Women in Poker Hall of Fame Class of 2022: Tilly, Selbst, Hael, and King

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Women in Poker Hall of Fame Class of 2022: Tilly, Selbst, Hael, and King
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The Women in Poker Hall of Fame 2022 inductees have been announced and, this year, Jennifer Tilly and Vanessa Selbst are among the four fantastic females being recognized for their achievements. 

Joining Tilly and Selbst on the list of inductees are Terry King and the WPT’s Vice President Of Global Tour Management, Angelica Hael. The announcement was made on Nov. 15. That makes it four years since the last inductees, Maria Ho and Lupe Soto, were added to the Hall of Fame.

Why the long wait? Simple: COVID-19. The pandemic put almost everything in poker on hold, except for online poker. This included the annual Women in Poker Hall of Fame induction ceremony.  However, with life back to normal after the unexpected hiatus, the judges decided to honor four worthy women this year. 

Familiar Female Faces Make it into Hall of Fame

Two of this year’s inductees are well-known faces on the tournament circuit. Vanessa Selbst is a former pro who now works as a trader. Although she doesn’t grind the circuit like she used to, Selbst is still top of the women’s all-time money list with $11.9 million in tournament earnings. 

Not only has she won more money than any other woman at this point, she has three WSOP bracelets, as well as EPT and NAPT titles. Add to this a formidable reputation as an online cash game player, and Selbst has long been a lock for the Women in Poker Hall of Fame.

Jennifer Tilly is a Hollywood star turned poker player and partner of fellow pro Phil Laak. Tilly might not have a résumé quite as impressive as Selbst, but she’s been one of the most prominent female online players in poker for more than a decade. Alongside countless appearances on televised poker shows, Tilly has over $1 million in tournament cashes. And, within her long list of cashes, are WSOP and WPT titles.

Hael and King Are Queens of Poker

The two other influential figures who earned a place in the Hall of Fame are Terry King and Angelica Hael. King, if you’ll excuse the play on words, is a proverbial queen of poker. She started playing in the 1970s and, in 1978, she won the WSOP Ladies event. She subsequently took the skills she’d honed as a player and used them on the other side of the table. 

As well as being one of the first women to deal cards in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event, King worked at prominent poker rooms across the US, including the Bicycle Club. She’s also an avid poker historian and regales more than 4,000 Facebook followers with tales of years gone by.

Rounding out this year’s Women in Poker Hall of Fame inductees is Angelica Hael. Like other influential women in gambling, Hael has been helping steer the ship at one of the industry’s largest companies for more than a decade. 

Hael started as a dealer at Crown Casino in Australia before joining Partypoker as a marketing and player development manager. By 2010 she’d joined the World Poker Tour and the rest, as they say, is history. She’s now VP of Global Tour Management at the WPT and, in 2018, she was named GPI Industry Person of the Year. 

Now, along with Tilly, Selbst, and King, Hael is a member of the Women in Poker Hall of Fame. All four women will be honored in person at a special awards ceremony on December 14. The celebrations begin at 10am inside the PokerGo studio, Las Vegas. As well as awards, the event will feature guest speakers, including poker pro Maria Ho, founder of Poker Power, Erin Lydon, and the woman behind the Hall of Fame, Lupe Soto.