Kathy Liebert is one of the most successful female players of all time. She’s also one of the best NL tournament players currently on the pro circuit. She’s proven her skills at the table especially in the Game Show Network’s series The Battle of the Sexes. She beat out every male and female contestant to win $100,000 first place prize which finally got her some well-deserved recognition. She’s also the first female ever to win $1 million in a poker tournament. During her career, Kathy has won over $2.5 million of the tournament circuit which ranks her in the top 40 all time in tournament earnings.
Kathy Liebert - Source: www.KathyLiebert.net
Kathy Liebert was born in Tennessee and grew up on Long Island, NY. That’s where she first started playing poker. She earned a degree in finance at Marist College in upstate New York. One of her first jobs out of college was as a business analyst for Dun and Bradstreet. She didn’t particularly feel fulfilled working in that type of environment even though she was doing very well. She invested a lot of her income into the stock market and those investments grew to a point where she decided to quit her job after the advice of he mother who encouraged her to do something that she was passionate about.
Kathy relocated to the West Coast. She stopped off in Las Vegas and played casino poker for the first time. She eventually ended up a ski bum in Colorado. When poker was legalized in parts of Colorado, she began playing low limit poker. She did so well that one of the local casinos hired her as a “prop.” That’s when she began to improve her game by reading as many poker books as she could.
Kathy started playing tournament player at the encouragement of a friend. She went to Las Vegas and took second place in the first two tournaments (Hold’em and Omaha Hi/Lo) that she ever played in. She won over $34,000 and was convinced that she could hold her own in the difficult realm of tournament poker. Kathy began playing more tournaments all over the country. As her bankroll grew, she invested a large portion of her winnings into the stock market and into real estate. She bought houses in Las Vegas and California.
Kathy Liebert has cashed 14 times in various World Series of Poker events since 1997. She also has 11 cashes in World Poker Tour events. At her first appearance at the WSOP in 1997, she made the money twice and took second in the $3,000 NL event against a tough field of players. Multiple bracelet winner Max Stern beat her heads up in a tough match. In 1998, she cashed two more times at the WSOP with two Top 20 finishes. She made several final tables in smaller buy-in events in Los Angeles and in 2000, she finished 17th at the WSOP main event, which was chronicled by James McManus in his epic book Positively Fifth Street. Kathy continued her run at the WSOP and cashed in events in 2001 and made a final table and took 6th in the $3,000 NL Hold’em event that featured Johnny Chan and Simon “Aces” Trumper.
In 2002, Kathy Liebert made a splash on the World Poker Tour. She made two final TV tables at the Legends of Poker and in Aruba, and bubbled out of the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods in 7th place. In 2003, Kathy made two final tables at the WSOP including a second place finish in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em event. In 2004, she finally won her first bracelet in the Limit Hold’em shootout.
Most recently, Kathy has cashed in three out of four WPT events at the Borgata, Bellagio, and Foxwoods. She took third at the Borgata Open in Atlantic City and became the highest finishing female in any WPT event.
Kathy Liebert has made plenty of history in other areas as well. She was the first female to win a tournament with a buy-in of $5,000 or more. She was the first female to win $1 million in a tournament in the first ever Party Poker Million cruise. She beat out a tough final table that included Phil Hellmuth, Mel Judah, and Chris “Jesus” Ferguson. She is also 3rd on the all-time female list of career WSOP winnings. She’s currently second only to Annie Duke in career tournament winnings with over $2.5 million.
Kathy Liebert has been known to tutor celebrities such as actor James Woods. She’s his personal coach. Kathy can be found playing at Intertops poker when she’s not traveling all over the world playing in different tournaments on the WPT and elsewhere. Visit her website at http://www.kathyliebert.net.
