Jennifer C. Harman (born in 1964) is a professional poker player from Nevada, USA. She was the first woman to win two WSOP bracelets from open events, and she is also a highly successful high stakes cash game player in Las Vegas.
In 2015, Harman was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. Data from the following year showed that her live tournament winnings now exceeded $2.7 million, including roughly $1 million from WSOP cashes. Her cash game wins are even bigger than her tournament winnings.
Harman used to be a member of Team Full Tilt.
Short facts about Jennifer Harman
Nationality: USA
Born: 29 November, 1964, in Reno, Nevada, USA
Poker career
Background
Harman started playing poker when she was 16 years old. Since she was so young, she had to sneak into the casinos.
The two bracelets
Jennifer Harman won her first WSOP bracelet in 2000, when she emerged victorious from the No Limit Deuce-to-Seven Lowball Event, beating a final table that included notable professionals such as Steve Zolotow and Lyle Berman. Her victory was surprising since she had never played Deuce-to-Seven before, and only recieved a 5 minute tutoring session from Howard Lederer before the tournament started.
Harman won her second WSOP bracelet two years later, at a $5K Limit Texas Hold’em event. Examples of other well-known names that participated in the tournament are Allen Cunningham, Humberto Brenes, and Mimi Tran.
When Harman won her second WSOP bracelet, it was the first time in WSOP history that a woman held two bracelets from open events. (Vanessa Selbst took her second bracelet in 2012, and Loni Harwood repeated the feat in 2015.)
Other examples of notable tournament achievements
- 2nd place in the WSOP Circuit Championship Event at the Rio
- 2nd place in the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe (in 2007). She lost the HORSE event to the Betfair-sponsored German player Thomas Bihl, after raising all-in with two pair against Bihl’s open-ended straight and flush draw. Bihl hit the straight on the river.
- 4th place at the WPT Five-Diamond World Poker Classic
- 5th place at the inaugural Professional Poker Tour event
High-stakes cash games
- Harman is a regular player in the Big Game in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
- Harman was a member of The Corporation, a group of poker professionals that participated in high-stakes cash games against the billionaire Andy Beal in 2001-2004 and then again in 2006. The 2001-2004 games have been chronicled in Michael Craig’s book “The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time”.
Writing
The Limit Hold’em chapter in the 2004 poker manual Super System 2 was written by Harman.
Charity poker
Kidney disease and organ donation
Harman suffers from a genetic kidney issue. Her mother died from the same disease when Harman was 17 years old, and Harman’s sister also suffered from the ailment before she died of lymphoma. In 2004, Harman took a year-long break from poker to have her second kidney transplant. She then founded the non-profit organization Creating Organ Donation Awareness (CODA). In 2009, she organized a two-day poker celebrity event that raised $111,000 for the National Kidney Foundation.
NSPCA
Through live tournaments and online tournaments, Harman has raised hundreds of thousands of dollar for the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA).
Television & movie appearances
Poker shows
Harman has played poker on two major poker TV-shows:
- The GSN series High Stakes Poker
- The NBC series Poker After Dark, where she won Week Eight’s tournament
Movie
Alongside many other professional poker players, Harman appeared in the 2007 drama film Lucky You. While most of the players simply depicted themselves, Harman played a role: Shannon Kincaid. The movie, set in 2003 and directed by Curtis Hanson, is about the (fictional) poker player Huck Cheever (played by Eric Bana) who is desperately trying to obtain the $10,000 required to buy into the World Series of Poker Main Event.
Reality TV
Harman was one of five women starring in the TLC reality show “Sin City Rules”. The series, which debuted in late 2012, chronicled the day-to-day lives of five career women living in Las Vegas. Of the five, only Harman was a professional poker player.