The 12 months 2025 could go down as probably the greatest stretches in historical past for girls in poker, and it began weeks earlier than Shiina Okamoto received her second straight World Collection of Poker (WSOP) Women Occasion or Leo Margets turned the primary girl in poker’s trendy period to make the ultimate desk of the Primary Occasion.
Certainly, the landmark 12 months for girls in poker kicked off in Might when longtime professional Xuan Liu made historical past by changing into the primary girl to win a Triton Poker title. Months after taking down the WPT International Slam at Triton Montenegro for a career-best $860,000, Liu is again on the Triton battlefield and in search of one other title on the inaugural Triton One pageant on South Korea’s Jeju Island.
It was right here that PokerNews caught up with Liu to speak in regards to the historic victory, the position match poker performs in her life right now and what the longer term holds for a grinder who’s at all times trying to “reinvent myself.”
Xuan Liu Makes Poker Historical past as First Feminine Triton Champion
A Distinguished Match Profession
Liu earned the career-best victory by defeating fellow Canadian Daniel Dvoress throughout heads-up play, whereas the stacked closing desk additionally included high-stakes crushers David Peters and Kristen Foxen, who respectively completed third and fourth. Liu stated the victory “meant quite a bit as a result of Triton is essentially the most esteemed sequence.”
“At one level, I felt prefer it was me up in opposition to a number of the greatest gamers on the earth,” Liu advised PokerNews. “And I actually ran actually good to win. However it gave me a variety of confidence. It has been a couple of years since I’ve received a match. Not that I play a variety of tournaments anymore, however it felt good to earn it at a Triton.”
She later added, “I felt like I used to be on high of the world for only a minute there.”
Liu, who has $3.3 million in Hendon Mob earnings, performs fewer tournaments than she did a decade in the past, when she a world-traveling match professional whose profession highlights included a third-place end within the 2011 European Poker Tour (EPT) Sanremo Primary Occasion for $524,705 and a fourth-place end within the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Journey (PCA) Primary Occasion for $600,000 as the primary girl to closing desk the celebrated occasion. Extra just lately, Liu took down a 2017 WPT Fallsview Poker Traditional occasion in Niagara Falls for $232,114.
“These scores got here at a time after I was taking part in a variety of poker,” she stated. “And regardless that poker is my major bread and butter as of late, I do not truly play that always anymore. I really feel like I’ve the posh to select and select my spots much more correctly now. So it truly means much more that I may shut out (in Montenegro).”
Reinventing Herself
Liu’s life as a match grinder is essentially behind her. She’s primarily a money recreation participant now, together with on televised reveals like Excessive Stakes Poker, and can also be “making an attempt to develop my very own profession and simply see what’s attainable.” That features sharing her story on podcasts and talking at an MIT Sloan Sports activities Analytics Convention alongside fellow poker gamers Nate Silver, Jen Shahade and Alexandra Botez.
“I am making an attempt to place myself on the market much more,” Liu stated. “I really feel like I’ve a really distinctive story, and to be trustworthy, I want that after I was developing within the poker world, I had extra folks like me to look as much as and aspire to.”
“I’ve poker to thank for the place I’m now. My trajectory has been actually distinctive and I really feel like I’ve needed to kind of forge my very own path and proceed to reinvent myself.”
Liu was born in China and has some expertise taking part in poker in Asia, although she stated this journey was her first time taking part in in Jeju.
“I at all times love taking part in poker right here (in Asia),” she stated. “Fairly actually, often the casinos aren’t fairly as freezing and the meals is rather more to my style.”
When she spoke with PokerNews, Liu was on the point of play Day 1C of the $3,000 Triton One Genesis, the place she at present sits 66th in chips among the many 236 remaining gamers on the time of publishing.
Will we see extra of Liu at Triton stops? “I type of simply go the place the thrill is, and proper now it is … Triton One,” she stated. “And I believe it is a improbable cease. And yeah, in the event that they hold making it extra accessible for gamers of all calibers, then I am going to hold exhibiting up.”
*Pictures courtesy Triton, Drew Amato & Spenser Sembrat
Connor Richards
Senior Editor U.S.
