Jennifer Harman

Jennifer Harman was born on November 29, 1964, in Reno, Nevada. She was exposed to poker by her family from a young age and started playing by sneaking into casinos at 16. Her mother and sister both suffered from kidney disease; her mother died of kidney failure when Harman was 17, and Harman herself has long dealt with kidney issues.

Harman won her first WSOP gold bracelet in 2000 in the $5,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Lowball event, earning $146,250. Interestingly, she had never played the game before and only had a five-minute tutorial from Howard Lederer before entering and winning. In 2002, she won her second gold bracelet in the $5,000 Limit Hold'em event, taking home $212,440, becoming the first woman to win two gold bracelets in open WSOP events. Since then, Vanessa Selbst, Loni Harwood, and Kristen Bicknell have also achieved this.

As of 2021, her live tournament earnings exceed $2.7 million, with approximately $1.5 million from the WSOP. Her largest single cash came from the 2007 WSOP Europe HORSE event, where she finished as runner-up, earning about £40,688 (approximately $80,000).

Harman's reputation and wealth come primarily from high-stakes cash games. She is a regular in the "Big Game" at Bellagio's "Bobby's Room" and is the only woman in that lineup. She also participated in "The Corporation," a group of high-stakes players who took on Andy Beal heads-up, with limits reaching $100,000/$200,000.

She has appeared multiple times on televised poker shows, including GSN's High Stakes Poker and NBC's Poker After Dark. She won the championship during Week 8 of Poker After Dark.

In 2004, Harman took a year off from poker to undergo a second kidney transplant. After recovering, she founded the nonprofit organization Creating Organ Donation Awareness (CODA) to promote organ donation awareness. She has hosted numerous charity poker events to raise funds for the National Kidney Foundation and the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, collecting over $500,000 in total.

In 2015, Harman was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. She is the author of the Limit Hold'em chapter in Super System II. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest female poker players of all time, known for her calm, aggressive, and technically versatile style, excelling especially in limit and mixed games.

Harman's story has inspired countless players, proving that women can compete and achieve greatness alongside men at the highest levels of poker.