The Top 5 Best UK Female Poker Players

While the UK has not produced some of the female talents that the US has when you think of Kristen Bicknell, Kathy Liebert, and Vanessa Selbst. The UK has however produced some incredible female poker players, in large part due to UK poker sites including the best player pools and toughest fields.

UK poker has produced some of the best women poker players of all time. This could be put down to having operators like GGPoker and PokerStars available as poker sites to use, which have the best competition and tournaments for online players. The UK also has a burgeoning live poker scene, with PokerStars Live running events like the UKIPT, EPT stops, PSPC Platinum Pass events, and more. The UK is also home to some of Europe’s best poker rooms with The Hippodrome, The Victoria Casino, and the Dusk Till Dawn poker room owned by Rob Yong. 

These poker opportunities have given women in UK poker the chance to progress and develop their poker skills, both online and live, whilst also growing their bankroll so they can target the most prestigious series like the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour stops. 

In this article, you can see the top five women in UK poker, and learn how they climbed the ladder to get their ranking. 

#1 – Liv Boeree

Liv Boeree is a World Series of Poker bracelet winner and has a European Poker Tour title to her name to boot. Even after retiring from poker in late 2019, she still holds a place in the all-time money list for female poker players. Her total live earnings sit currently at $3,861,839.

Liv Boeree is an incredibly multi-talented individual, having graduated with First Class honors in Astrophysics and also being the lead guitarist in a band during her time at university. The science of space was not enough to quench her intellectual thirst, and that’s when she found poker. She initially was introduced to the game in 2005 through the reality TV show Ultimatepoker.com Showdown, which saw her get coaching from Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott, Annie Duke, and Phil Hellmuth. 

This started a long-running passion for poker, as three years later she went on to win the Ladbrokes European Ladies Poker Championships for a bankroll boosting $30,000. It was all up after this bink, as she went on to capture her first major title in the form of EPT Sanremo in 2010. The 1st place prize gave her $1.25m and also made her the only third woman ever to win an EPT title, following Victoria Coren Mitchell and Sandra Naujoks. 

Boeree would go on to capture her WSOP bracelet after she won the $10,000 Tag Team No-Limit Hold’em Championship with her boyfriend and former high stakes professional Igor Kurganov. This prize gave them $273,964 and helped Liv Boeree ascend the women’s all-time money list even further. 

After her EPT Sanremo victory, Liv Boeree had an incredibly successful tenure as PokerStars Team Pro, a relationship that lasted nine years. Despite having a short sponsorship by UltimateBet before PokerStars, it was her time with the Red Spade that gave her career the biggest victories. With PokerStars, she was able to travel the globe, play nosebleed high-stakes tournaments, and ultimately cash for over $2 million during this spell. Liv Boeree reinforced that she has talents away from the poker field, as shown by her success since her poker retirement in 2019. She has hosted TED Talks that were viewed by thousands of people, and also appeared recently on the Tim Ferris Podcast which has over 800 million downloads.

#2 – Victoria Coren Mitchell

Victoria Coren Mitchell is one of the most famous female poker players of all time, in large part due to her becoming the first woman to win a European Poker Tour title, the first poker player to win two EPT titles, and the first poker player to win a televised professional poker tournament. Her total live earnings are currently $2,504,769.

Coren Mitchell was a regular at the Victoria Casino’s poker room during her poker career, and it was also in London where she would capture her first European Poker Tour title. She became the first woman to win an EPT when she won EPT London in 2006, scoring the highest cash prize in her career of $941,513 as well as making history in the process. 

After this she became a central figure in the poker world, becoming a PokerStars Team Pro and playing on the well-known partypoker Premier League Poker, which featured poker figures like Phil Hellmuth, Tony G, Tom Dwan, and Daniel Negreanu. She came close to gaining her second EPT title multiple times. Just two years after her first, she came 38th at EPT London for $20,909 and in 2010 she came 26th for $53,250 in the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event. 

She showed she is adept at multiple forms of Texas Hold’em, and did so in the EPT Monte Carlo Heads Up event in 2012 when she bested Melanie Weisner to win the top prize of $77,763 and get more EPT silverware. Coren Mitchell almost added to her collection the following year, coming 6th in the EPT London £10,300 High Roller when she won $101,019. 

Her career displayed consistent success year in and year out, despite the game constantly evolving and changing. She created further history, but this time for all poker players, when she won EPT Sanremo in 2014 for $660,947. This history-making win would also mark the moment Victoria slowed down her poker career, as she would only cash six events in the following eight years after that win. 

Victoria Coren Mitchell was inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame in 2016 and created a buzz when she returned to the EPT scene at EPT Monte Carlo in 2022. She is incredibly proficient in the media field, as she currently writes for the UK newspaper The Telegraph and has also hosted a UK national quiz show called Only Connect in 2008.

#3 – Lucy Rokach

Lucy Rokach is one of the best female poker players ever, having risen to prominence during the early 2000s and winning a European Poker Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 after she won the Winter Festival in Dublin in 2001 and 2003. Her total live earnings are $1,338,762.  

Poker legend Barry Greenstein mentioned Lucy in his book Ace on The River when he called Lucy Rokach the best female No-Limit Hold’em player in the world. Her first recorded cash came back in 1991 when she won a £25 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament at the Festival of Poker for £2,788. Four years later she would get her first World Series of Poker cash, coming 5th in a $1,500 PLO event at the 26th WSOP. 

Lucy’s biggest ever recorded cash came at the European Poker Championships in London in 2004, when she won a £750 No-Limit Hold’em event for £50,000. What makes Lucy’s live earnings so impressive is that she cashed for well over $1 million despite not getting single cash for over $92,000, showing a huge commitment to the game.

After stepping back from the game, she embarked on a successful commentating career which saw her pair up with Jesse May on the well-known Late Night Poker television show, as well as being part of the commentary team on The Poker Channel which was broadcast to 30 million homes before it ceased operations in 2012. (Image from unibetpoker.com).

#4 – Lynne Beaumont

Lynne Beaumont is one of the best female UK poker players, having shown incredible longevity to cash for over $600,000 and who is still playing to this day. 

She made her first cash at the Grosvenor United Kingdom Poker Tour, where she won $6,926 for a 3rd place finish in a No-Limit Hold’em event. The GUKPT, one of the most popular UK live poker series, would see Lynne get multiple cashes at different stops before she won an event in 2009 for $5,744. 

She came close to getting EPT silverware when she came 2nd in the 2011 PokerStars EPT Ladies Event, winning $8,596 for the runner-up spot. The continued success was shown when she came 11th in the World Series of Poker $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Ladies Championship, where she cashed for $9,805. Lynne saw her biggest cash come in a deep run on the biggest stage in 2014 when she finished 6th in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold-em bracelet event. This remarkable deep run saw her win $273,090 and make a highly sought-after WSOP final table. 

Her love for poker is still thriving, as she has notched 9 cashes since the pandemic lockdown ended, finding deep runs in the GUKPT Manchester and the Wynn Series in Las Vegas. (Image from thehendonmob.com).

#5 – Katie Swift

Katie is arguably the most promising and most active female poker player in the UK right now, as she has an impressive recent resume on the biggest and best poker stages. Her total live earnings are currently $427,170. Her biggest cash came in one of the toughest UK poker tournaments, the £5,300 partypoker MILLIONS Live event at Dusk Till Dawn in 2017. Katie came 7th with a huge score of £100,000.

Katie hit the poker scene in 2015 IN sudden fashion when she had a deep run in the biggest UK poker tournament, the Goliath event. The low buy-in and huge guarantee see thousands fire the £120 buy-in event. Katie came 2nd for a huge return of investment on her buy-in, winning £46,300, and would eventually be signed by the UK poker operator Grosvenor Poker. 

She would eventually get her hands on the top spot in a tournament after she won the MPNPT Gran Casino Madrid Cup Event in 2020, which saw her score $6,956. Katie continues to fire poker tournaments in the UK and across the pond after she had four cashes at the 2022 World Series of Poker. She cashed in the $1,000 Freezeout, $1,500 Monster Stack, the Ladies Championship, and the Mini Main Event. Katie Swift is a name to keep an eye on in poker.