Kathy Liebert Surpasses $5 Million in Lifetime Tournament Winnings

Background

After graduating with a degree in business and finance but not enjoying her job as a business analyst, she moved to Colorado where gambling was just legalised in a few communities. She discovered $5-limit poker and her destiny was made.

Tournament Professional

She grinded some early wins with second place in the 1997 WSOP $3,000 buy-in NL her first six-figure ($124,000) prize sum. In 2005, she found herself at the final table vying for a $1 million prize. She took down the event and became the first woman to win a $1 million first-place prize.

The $5 Million Mark

12th Place Finish - 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

Near the bubble, with 20 players left, Liebert was put to a decision. Equipped with a decent chip stack, she looked down at A 10 under the gun. She looked to her left, and an aggressive loose player was in the blinds. He’d been a chip leader for much of the tournament but had recently lost a large portion of his stack.

“I realized that if I played this hand, it was likely that he’d move all-in into me. There were 20 players left, and it paid 18, so my first instinct was to fold. Then I thought it was unlikely that he would have a big hand, so I raised. He did go all in for almost all of my chips. I decided to call, and he had pocket aces.”

Failing to improve, the hand left Liebert crippled and nearly all in in the big blind the very next hand. She was dealt a dismal J-3 and was eliminated. Her devastation didn’t last long, as she soon found out that another player was eliminated in the same round of hand-for-hand play. They would split 18th place money. Liebert took home $5,519, pushing her over the $5 million mark by a mere $577.

Source: Cardplayer.com