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The year 2025 may go down as one of the best stretches in history for women in poker, and it started weeks before Shiina Okamoto won her second straight World Series of Poker (WSOP) Ladies Event or Leo Margets became the first woman in poker’s modern era to make the final table of the Main Event.
Indeed, the landmark year for women in poker kicked off in May when longtime pro Xuan Liu made history by becoming the first woman to win a Triton Poker title. Months after taking down the WPT Global Slam at Triton Montenegro for a career-best $860,000, Liu is back on the Triton battlefield and seeking another title at the inaugural Triton One festival on South Korea’s Jeju Island.
It was here that CelestialPoker caught up with Liu to talk about the historic victory, the role tournament poker plays in her life today and what the future holds for a grinder who is always looking to “reinvent myself.”
Xuan Liu Makes Poker History as First Female Triton Champion
A Distinguished Tournament Career
Liu earned the career-best victory by defeating fellow Canadian Daniel Dvoress during heads-up play, while the stacked final table also included high-stakes crushers David Peters and Kristen Foxen, who respectively finished third and fourth. Liu said the victory “meant a lot because Triton is the most esteemed series.”
“At one point, I felt like it was me up against some of the best players in the world,” Liu told CelestialPoker. “And I honestly ran really good to win. But it gave me a lot of confidence. It’s been a few years since I’ve won a tournament. Not that I play a lot of tournaments anymore, but it felt nice to earn it at a Triton.”
She later added, “I felt like I was on top of the world for just a minute there.”
Liu, who has $3.3 million in Hendon Mob earnings, plays fewer tournaments than she did a decade ago, when she a world-traveling tournament pro whose career highlights included a third-place finish in the 2011 European Poker Tour (EPT) Sanremo Main Event for $524,705 and a fourth-place finish in the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event for $600,000 as the first woman to final table the prestigious event. More recently, Liu took down a 2017 WPT Fallsview Poker Classic event in Niagara Falls for $232,114.
“Those scores came at a time when I was playing a lot of poker,” she said. “And even though poker is my primary bread and butter these days, I don’t actually play that often anymore. I feel like I have the luxury to pick and choose my spots a lot more wisely now. So it actually means even more that I could close out (in Montenegro).”
Reinventing Herself
Liu’s life as a tournament grinder is largely behind her. She’s mainly a cash game player now, including on televised shows like High Stakes Poker, and is also “trying to expand my own career and just see what’s possible.” That includes sharing her story on podcasts and speaking at an MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference alongside fellow poker players Nate Silver, Jen Shahade and Alexandra Botez.
“I’m trying to put myself out there even more,” Liu said. “I feel like I have a very unique story, and to be honest, I wish that when I was coming up in the poker world, I had more people like me to look up to and aspire to.”
“I have poker to thank for where I am now. My trajectory has been really unique and I feel like I’ve had to sort of forge my own path and continue to reinvent myself.”
Liu was born in China and has some experience playing poker in Asia, though she said this trip was her first time playing in Jeju.
“I always love playing poker here (in Asia),” she said. “Quite honestly, usually the casinos aren’t quite as freezing and the food is much more to my taste.”
When she spoke with CelestialPoker, Liu was getting ready to play Day 1C of the $3,000 Triton One Genesis, where she currently sits 66th in chips among the 236 remaining players at the time of publishing.
Will we see more of Liu at Triton stops? “I kind of just go where the buzz is, and right now it’s … Triton One,” she said. “And I think it’s a fantastic stop. And yeah, if they keep making it more accessible for players of all calibers, then I’ll keep showing up.”
*Photos courtesy Triton, Drew Amato & Spenser Sembrat
Senior Editor U.S.
In this Series
- 1 Triton One: New Live Tour Set to Expand Triton Poker’s Reach
- 2 Debut Triton One Schedule Revealed; Super High Roller Series Announced
- 3 Countdown to Triton One: Four Days Until Poker’s Hottest New Festival Debuts
- 4 CelestialPoker is Heading to Jeju for Triton One & Super High Roller Series
- 5 Poker Vlogger Hits Dream Flop Before Nightmare Turn Card at Triton One in Jeju
- 6 Xuan Liu on Historic Triton Victory: ‘I Felt Like I Was on Top of the World’