Of all the players remaining in the 2023 WPT World Championship, there’s one person with a social media presence that dwarfs the rest of the field. And no, it’s not Phil Hellmuth or Phil Ivey.
The person in question is Princess Love, who has over 3.8 million followers on Instagram. Love joined the cast of Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood in 2014, and over the last few years moved over to Love & Hip Hop: Miami.
In 2023, one of Love’s new pursuits has been tournament poker.
“Originally I just asked one of my cousins to teach me,” said Love. “I always wanted to learn how to play poker and chess. And I’m not a gambler by any means, but once I was introduced to it, I don’t know, I was intrigued.”
If the WPT World Championship is any indication, it’s going really well for Love. She’s played her way into Day 4 of the tournament and guaranteed herself a payday of at least $47,100.
Love’s list of tournament cashes in 2023 contains quite a few results. Love won one of Wynn Las Vegas’ daily tournaments in late April for $11,629, and has put up cashes in a variety events in the months that followed. Most notably, Love finished in 17th place in the WSOP $1,000 Super Turbo event, and then second in the StormX Invitational in late October for over $80,000.
But her biggest payday may yet come at the end of Love’s run in the 2023 WPT World Championship comes to an end – and it still hasn’t yet. Love started Day 2 with just 10 big blinds, but she’s been spinning that stack up ever since.
“I just did a bunch of the dailies and the Wynn tournaments to kind of prepare for the big ones,” said Love. “I’ve never done it – [this is] my first $10K event. I kind of just been like doing the smaller tournaments to get my feet wet, get comfortable. And [this run] means a lot, because I’m playing well. I’m not a pro, but I study a lot.”