victories:

• She finished 4th in WSOPC Tulsa $250 NLH Ring Event #2, taking $4,605.
• She finished 3rd in WSOPC Tulsa $250 NLH Ring Event #13, taking $4,162.
• She finished 3rd in EPT Monte Carlo €5,3К Main Event EPT, taking career best cash of $473,639.
• She finished 4th in EPT Barcelona €5,3К Main Event EPT, updating her career bestcash with $572,962.
• She finished 7th in EPT Cyprus $2,1K 6-Handed, taking $14,910.

Rania has always loved poker deeply but never considered it more than a hobby. So when she went to play the European Poker Tour (EPT) in 2024 as a recreational player looking for a nice time doing what she is passionate about, she never expected to find such warm venues and, of course, such enormous success.

That’s why during the GPA ceremony Rania shared her deep appreciation for the EPT, PokerStars and other brands, who give recs the most desirable feeling in poker — that you are welcomed:

“I just want to say a huge thank you to whether it’s RunGoodPoker or WSOP or WPT and of course PokerStars — you all have elevated my game — to all the groups that make this such a welcoming place for someone who does this as a hobby and who absofreakinlutely loves playing each hand.”

The Charming Honesty of Rania Nasreddine

If you aren’t in love with Rania yet — just watch this speech on YouTube where she shares her story about her journey to winning the Global Poker Award. This isn’t a story about the hardships of the game but about acceptance from the most significant people in life:

“I had to lie to my mom a lot on the way to this award because my mom hated poker.

My mom would say: “Rania, where are you going? Where are you going on this trip? Where are you going and leaving your family?!”.

I would say: “I’m going to Florida” or “I’m going to Las Vegas”.

Then my mom would say: “You’re not gambling, are you?!” and I would say: “What do you want me to say, mom?”.

It wasn’t until this last year when I ended up at EPT Monte Carlo, when I was like: “Hey, mom, guess what — I took third in a tournament”. And she goes: “Oh… Okay. I thought you were there with your friends… Well how much did you make?”.

And we had this whole conversation and then she got to see some of the production, some of the stream… And this woman who has spent the last six years despising the thing that I love doing the most finally understood that this is not just me going out into the wild and being a gambler but this is me doing something that I legitimately love doing more than anything.”

Accompanied by an applause, Rania also confessed that her mother was deeply worried about her daughter going to play poker by herself and being all alone there, so she felt urge to explain the reality of the poker industry to her mom:

“I was like: “No, mom, I have friends. I have poker friends, I have industry friends and I’m so well taken care of when I go to these tournaments!”. I have people who check on me, who rail me — so, even when I am by myself wherever I am, I always have people keeping an eye on me. And she started to finally understand.

My sister showed her a stream and she started seeing comments — she was like: “Okay, this is not just some thing that you do by yourself”. She realized that this is a community.

And as I look around, I see a community. And you all make your money in this profession. And they call me a reg now but I’m a rec, and I’ve had a really good year — and I’m just honored to be a part of this community.”