Maria Konnikova

Current Residence	Brooklyn, NY, United States
Born	1984
Birth Place	Moscow, Russia
Total Winnings	$374,207

Maria Konnikova is a Russian-American writer with a Ph.D in psychology. She has worked as a television producer, written for several magazines and online publications, and on top of that also written three New York Times best-selling books. Since several years she is trying to make her way in the poker world.

Maria Konnikova – A Synonym for Ambitious

Maria is a daughter of Jewish parents. At the age of four, she immigrated to the United States and settled in Massachusetts, outside of Boston. After graduating from high school of Massachusetts, she graduated at Harvard University with a B.A in psychology. Later on she went for a Ph.D at Columbia University in 2013.

After her studies, she worked as a producer for the ‘Charlie Rose Show’. After that she started writing several columns and has written three books such as ‘Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes’, which became a bestseller at the ‘New York Times’. It got eventually translated into 17 languages. She also makes regular appearances during podcasts on ‘The Gist’.

From Theory to Practice

Maria became interested in poker after reading John von Neumann’s work on game theory. She liked the game due to its involvement of both skill and chance. In 2016 she contacted the one and only American Erik Seidel if he was interested in coaching her to become a decent competitive regular in the poker felt.

In 2017, during EPT Monte Carlo, she made her first steps in the international poker circuit. A year later she won the PCA National event at the PokerStars Carribbean Adventure, taking down $84,600. At the final table she let the likes of Chris Moorman and Alexander Ziskin behind her. Additionally, she won a Platinum Pass worth $30,000 to the PokerStars Players Championships in 2019. Before these results, she barely had set foot on the ground in regards of results in the tournament scene.

It resulted in an ambassadorship with PokerStars in 2018 for a good year. She became a full-time professional poker player and went to compete in the higher stakes tournaments. Throughout this period, she also published two books about poker by the names ‘The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win’ and ‘The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It.. Every Time’.

Full-Time Poker Professional

In 2017 at the Aria Resort in Las Vegas, she noted her first result in a $125 tournament, quickly followed by cashes during the PokerStars Championships in Monte Carlo. She kicked it off well as in the same year she player her first World Series of Poker as well, cashing in several events. Despite the fact she just had $30,000 in career earnings at the time, she managed to cash a lot of events. As mentioned, her real breakthrough was during the PCA Nationals. Since then, she cashed in 37 events of which 23 events were WSOP events, with a 2^nd place during the Asia Pacific Poker Tour for $57,519 as her best result.

Her online poker career is a little bit dark, as when she became Team Pro for PokerStars, she played with her full name instead of a nickname. Maria Konnikova is a great example of the past years that becoming poker professional can be achieved with a good set of minds, and with help of the right people. With her background and her knowledge about the human being in general, she has evolved herself in one of world’s best female competitors in the international poker world.

High Scores

Date	Tournament Name	Buy-In	Place	Cash Prize
Jan/18	PCA National, Paradise Island	$ 1.650	1st	$ 84.600
Jan/18	PCA Main Event, Paradise Island	$ 10.300	42nd	$ 22.020
Mar/18	Asian Pacific Poker Tour #13, Maccau	$ 2.500	2nd	$ 57.519
Sep/18	World Poker Tour, Borgata	$ 3.500	20st	$ 24.695