Full Throttle: Kristen Foxen Racing To The Top Of The Record Books

Kristen Foxen is no stranger to mixing it up with boys – she’s been doing it her whole life.

Her father, Pete Bicknell, runs a business building race cars in St. Catherines, Ontario, and won over 500 races himself while being inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame. Kristen says she remembers plenty of days at the dirt track watching cars whip around the track.

That adrenaline-fueled competition eventually included hitting the track herself, racing go-karts as a youngster against plenty of boys hoping to beat her to the finish line. Although she hasn’t raced in years, that same drive remains in her poker career.

“Racing has a special place in my heart, for sure,” Foxen said. “Racing’s in your blood, you get it or you don’t. It just becomes your life. It’s almost like poker to me. It’s hard for poker to not become your life once you fall in love with it.”

With years of competition under her belt and the ability to roll with the punches, some of that fire translated to betting and stacking chips. That included a deep run in the World Series of Poker main event in July, finishing 13th for $600,000. Although the poker world was collectively disappointed to see her fall just short of being the first female to make the final table since Barbara Enright back in 1995, it was still a massive accomplishment given the record-setting field of more than 10,000 players.

Main event aside, Foxen’s poker record is long. The 37-year-old high-stakes pro has four WSOP bracelets – two online and two live – more than any other woman in the game.

She has numerous big finishes on the high-stakes PokerGO Tour, wins and final-table appearances in major events around the world, and spent years racking up winnings online.

This three-peat winner of the Global Poker Index female player of the year (2017, 2018, 2019) brings plenty of skills and presents a sizable challenge to anyone squaring off against her – male or female. What does she enjoy most about the game?

“The challenge and the uniqueness of each hand,” she said. “You can try to study spots and prepare as best as you can, but every single hand is so unique. So, I think I just love the strategic aspects. It’s almost like you’re a little detective trying to figure out the best decision to make.”

This card-playing detective has cracked plenty of cases through the years and she’s become a force in the game. Foxen recently spoke with Card Player about her life in poker, her competitive spirit, women in the game, and being part of a poker power couple with fellow bracelet winner Alex Foxen.

Life At The Tables

With $9 million in live tournament winnings, Foxen sits in second behind Vanessa Selbst on the women’s all-time money list – about $1.9 million behind. Selbst rarely plays much these days, while Foxen continues to play high rollers all over the world, so it’s only a matter of time before they swap spots.

“It would be fun,” Foxen said. “I feel like there is a little bit of attention on these kinds of rankings. I know the competitiveness in me is like I want to be number one, of course, but it’s not like the be-all end-all. But it would be really cool to be on the top of that. It’s definitely a goal.”

Like many players, college also doubled as Foxen’s poker school. She attended Carleton University in Ottawa in 2005, and was hanging out with friends her freshman year when they asked if she wanted to play poker. She had no idea how to play but gave it a try. That initial game lasted for hours and she was hooked.

Other home games and underground games around Ottawa followed, along with trips to the U.S., and she became serious about tracking her results. “Krissyb” became a regular on PokerStars and Full Tilt, eventually earning SuperNova Elite rewards three years in a row, a status given out to those who put in about 2.5 million hands a year.

The prospect of winning some major cash in a single day made attending class seem a bit unimportant. Studying criminology, Foxen ultimately came up two classes short of a degree after making the leap to poker full time.

“You can make $120,000 a year just by playing eight hours a day?” she recalls thinking at the time. “I was like, ‘This sounds like my dream.’ Prior to that, maybe I had been profitable in poker, but never like six figures, always maybe $30,000, something like that where it was substantial enough that I didn’t feel like I needed a job, but it wasn’t like a lot of money.”

Putting in millions of hands helped fine-tune her skills in a short amount of time that may have taken older pros like Doyle Brunson more than a decade to accomplish. Those years helped to build resilience and many of the characteristics that make her excel.

Seeing their daughter drop out of college to pursue poker full-time probably isn’t something most parents would be crazy about, but Foxen says her mother and father came around after seeing her success.

“My dad was always more supportive of poker than my mom,” she says. “My mom was a little bit like, ‘Just get a job please.’ My mom now watches every single tournament she can watch. She’s a big poker fan now, as is my dad. I think they both are super proud of me now and supportive.”

In 2013, Foxen made headlines by taking down the $1,000 Ladies Championship at the WSOP for $173,922. Three years later she took down a $1,500 no limit hold’em bounty event for a second bracelet and $290,768.

A PartyPoker ambassador role came that same year and she then added two more bracelet wins in 2020 and 2023. Another title came her way in 2018, a high roller on the Asia Pacific Poker Tour in Macau for $279,549. She added a Poker Masters trophy in 2019, topping good friend Chance Kornuth heads-up for a $408,000 score.

In January, Foxen secured another nice bullet point for her record in a $10,000 event in the PokerGO Kickoff Series. She battled fellow Canadian Daniel Negreanu heads-up for the title and eventually came out on top for $165,000. Even now as a seasoned pro, she found that to be a rewarding experience.

“That was really cool,” she recalled. “Obviously anytime you play poker with people you watched on TV 15 years ago, it’s like, ‘Whoa, this is a little surreal.’ But he’s such a nice guy and that whole environment at PokerGO is truly the best.”

Up until her run in the main event, things hadn’t been going too well at the WSOP. She’d had a few deep finishes but nothing huge. Although she fell short of the final table, that big score certainly turned things around and she seemed to be having a great time at the tables as the action played out, running big bluffs and dazzling viewers with her ability to creatively win pots.

“It was a very disappointing finish. I really wanted that bracelet, and I played my heart out,” she noted. “But thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who was cheering me on. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to play in such a monumental tournament. Fantastic job by PokerGO and WSOP. It’s amazing to see the fields grow and grow each year, and I had such a fun time.”

Women In Poker

While much of the poker world has focused in recent years on bringing more women into the game, Foxen takes a laissez faire approach to the issue. Her general feeling on the issue is that if women want to play, they can. If they don’t, that’s okay too.

She simply doesn’t feel the need to get caught up in the campaign to bring more females to the tables. Part of that goes back to her racing life.

“Being 10 years old as a girl and racing go karts against mainly boys, I think it just made me feel comfortable in that setting, because I’ve never struggled with feeling uncomfortable in poker,” she says. “I think that that probably helped, not to mention all the personality traits that I think my parents have taught me along the way. Nobody made a big deal about it. It was just cool that I was racing and I think it translated well to poker.”

And as for ladies events? Despite the fact that one of her bracelets is in the Ladies Championship, Foxen isn’t a big fan and prefers encouraging women who are considering poker to jump straight into regular tournaments and cash games.

“I definitely try to just look at myself as equal to Alex, as equal to any other guy,” she says. “Even when I’ve won the GPI award, it’s like, ‘Okay, great, I’m the female poker player of the year.’ But how amazing would it be to actually be number one overall?”

But why don’t more women play?

“Poker in general, is more interesting to men overall,” Foxen explained. “I think the biggest thing for me is, if you want to play as a woman, just to know that you can. For me, seeing Jennifer Harman, seeing Vanessa Selbst, seeing how they sat at the poker table and they were confident and comfortable, that gave me the idea that I could too. I think I just try to lead by example as well.”

According to reports, this year’s main event attracted only 358 women, just slightly over 3% of the field and one of the lowest percentages in recent years. Foxen wants the game to continue growing, but is open to anyone interested in competing.

“I don’t want to see poker promoted with only sexy, pretty girls,” she added. “I don’t think that’s necessary because I think that that is a message targeting men. I would like to see the promotion of poker in a way that’s toward men and women. But other than that, I think it’s a little weird to say things like, ‘we need more women in poker,’ or ‘we need ladies events to get more women in poker.’ I don’t think it works.”

“Overall, I think that a real message to women should be that poker is the one sport where men and women can compete on an equal playing field,” she says. “Even in racing growing up, I couldn’t always compete with guys at the same level because I wasn’t as strong. For racing, you need some arm strength and women don’t have stronger arms than men. In any other sport that’s physical, men have an edge. It’s just how we were designed. But I think poker is truly an even playing field. So, to me, why are we pretending it is (different)? I just don’t understand that.”

While some in the industry argue that many women face obstacles from men who may behave poorly, Foxen says it’s best to use men’s behavior against them. In fact, she believes some of this works in female players’ favor. Foxen thrives in the environment.

“In poker, some guys might feel a little bit uncomfortable losing to a girl and I just think it’s funny and enjoy it,” she says. “I actually think it’s such a kind of benefit being a lady at a poker table. I think it can be a huge edge. So how do you harness that? I think that, unfortunately, this is the problem with ladies events. There’s an underlying message of, ‘Hey, you can’t compete with the guys,’ or it’s harder to.

“You’re going to see some (awful behavior) and think that that’s because you’re a woman. But poker is a little cutthroat, and some guys are just jerks, and they’re jerks to anybody, not because you’re a girl. Alex tells me some stories about what people say or do to him, and I’m like, ‘I’ve never been treated that way.’”

Poker Pair

Talking poker is a regular part of many players’ routine – breaking down hands with friends, studying with poker coaches, or running simulations to determine what might have been the best play. But being married to fellow high-stakes pro Alex Foxen means this poker pair always has someone to bounce ideas off. The two met at the poker table and were married in 2022.

Alex now has more than $32 million in live tournament winnings including winning the WSOP $250,000 super high roller championship in 2022 for $4.6 million and his first bracelet. With both of them battling it out each summer in the series, and Kristen now having a three-bracelet advantage, some might wonder if there’s a little friendly rivalry.

“Not really, I would just say we’re very supportive of each other and as I grow as a player so does he,” she said. “Every poker player has a study group or some sort of support system, and it’s just really powerful having somebody who can do that, who’s also playing the same games as you. We’re living together, basically together all the time, and we’re just very lucky that we have a lot in common at the poker table. I think that the way that both of us approach the game, we might have little differences and I think that they’ve helped both of us improve overall. I think it’s just been a powerful relationship – a meeting of the minds that has leveled both of us up.”

Both feel the best way to improve is to play and discuss – even accounting for their differing table images when breaking down hands. Alex, along with Chance Kornuth, is one of the main coaches at Chip Leader Coaching and the two recently unveiled a new course called Bracelet Hunter II. Kristen also does some one-on-one coaching through Chip Leader as well.

Away from the tables, Kristen and Alex are now considering starting a family, which would certainly throw a wrench into their established routine, but Kristen is up for the challenge.

“I think it’s just something where we’ll play it by ear. The great thing about poker is myself or Alex will have that freedom. We don’t have to play poker for a month if we don’t need to. We can have that flexibility. So, I think that we feel very fortunate that we should be able to kind of design our life in a way where we can be present with our kids and also play poker when it’s convenient.”

Foxen says the pair are down to earth and savvy when it comes to putting some winnings away and investing. She’s never been ready to risk too much of her bankroll, but instead favored moving up slowly in stakes through the years.

“If I can be 50 and still show up at PokerGO studio and play a $10K without too much stress, that would be amazing,” she says.

For now, the term “poker workaholics” is apt for their lives. But the Foxens do enjoy some time away from the tables – including fitness and working out, travel, and out- door activities. That recently included a trip to Zion National Park and Arizona. They’ve also completed a weeklong hike to Machu Picchu in Peru.

“Honestly, for the most part our life is poker, food, gym, hanging out at home, and we’re both really happy with that,” she says. “I don’t want to say we’re boring people, because I don’t think we are, but we’re just focused. We’re both locked in right now on poker.”

Find Foxen on Twitter/X @krissyb24poker. ♠

Notable Tournament Scores

*Photos by PokerGO & Card Player