Image courtesy of Ruth Hall
When a poker player’s year ends, you might tally up wins and losses, great photos you took of your friends, or the moment you had to cry in your room over getting sucked out on the river at the bubble.
Another race, though, has been run all year for some players, which ends with them getting the title of “Player of the Year.” Ruth “Ruthless” Hall is one of those players, recently anointed as the Women’s Poker Association’s (WPA) 2025 Player of the Year.
Ruth has already won WPA’s POY race in 2019, during its inaugural year. She finished this year with 960 points, leading in second place by over 300 points.
AJ Cox Rudolph, WPA President, explained the rules are that “all women’s events in North America are included as long as the buy-in is $100 or more and the field is 40 entries or more.”
She added:
We’ve done some work on the program this year and changed how we calculate the standings. The number of women’s events and the field size have grown drastically in the last two to three years, so we feel this is an important change.
Ruth, a previous WPA Board member and passionate supporter of women in poker, started playing poker in 2003, when “my hubby was playing poker online.” She’d “played poker as a young girl so I asked him to show me NLH. (No Limit Hold’em).”
She cashed in twenty-seven events this year (HendonMob), which includes ladies’ and open-field tournaments. She came into playing this year with a singular purpose, after her husband, Keith, passed away in April.
A grief counselor told me I needed to turn my pain into a purpose. My purpose became a goal to win (enough) to pay off all of my daughter’s school loans/debts.
She succeeded in that goal and is now “working on helping with my other daughter’s school loans. We are very close to being a debt-free family thanks to poker!”
When asked why she thought the WPA is so important for women in poker, she replied:
The WPA invites more women to achieve success in poker with their recognition, providing trophies, and celebrating success. We need to encourage, elevate, and educate if we want to get more women into the game.
Her poker village rallied behind Ruth this year due to her suffering from heart failure.
The poker community saved me with their generosity. I’m not able to walk long distances, and heart failure has also limited my long poker game abilities. A girls’ trip to Mexico also helped me find my smile again.
She couldn’t have done it without her daughters, Michelle and Melissa.
She may feel passionately outside of poker, but when playing, “I’m trying to focus on my table, like a horse with blinders on. Variance in poker is going to happen. If I put a bad beat on you, it’s never personal.”
AJ, who stepped up as President of the WPA in July of last year, was inspired to lead due in part to being “welcomed so openly by Lupe Soto and Tara Smith and all the other women, that I wanted to make sure that this organization kept going and provided that same feeling for other women in poker.”
She knew “what it felt like to walk in those giant rooms of tables and not know anyone.”
Her favorite moment of the past year was
Hands down, the Women’s Poker Association WSOP breakfast…. It’s just so much fun to see all the women showing up to ‘summer camp’ and reconnecting with friends from all over the country and world. The camaraderie and support for each other – just before going into serious competition with each other for serious money – is truly incredible.
AJ added,
I always post when I am going to play (certain) events, and I always encourage women to come and talk to me. I’m happy to introduce them to the other women that I know and help them forma community. We encourage our advocates to do the same thing when they are at events across the country. I always want women to have a good experience.
Being that “women are less than 5% of the field in poker, starting this program gives us a way to highlight some of the really amazing women players out there…. This is an opportunity for the recreational players to compete.”
Ruth goes into the new year, entering a clinical trial for a heart implant, and part of her wants this trial “so I can play at South Point in April.”
She muses, “Of course, I would love to attend the WSOP this summer, but semi-retirement may be my reality.”
She asks herself, “Is it time to slow down or keep pushing it to the limit?” Her answer is “life is short. I’m all in.”
Check out the WPA POY rules at: https://wpa.poker/wpa-player-of-the-year/
