The Best Female Poker Players
“Poker Alice” Ivers
Poker Alice was born in 1851.
She got her nickname over time by winning game after game in the original American West.
She actually didn’t even come from the U.S. originally, as she was born in England instead.
Her parents moved her to the United States a little over a decade after she was born.
Around 2 more decades after that, she made it into the Old West in Colorado.
The way she got into poker in the first place was through her husband, Frank.
Unfortunately, he died, and Ivers decided to try to make a living through the skills she had learned through him in order to keep going.
She was actually so good at it that she managed to successfully do this her entire life.
Mayme Stocker
Mayme Stoker was born a little later, in 1875.
She came to Las Vegas with her husband in 1911.
They wanted to make a living through the railroad projects that were coming into the area.
Eventually, her husband also earned a living running alcohol while Prohibition was going on.
She also opened up a soda shop that doubled as a gambling establishment.
People came to play five-card games since Las Vegas allowed just about anyone to do this.
Full legalization state-wide came sometime later, during the Great Depression.
Mayme actually got the first license from her state that was ever available.
She had been at it for so long that her fame had spread as one of the premier hosts for gambling in the entire area.
And this was for years before she got her full gambling license even.
Annie Oakley
While it’s not known for sure whether Annie Oakley played poker, it seems like a big step to even assume that she didn’t, given her predilections and given the times involved.
It also is known that she would shoot holes in a card that was thrown in the air, so it does seem like she had at least a passing interest in the sport.
She was also known for wowing people by doing many of the things that men were traditionally known for doing instead, such as the most obvious one, shooting a gun.
As a result, it’s not too strange to imagine she knew a thing or two about poker as well.
Even just being around a lot of other men like she was would have made this possibility seem more than just a passing stretch of the imagination.
Either way, she was definitely a woman who made waves.
Barbara Enright
Barbara Enright was born in 1949.
Barbara had the advantage of playing poker since she was young.
When she was over the age of twenty, she worked multiple different jobs at the same time as she played poker as a hobby.
This is when she decided that she should go into it full-time since she was making far more money playing poker than she was doing anything else.
By the time she was in her forties, she had become the first woman to make it the last table at the World Series of Poker.
She actually finished in 5th place.
In the end, she managed to win the World Series three times.
She has the record for most wins from a female player.
She’s still playing today, and they even inducted her into various Halls of Fame for Poker.
This includes the big one, the World Series of Poker Hall of Fame.
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