Joanne Jishing Liu, also known as JJ, was born on April 10th 1965 in Taipei, Taiwan. During her childhood Joanne Liu was interested in playing various Chinese card games but had never tried poker until she moved to the United States. After graduating from the Ming Chuan College in 1985, Joanne Liu moved to Peoria, Illinois, USA, to get her Master’s Degree in Computer Science at the Bradley University. After graduation Joanne Liu took a job as a software engineer for Loral Space Systems in Palo Alto, California, one of the world's leading designers and builders of communication satellites. However, Joanne Liu would soon realize that her passion lies somewhere else – professional poker.
It was in 1996, when Joanne Liu participated in a poker tournament for the first time - at the Bay 101 Casino in San Jose, California, where she played Texas Hold’em. She instantly got interested in poker and gave her best to understand the game. Just a few months later Joanne Liu took part in her first World Series of Poker event – she got fourth place in the $3000 Limit Hold’em tournament and won more than $32,000. She went on to participate in over 40 major tournaments, from which she went out with nine more cash finishes at the WSOP - including two final tables in 2002 and 2003. In March 2005, Joanne won $90,000 after finishing 1st at the 2005 World Poker Challenge in Reno. In November 2005 she also made her first World Poker Tour final table and took fourth place at WPT’s $15,000 buy-in Five Diamond World Poker Classic, collecting more than $362,000. Joanne Liu won her first WPT title the following year - in 2006, at the WPT's Ladies Night Out event at the Legends of Poker. Joanne Liu`s latest entry was in March, 2007 at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars event . During that time she was also pregnant, which made it even more difficult for her to compete. Even though Joanne eventually lost the final table that lasted for over 2 hours, she became the highest finishing woman ever on the World Poker Tour. For that final battle alone, she collected more than $600,000 and is the only woman to win over $1 million on a WPT circuit.
According to Joanne Liu, The Art of War by Sun Tzu has given her inspiration and has helped her a lot in her career. She is also dedicated to introducing poker to East and Southeast Asia by conducting various poker seminars in Chinese. Besides live tournaments and online games at Full Tilt Poker, Joanne is also keen on traveling and piano.
