Champion of Poker

There are very few poker players in the world that can hang out and thrive at the upper limits of poker, and the ones that can are usually all male. There is one exception to that illustrious group, and that is Jennifer Harman.

Harman started playing poker when she was a little girl. Her father taught her the game and she became so good that there were times her dad would have her play for him when he was down at the tables. Usually she would win back his money for him.

Harman went to college and received a degree in Biology but after college took up playing poker full time in LA. After a while she stepped back from poker to run her own business. The business failed and she actually went back to playing poker to pay off her business debts. For years she grinded it out in middle and high stakes games and nearly lost her entire bankroll. A long from a friend in 1993 allowed her the breathing room needed to get her game off the ground and she has been a winning player since.

Harman mostly stuck with cash games until the mid 1990’s when she started playing in tournaments. She has some mild success, cashing three times at the WSOP and winning a couple of preliminary events around Vegas and Los Angeles, but it wasn’t until 2000 that she would achieve her first big poker tournament score.

Harman won the $5,000 2-7 Lowball Event at the World Series of Poker after just learning the game prior to the event. Two years later she would win her 2nd bracelet in the $5,000 Limit Holdem event. To date, Harman is the only woman to have multiple bracelets in open WSOP events. Barbara Enright and Nani Dollison have more bracelets than Harman, but two of theirs are in women’s only events.

Overall, Harman has become one of the most successful female tournament players in history. She has over $2.2 Million in tournament wins, including numerous WSOP final tables and two WPT final tables.

Outside of her tournament play, Harman is one of the premier cash game players in the world. She is a regular at Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio, regularly playing in “The Big Game.” She was also a part of the group of pros known as “The Corporation” that teamed up to play high stakes poker with Billionaire Andy Beal. Harman is said to have won $9 Million off Beal in a single day.

Outside of poker, Harman authored the Limit Holdem chapter in Super System 2 and is the mother of twins. She is the wife of Marco Traniello and has coached him into becoming a fine poker player.

Jennifer Harman wears many hats in the poker world. She started off as a grinder at the middle limits and worked her way up to become one of the most feared poker players in the world. Male or female, you would be hard pressed to find a poker player tougher than Jennifer Harman.