Jennifer Harman Traniello

Jennifer Harman was born November 29, 1964 in Reno, Nevada and began playing poker at the age of eight with her father. She quickly became a keen player with an uncanny ability to read her opponent. Ironically, when she decided to become a professional player, her father who taught her the game, alienated her from his life—they have since rekindled their relationship.

Jennifer started playing $10/$20 limit, but today it’s common to find her in cash games with limits in the thousands. Don’t let her 5’ 2” small frame and sweet face fool you—Jennifer has a reputation of being a fierce, intimidating cash game player and is the only women to regularly sit in the Big Game at the Bellagio—she once won a pot worth over $1,000,000 (at the time it was the largest pot ever awarded in Las Vegas). She also belonged to a group of high stakes players called “The Corporation” that played Andy Beal for limits up to $100,000-$2,000,000—she once took him for nine million.

Harman won her first World Series of Poker bracelet in the No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball event in 2000—she had never played the game before, but Howard Lederer gave her a quick tutoring session prior to the start of the tournament. She won her second bracelet in the $5K Limit Hold’em event in 2002—Jennifer is the only woman to have two WSOP open event bracelets.
 
Harman took a year away from the professional circuit to have her second kidney transplant (a genetic condition shared by her sister and mother), but since returning she placed second in the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe in 2007, she finished 4th at the World Poker Tour Five-Diamond World Poker Classic, took 5th in the inaugural Professional Poker Tour event and captured 2nd in the WSOP Circuit championship Event at the Rio. She has also appeared on High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark, winning the week 8 tournament. She has finished in the money 22 times for total live tournament winnings in excess of $2,200,000.

Jennifer, living in Las Vegas with her husband Marco Traniello (also a professional poker player), is a member of “Team Full Tilt” at Full Tilt Poker; her best game is Limit Hold’em—she authored a chapter on the game in the book Super Systems2. She founded the non-profit organization Creating Organ Donation Awareness (CODA), and she works hard to raise money for the cause. She also holds an annual charity tournament to help the SPCA in Las Vegas.  She is a very good friend of pro player Daniel Negreanu who states, “Jennifer is one of the best all-around players in the world, Period”.