Poker Couples & Poker Wives 2026: 12 Famous Power Couples

Poker is one of the few professional sports where couples compete at the same tables, in the same fields, and sometimes against each other for seven-figure pots. No other game puts relationships under this kind of pressure.

Alex and Kristen Foxen have combined for over $73 million in live tournament earnings. Jennifer Tilly and Phil Laak have been together for more than 20 years without ever getting married. At the 2026 U.S. Poker Open, Cherish Andrews and Brock Wilson competed for the same championship trophy.

This guide covers 12 of poker’s most famous couples, including the poker wives and girlfriends behind the game’s biggest names. How they met, their wedding stories, combined earnings tracked by The Hendon Mob, and what makes each relationship work inside a game built on deception and pressure.

All 12 Poker Power Couples Compared

Here are all 12 couples ranked by combined poker earnings. Where both partners play professionally, the figure reflects their combined tracked live results via The Hendon Mob. Where only one partner plays, the number shows the pro’s career total.

The table ranks by earnings, but that only tells part of the story. Phil Galfond’s live tournament total undersells a career built on high-stakes online PLO where he won over $10 million under the name “OMGClayAiken.”

Tilly and Laak are primarily cash game players whose televised sessions are worth far more than their tracked results suggest. The profiles below follow the same order as the table, mixing poker couples who play together with the poker wives and girlfriends behind the game’s biggest names.

Alex Foxen & Kristen Foxen

The Foxens are poker’s highest-earning couple with $73.5 million+ in combined live tournament earnings. Alex has $56.4M+ across 486 cashes, 3 WSOP bracelets, and back-to-back GPI Player of the Year titles (2018, 2019). Kristen (formerly Kristen Bicknell) sits #1 on the women’s all-time money list with $17.2M+ and a record 5 WSOP bracelets.

They started dating in early 2018. That same year, Alex topped the overall GPI ranking while Kristen simultaneously held the #1 spot on the women’s GPI ranking for three consecutive years. No other poker couple has held dual #1 rankings at the same time.

They married in April 2022 in a small beach ceremony in the Florida Keys. There was no honeymoon: they drove straight to the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, where Alex finished runner-up in the $50,000 Super High Roller for $515,587.

Before poker, Alex Foxen played tight end at Boston College, and Kristen Foxen hit Supernova Elite on PokerStars three years running, grinding roughly 2.5 million hands per year as “krissyb24.” They have no children and are both based in Las Vegas.

Jason Koon & Bianca Koon

Jason Koon sits 3rd on the all-time money list with $73.3M+ in career earnings, 12 Triton titles, and 2 WSOP bracelets. His wife Bianca (née Armstrong) comes from a completely different background: they met on the track team at West Virginia Wesleyan College, where both competed as student athletes.

They married in October 2019 and have two sons. Koon has credited Bianca with transforming his mental game, saying her support and perspective helped him reach a level of consistency that raw poker skill alone could not. The family is based in Vancouver, Canada.

Unlike most entries on this list, the Koons keep their personal life almost entirely private. Bianca has no public social media presence tied to poker, and Koon rarely discusses family details in interviews beyond acknowledging that his wife and sons are the reason he plays.

Daniel Negreanu & Amanda Leatherman

Daniel Negreanu is poker’s most recognizable face with $57.7M+ in career earnings and 7 WSOP bracelets. His wife Amanda Leatherman is a former poker TV host who worked on the World Poker Tour and the PokerStars Big Game. They married in May 2019 at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Together they co-host The MANIA Podcast, covering poker, pop culture, and their daily life. Amanda stepped away from on-camera hosting to focus on the podcast and managing things behind the scenes.

For the full story of how they met, their wedding, and Amanda’s career, see our full profile of Amanda Leatherman.

Phil Hellmuth & Dr. Katherine Sanborn

Phil Hellmuth and Katherine Sanborn have been married since March 31, 1990, making theirs the longest marriage on this list at over 35 years. He is poker’s all-time WSOP bracelet leader with 17 titles and $31M+ in live earnings.

She is a board-certified psychiatrist and Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford, where she has served as Inpatient Medical Director for Psychiatry since 2015.

They met as students at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1980s and have two sons, Phillip III and Nicholas, both of whom they have kept out of the public eye. The family has lived in Palo Alto, California since the early 1990s.

The contrast between them is part of the story. Hellmuth is poker’s most volatile personality, famous for televised blowups and self-awarded nicknames. His wife is a Stanford psychiatrist who specializes in clinical care.

He has said publicly that he puts her “on a pedestal” and credits the stability of their marriage with keeping him grounded across nearly four decades of professional poker.

Antonio Esfandiari & Amal Bounahra

Esfandiari holds one of the most famous records in poker: the $18.3 million first-place finish at the 2012 Big One for One Drop, still the largest single live cash in tournament history. His wife Amal is the daughter of poker pro Bob Bounahra, and they met at the 2011 WSOP while Amal was railing her father during his November Nine run.

They married in 2014 and have two sons. Esfandiari has $27.8M+ in career earnings but has significantly scaled back his tournament schedule since becoming a father, focusing instead on family life and occasional high-roller appearances.

Amal has described herself primarily as a stay-at-home mother, though she does play recreationally. Her best tracked result was 728th in the 2018 WSOP Main Event for $19,900. The family is based in the Los Angeles area.

Liv Boeree & Igor Kurganov

Liv Boeree and Kurganov started dating in 2014, bonding over game theory, probability, and a shared belief in effective altruism. Their combined live earnings total $25.8 million+ ($6.7M Boeree, $19.1M Kurganov). Kurganov sits 2nd on Russia’s all-time money list.

Together they co-founded Raising for Effective Giving, a charity promoting evidence-driven philanthropy. Both were Team PokerStars Pros and left the sponsorship simultaneously in November 2019. Kurganov later advised Elon Musk on distributing $5.74 billion in charitable donations.

Their best moment as a couple at the table came in 2017 when they won the WSOP $10,000 Tag Team Championship together for a shared bracelet. Their worst came two years later: Kurganov knocked Boeree out of the 2019 WSOP Main Event with pocket kings against her ace-jack.

They married at Burning Man in September 2025 and have no children. Boeree’s December 2024 finish at WSOP Paradise ($2.8 million for 4th) was the largest single tournament score by a woman in live poker history. She also tops our ranking of the most attractive women in poker and runs a science YouTube channel on decision-making.

Cherish Andrews & Brock Wilson

Andrews and Wilson are the hottest couple on the tournament circuit right now. Their combined live earnings exceed $17.9 million ($4.6M Andrews, $13.3M Wilson), and their 2026 results have made them impossible to ignore.

They have been together since at least 2022, when they memorably busted each other deep in a WSOP Online event. Andrews has spoken about setting an early boundary in the relationship: treat poker as work, study together, but protect time away from the game.

Wilson won the 2026 U.S. Poker Open championship and the 2026 PokerGO Cup, becoming the first player since Sean Winter to claim back-to-back PGT major series titles. Andrews won USPO Event #3 for $117,407 and was the last player who could overtake Wilson for the overall title. She finished 6th in the finale, confirming his championship.

They are not married and have no children. Andrews, Wilson’s longtime girlfriend and the two-time GPI Female Player of the Year (2022, 2024), has joked in interviews about “making babies” being a future step. For now, poker comes first.

Doug Polk & Kaitlin Polk

Doug Polk married Kaitlin Karges on November 16, 2021 in Maui, Hawaii. Their son Otis Douglas Polk was born on January 27, 2023. The family lives in Austin, Texas, where Doug runs The Lodge Card Club and a popular YouTube channel.

Polk largely retired from active tournament play after his famous heads-up challenge against Daniel Negreanu in 2021, which he won for a $1.2 million profit. He has $10.5M+ in live earnings and 3 WSOP bracelets, but his current focus is The Lodge, content creation, and family.

Kaitlin keeps a low profile compared to most poker wives on this list. She occasionally appears in Doug’s vlogs but stays out of the poker spotlight. In early 2026, The Lodge faced a TABC investigation, a period Polk described as the most stressful of his career, with Kaitlin and Otis providing the stability at home.

Jennifer Tilly & Phil Laak

Tilly and Laak are poker’s most iconic couple and the longest-running relationship on this list. They have been together since 2004, making Tilly poker’s most famous girlfriend rather than wife. They have no children, and have described both choices as deliberate.

Their combined live tournament earnings sit at $5.5 million+ ($1.06M Tilly, $4.46M Laak). Both are better known as cash game regulars whose televised sessions dwarf their tracked results.

They met at a World Poker Tour Invitational event in 2004. Tilly was already a Hollywood name: an Oscar-nominated actress (Bullets Over Broadway, 1994), the voice of Tiffany in the Child’s Play franchise, and a Women in Poker Hall of Fame inductee. Laak was an Irish-born, UMass-educated mechanical engineer turned poker pro, known as “The Unabomber” for his signature hoodie and sunglasses at the table.

At the felt, both have real credentials. Tilly won the 2005 WSOP Ladies Event and has been a fixture on High Stakes Poker for years. Laak holds a WPT title, a WSOP bracelet, and the Guinness World Record for the longest poker session ever played at 115 hours straight.

“The couple that plays together stays together.” Tilly credits their shared love of the game as the foundation of a relationship that has outlasted most Hollywood marriages.

Laak is widely credited with coaching Tilly’s early poker development, and the two still regularly sit at the same cash game tables. Her 2025 debut on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills brought the couple to an entirely new audience, and they are confirmed still together as of early 2026.

Phil Galfond & Farah Galfond

Galfond is one of poker’s most respected minds and a three-time WSOP bracelet winner with $3.1 million+ in tracked live earnings. His wife Farah (née Fath) came from a different world entirely: she built an acting career on Days of Our Lives and One Life to Live before appearing on High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark.

They connected via Twitter around 2012 discussing poker strategy and became a couple the following year.

They married on May 15, 2015 in the backyard of their Las Vegas home, and their son Spencer was born in December 2018. Phil founded Run It Once, which operates both a poker training platform and an online poker room. Farah executive-produced their 2024 docuseries “Galfond,” which gave fans a rare look at how the family balances poker with raising a young child.

Phil returned to competitive play in 2025, reaching the semifinals of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship for a $150,000 cash. Farah pivoted back to tournament poker in 2024 with roughly $260,000 in live earnings after stepping away when Spencer was born. They remain based in Las Vegas.

Ben “Spraggy” Spragg & Marle Spragg

The Spraggs are poker’s leading content creation couple. Both are PokerStars ambassadors who built their careers through Twitch and YouTube, with combined live tournament earnings of $1.2 million+ ($645K Ben, $537K Marle).

They connected through the poker streaming world. Marle first gained attention with a viral 2018 YouTube vlog titled “Looking for a poker pro boyfriend.” She found one: they started dating in late 2019, got engaged in November 2020, and married in a small Las Vegas ceremony in August 2021.

Ben won Best Streamer at the Global Poker Awards in 2021 and 2025. His wife Marle won Best X/Twitter Personality in 2024 and Best Short-Form Content Creator in 2025. Her strongest tournament result was 8th at the 2023 EPT Prague Main Event for roughly $133,000.

They welcomed a son in late October 2025. Ben told PokerNews that fatherhood has completely changed his perspective on balancing poker and family life. The Spraggs are based in London and both remain active PokerStars ambassadors heading into 2026.

Kara Scott & Giovanni Rizzo

Scott is one of poker’s pioneering female broadcasters, with hosting credits spanning the WSOP, WPT, PokerGO, and ESPN over the past 15 years. Her husband Giovanni Rizzo is an Italian poker pro with a law degree who also works in the entertainment business. Their combined live earnings sit at roughly $880K ($665K Scott, $217K Rizzo).

They met through the European poker scene and married in 2014 after a 2013 engagement. Their daughter was born in 2018, and PokerNews featured Scott as a “Poker Mom” in a segment the following year.

The couple moved from Parma, Italy to Ljubljana, Slovenia around 2022, where they now run Tilt Events, a poker event consultancy. Scott left her long-running 888poker ambassadorship in 2023 and now hosts the “Heart of Poker” podcast. She was nominated for the Women in Poker Hall of Fame in 2024.

Rizzo remains active in online play, with over 1,700 tracked online cashes on The Hendon Mob.

Who Are Other Top Poker Pros Married To?

Several of the game’s biggest names were considered for this list but not included as full profiles because their relationship details are private or unconfirmed. Here’s what we know.

Phil Ivey married his high school sweetheart Luciaetta Ivey in 2002. They divorced in 2009 after a settlement that included $1.2 million and reported monthly payments of around $180,000. His current relationship status is private.

Fedor Holz married in 2022 but has never publicly shared his wife’s name. In March 2026, he announced he would not renew his GGPoker ambassadorship after six years, writing on X: “We are trying to have kids this year and I’m launching an investment fund, so that will be my full focus.” He remains Germany’s all-time money list leader with $50M+ in earnings.

Tom Dwan referred to Bianca Rossi as his “soon to be wife” on Twitter in January 2018, and she used the Instagram handle “durrrrswife.” No wedding was ever publicly confirmed, and neither has discussed the relationship since. His current status is unknown.

Erik Seidel has been married to Ruah Seidel for decades. They moved from New York to Las Vegas in 1995 on what Ruah called a “five-year experiment” to test whether poker could be a career. They have two daughters, Elian and Jamesin, and the family keeps an intentionally low public profile.

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