Female All-Time Money Leader Kristen Foxen Wins U.S. Poker Open Kickoff Event

Kristen Foxen extended her advantage over the rest of the top performers on the women’s all-time money list after taking down the 2025 U.S. Poker Open $5,000 no-limit hold’em kickoff event to add $158,025 to her tally.

The five-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner (another women’s record) now has nearly $11.6 million in lifetime cashes to her name, which gives her roughly a $650,000 lead over second-ranked Vanessa Selbst ($10.9 million) on the female tournament earnings leaderboard.

Foxen now leads not only the fledgling USPO points race, but also the season-long PokerGO Tour standings. The 38-year-old Canadian poker pro has already recorded seven PGT cashes and won three titles on the tour in 2025, with her to-date earnings sitting at $777,600.

With four overall final tables on the live tournament circuit, Foxen also climbed into 11th place in the 2025 Card Player Player of the Year rankings presented by Global Poker. This latest victory added 528 points, bringing her total to 2,194.

This event drew 129 entries to the PokerGO Studio inside ARIA Resort & Casino Las Vegas to create a $645,000 prize pool. The top 19 finishers made the money, with plenty of big names cashing including two-time bracelet winners Dylan Weisman (18th) and Eric Baldwin (15th), 10-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel (14th), three-time bracelet winners Jim Collopy (12th) and David ‘ODB’ Baker (11th), bracelet winner Patrick Leonard (10th), and World Poker Tour champion Masato Yokosawa (8th).

The final day began with seven players remaining and bracelet winner Francis Anderson in the lead.

Two-time bracelet winner Justin Saliba (7th – $25,800) was the first to hit the rail, with his K-5 unable to best the A-J suited of Ping Liu in a battle of the blinds. Liu made aces and queens with a king kicker to win the pot and take the chip lead heading into six-handed action.

David Peters’ run concluded in sixth place. The four-time bracelet winner and two-time USPO series champion got his last ten or so big blinds in with A9 leading the K6 of Liu, but a 107656 runout made trips for Liu. Peters walked away with $32,250 to grow his career tournament earnings to nearly $51.4 million.

Michael Arellano cashed for $38,700 as the fifth-place finisher, the fourth-largest career cash for the satellite qualifier from Texas. He was sent packing when his A-Q suited was outrun by the Q-2 suited of Foxen in a battle of the blinds. Foxen shoved from the small blind and was snap-called by Arellano. She was trailing through the turn but nailed a deuce on the river to take the pot.

Three outer by krissyb24poker</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/PokerGOTour?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">PokerGOTour satellite winner Michael Arellano's run ends in fifth place, resulting in a $38,700 score.

Watch every U.S. Poker Open final table on PokerGO, presented by @official_glp.

https://t.co/YYIeRbJAtq pic.twitter.com/zTOraz32eg

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) April 9, 2025

Anthony Hu was the second-shortest stack when day 2 action began, but managed to survive to the final four before he finally found himself all-in and at risk with pocket fours. He lost the coin flip against the Q-J of Anderson and settled for $51,600. This score increased his career earnings to more than $3.1 million.

Foxen overtook the lead during three-handed play, thanks to a big pot that pitted her nut flush against a river bluff from Anderson. After that, there were plenty of swings, with the final three taking at least one turn atop the chip counts as they continued to battle for nearly three hours. The next key hand for Foxen saw A-2 come from behind against the pocket tens of Anderson in a battle of the blinds, with the chips going in preflop. Foxen hit trip deuces immediately and held from there to double into a big lead.

Ducks on the pond! krissyb24poker</a> finds an incredible flop to pull ahead of <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancisPoker123?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">FrancisPoker123.

Watch every U.S. Poker Open final table on PokerGO, presented by @official_glp.

https://t.co/YYIeRbJAtq pic.twitter.com/V9MGvSZZO2

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) April 10, 2025

Then, Anderson was on fumes and was soon all-in with J-9 trailing Q-3 for Foxen. She flopped a pair of threes and faded Anderson’s live cards and gutshot straight draw to send him home in third place ($70,950). The New York native now has nearly $3.9 million in career cashes to his name.

Heads-up play began with Foxen holding 13,025,000 to Liu’s 3,100,000. Liu closed the gap a bit early, but then lost a healthy chunk back despite correctly folding a rivered set against the turned nut straight of Foxen. The final hand saw Foxen open-shove from the button with A7. Liu called all-in for 3,000,000 total with KJ. The board came down Q6389 to give Foxen the nut flush and the title.

Liu earned $96,750 as the runner-up, enough to grow his lifetime tournament haul to more than $2.8 million.

Final Table Results

Photo credit: PokerGO.

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