Sashimi Poker Player: Net Worth, Real Name & HCL Career 2026

Sashimi, real name Yuuki Kaida, is a Japanese poker pro who has become one of the most polarizing figures in livestreamed cash games. Born in 1993, she built her reputation through 180+ appearances on Hustler Casino Live and has an estimated net worth of $500K to $1.1 million.

This profile covers Sashimi’s verified career earnings from tracked livestream sessions, her background and real identity, the controversies that made her famous, and her current status as a BC.GAME ambassador. We separate what’s confirmed from what’s estimated, because most Sashimi net worth figures online lack sourcing.

Below you’ll find quick facts, a full career timeline from her $1/3 debut to HCL regular status, the bodysuit incident, her connection to Joseph Cheong, and answers to the most searched questions about Sashimi.

Sashimi’s net worth is not publicly confirmed. The most commonly cited estimate across poker media puts the figure between $500,000 and $1.1 million as of 2026. That range factors in tracked livestream profits, her BC.GAME sponsorship deal, social media income, and assumptions about untracked private game results.

The honest answer: nobody outside Sashimi’s inner circle knows the real number. What we can do is break down what’s verifiable and explain where the gaps are.

What the estimate is based on

The $500K floor comes from combining tracked earnings with a conservative estimate of sponsorship income. The $1.1M ceiling adds assumptions about unverified private game profits and social media revenue that cannot be confirmed from the outside.

Why Sashimi’s net worth is hard to pin down

Most net worth estimates for cash game players carry large margins of error. For Sashimi, four factors make any precise figure unreliable:

Until Sashimi discloses financial details publicly, any net worth figure should be treated as a rough estimate based on incomplete data. We update this section as new information becomes available.

Sashimi’s real name is Yuuki Kaida. The name has been confirmed by Card Player magazine, which credits her as “Yuuki ‘Sashimi’ Kaida,” and is consistent across multiple independent poker media sources. She has never publicly denied the connection.

Despite her visibility on livestreamed poker shows, very little of her pre-poker background has been independently verified. What follows is drawn from her own public statements and reporting from poker media outlets.

Early life in Japan

Yuuki Kaida was born in Japan in 1993 into a third-generation Korean family. She has described splitting her early years between Tokyo and Osaka, though specific details about her upbringing remain scarce.

In interviews, she has referred to her parents as “strict but loving,” crediting them with encouraging both creativity and discipline. The combination of Japanese and Korean heritage is a detail she has acknowledged publicly but rarely elaborates on.

How old is Sashimi?

Sashimi was born in 1993, making her 33 years old as of 2026. Multiple sources report her date of birth as January 1, 1993, though the specific day and month may be approximate. The birth year of 1993 is more reliably confirmed across independent sources.

Moving to the United States

In her early twenties, Kaida moved to the US on a student visa with plans to pursue a business career. She settled in Las Vegas, where the proximity to the city’s cardroom scene quickly shifted her focus from business studies to poker.

She has described the transition as gradual rather than deliberate. Small cash games in Vegas backrooms became her training ground before she worked her way onto bigger stages.

Sashimi is a cash game player exclusively. She has no Hendon Mob profile, no WSOP entries, and no tracked tournament results under either her real name or her alias. Her entire poker career has been built on livestreamed and private cash games.

That makes her an unusual profile compared to most players in the poker database. There are no tournament cashes to verify, no bracelet races to track, and no all-time money list ranking to cite. What exists instead is a granular session-by-session record from third-party trackers covering every on-camera appearance.

First steps: Poker At The Lodge and Live at the Bike

Sashimi’s first recorded appearance on any livestream was a $5/$10 NLH session on Live at the Bike in May 2021. Two months later, she made her Poker At The Lodge debut under significantly more modest circumstances:

A $1/3 game at The Lodge is about as far from the HCL spotlight as you can get. The $1,300 loss was small, but the session marked the start of a rapid upward trajectory that would see her playing $25/$50 and higher within two years.

She returned to PATL four more times, including two sessions in May 2022 where she booked back-to-back $5,400 profits. Her final PATL appearance in March 2024 was a $25/50 NLH game where she lost $33,250, a sign of how dramatically her stakes had increased.

Full career timeline

Sashimi’s progression from micro-stakes newcomer to one of the most visible female cash game pros in poker happened over roughly three years:

She also claims to have played cash games in more than 50 countries, mixing with high-rollers in Macau, socialites in Monaco, and up-and-coming players in London. None of these private game results are publicly tracked.

The $193,600 pot that defined her career

Sashimi’s biggest on-camera moment came during HCL Episode 444, a Super High-Stakes Friday session. The hand played out in a multiway pot against Nik Airball, Ben Lee, and Dentist Dave.

Dentist Dave opened the action with a $1,000 straddle pre-flop. Sashimi held pocket tens and flopped a set on a board that developed into a $193,600 pot. She finished the session up $226,400, her largest single-session win on any tracked show.

The hand was featured across YouTube poker channels and became one of the most replayed moments in HCL’s mid-stakes history.

No Gamble No Future and PokerGO

Beyond HCL, Sashimi’s most significant appearances have been on PokerGO’s No Gamble No Future. She appeared in 3 episodes of Season 2 and then returned for 8 episodes of Season 5 (Episodes 5 through 12), which aired from August 22 to October 23, 2024.

The Season 5 games were $100/$100 NLH at the PokerGO Studio inside ARIA. Her Week 2 opponents included Phil Hellmuth, Justin Young, Julian Parmann, and Shawn Madden. In Weeks 3 and 4, the lineup shifted to Jared Bleznick, Jimmy D’Ambrosio, Wolfgang Poker, and Humboldt Mike.

NGNF gave Sashimi exposure beyond the HCL audience. The show’s PokerGO subscriber base skews toward serious poker fans, and her willingness to mix it at $100/$100 against established pros added credibility to her cash game reputation.

BC.GAME ambassadorship

On April 4, 2025, Sashimi announced her first poker sponsorship deal:

The BC.GAME deal positions Sashimi alongside other crypto-first poker platforms that have been aggressively signing livestream personalities. The sponsorship is her first formal brand relationship after nearly four years as an independent player.

She also sells action on StakeKings for her HCL sessions, meaning a portion of her buy-ins and winnings on the show are shared with investors. The splits are never publicly disclosed.

Sashimi’s tracked results come from third-party databases that record session-by-session profit and loss from every on-camera appearance. Unlike tournament earnings, which are reported by official tour organisers, cash game results depend on independent trackers watching livestreams and logging buy-ins and cash-outs manually.

Two trackers cover Sashimi’s career. Highroll Poker tracks the broadest range of shows. TopPokerStreamers provides the most granular session-by-session data for HCL and PATL specifically.

Tracked earnings by show

The existing profile cited a Highroll Poker figure of $87,365 net profit across 183 episodes and 858+ hours. That number covers more shows than TopPokerStreamers but could not be independently verified for this update, as the Highroll tracker requires browser rendering.

The difference between the two trackers likely reflects additional shows and different accounting windows.

Recent HCL sessions (late 2024 to early 2025)

Sashimi’s most recent tracked sessions show a strong run heading into 2025:

The January 2025 run was particularly strong. Three winning sessions in the space of three weeks produced a combined +$68,480 before a $22,570 loss on January 13 brought variance back into the picture.

Notable hands and session highlights

Beyond the $193,600 pot covered in the career section above, several other hands have been featured by poker media or generated significant viewer attention:

The pattern across these hands is consistent with Sashimi’s reputation. She generates large pots through aggressive betting, creative bluffs, and a willingness to play speculative hands in multiway spots. That approach produces highlight-reel wins and visible losses in roughly equal measure.

Sashimi’s playing style is built on aggression, confrontation, and spectacle. It is the opposite of the tight, calculated approach that defines most winning cash game regulars. The core traits that shape her game:

Aggression as identity

The numbers back up the reputation. Sashimi’s tracked results show regular swings between five-figure wins and five-figure losses within the same month.

Her biggest single-session win (+$226,400) and biggest loss (-$33,250) are separated by a factor of nearly seven. That tells you how wide the variance window runs in her game.

This is a deliberate choice, not a leak. She has spoken openly about preferring action and big pots over grinding small edges. That philosophy is unusual among long-term winning players, but it has been effective enough to maintain a positive tracked record across 118 sessions.

The speech play debate

Sashimi’s table talk is the most divisive part of her game. She uses constant verbal pressure during hands: asking opponents questions, commenting on board texture, and sometimes making direct reads out loud to force a reaction.

Poker coach Jonathan Little has analysed her hands on YouTube, noting that her speech play often serves a genuine strategic purpose. She talks to narrow down opponents’ ranges and create uncertainty about her own holdings.

The counterargument is that some of her verbal exchanges cross the line from strategy into antagonism. The January 2023 confrontation with a player named Tao on Max Pain Monday is the most cited example.

Both players exchanged insults on stream, and many observers believed the exchange was orchestrated for content rather than genuine hostility.

Where does she actually rank?

Sashimi is not a GTO player. She does not claim to be. Her edge comes from live reads, psychological manipulation, and an ability to put opponents in uncomfortable spots where technical skill matters less than emotional control.

That style has clear limitations against disciplined regulars who can ignore the theatre and play their ranges. It works best against recreational players, tilting opponents, and in the entertainment-focused formats where HCL Max Pain Monday thrives.

Her +$109,085 net profit across 113 HCL sessions suggests she is a winning player on that show. Whether the profits come from skill, game selection, favourable lineups, or some combination is a question her tracked data alone cannot answer.

Sashimi has generated more off-table headlines than most players generate in an entire career. Three incidents in particular have shaped public perception of her, and each reveals a different side of the debate about what livestreamed poker should look like.

The bodysuit incident (December 2022)

The most viral moment in Sashimi’s career had nothing to do with the cards. On December 5, 2022, she appeared on HCL Max Pain Monday wearing a prosthetic bodysuit that triggered a social media firestorm. Here is the full timeline:

The original YouTube video was taken down and re-uploaded with edits. Despite the backlash, the incident brought Sashimi more attention than any pot she has ever won. For a player whose brand is built on provocation, the controversy delivered exactly what it was designed to deliver.

Other controversies

The bodysuit incident was the loudest, but Sashimi has been involved in several other public confrontations that have fuelled debate about her conduct at the table:

A common thread runs through all of these incidents. Sashimi operates in the space between poker player and entertainer, and her willingness to push boundaries generates attention that traditional players avoid. Whether that is good or bad for the game depends on who you ask.

“Is Sashimi married?” and “Sashimi poker boyfriend” are among the most searched personal queries about her. The short answer: no confirmed marriage, and the only publicly acknowledged relationship links her to WSOP bracelet winner Joseph Cheong.

Here is what is actually on the public record:

The old version of this profile stated the Cheong connection was “rumoured” and “never confirmed by either party.” That is incorrect. Sashimi confirmed it herself on X. We have updated this section to reflect her own statement.

Reddit threads have speculated about additional relationships, but none have been substantiated by any named source. We do not report unverified claims about personal relationships.

Life outside poker

Sashimi’s Instagram account (~90,000 followers) shows a lifestyle that extends well beyond the felt. Her posts feature private jet travel, golf, and dining across multiple countries. The content is curated to project a high-end lifestyle, consistent with her claim of playing cash games in 50+ countries.

Beyond the social media image, very little about her day-to-day life is publicly known. She resides in Las Vegas, Nevada, and appears to spend the majority of her time between HCL sessions at Hustler Casino and international travel.

Sashimi uses the handle @sashimipoker across all platforms. Her combined following sits at roughly 172,000, with Instagram as her primary channel and YouTube dormant since 2023.

The gap between her Instagram activity and her abandoned YouTube channel is notable. YouTube poker vlogs are one of the fastest-growing content formats in the game, and her 27,800 subscribers represent an audience she has effectively stopped serving. Whether the channel returns remains an open question.

As of April 2026, here is what has been happening with Sashimi:

For broader poker industry coverage, check our latest poker news. Sashimi-related stories are tagged below:

Quick answers to the most searched questions about Sashimi’s real name, net worth, age, personal life, and poker career.

This profile separates verifiable facts from estimates and public claims. Cash game careers involve significant untracked action, so we aim to be transparent about what can and cannot be confirmed.

How we handle net worth

Net worth is not publicly confirmed for most poker players, including Sashimi. Any figures mentioned are treated as estimates and may vary due to private cash games, staking arrangements, sponsorship terms, and non-public results. We prioritise tracked data, direct statements, and reputable poker media reporting.

How we report earnings

Tracked livestream earnings refer to session results recorded by third-party databases from on-camera appearances. These are gross session outcomes, not personal profit. They do not account for staking splits, expenses, or off-camera action.

The two primary trackers for Sashimi are Highroll Poker (broadest show coverage) and TopPokerStreamers (most granular session data for HCL and PATL).

How we cover controversies

We link to our own reporting when controversies are discussed and clearly label what is alleged, unverified, or confirmed. Where possible, we rely on direct statements and named sources rather than anonymous speculation.

References