Rachel Giacopuzzi
Woodland Hills, CA
Our first Queen of the Month could be no one other than Rachel Giacopuzzi. Rachel is the founder of Pocket Queens, and contributes countless hours behind-the-scenes to its success.
Rachel grew up in LA, and still lives there today, working full-time as an admin for Cal State, Northridge. She has three children, Zoe (22), Lucas (19) and Emily (17). Rachel started her poker journey later in life. Three years ago, her boyfriend, Dennis, who is an avid cash game player, started teaching her the game. She instantly loved it. During Covid, Rachel played online home games, and when the pandemic ended, she was ready to hit the live LA poker scene. And then the unexpected happened, which changed everything.
Rachel, Dennis and a few poker friends decided to take a trip in Oct 2021 to the postponed WSOP to play the $400 Colossus. Rachel was the beginner of the group and had very low expectations. But at the end of day 1, Rachel found a bag, while everyone else had busted. She then found another bag at the end of day 2. Rachel ended up getting 19th place for $10,855, and she was hooked.
Since then, Rachel has been working to improve her poker game. Pocket Queens originally formed through this desire to improve. She had no idea that it would become a beacon for women poker players to learn, promote and support each other. Yet she has risen to the challenge of leading this group through every twist and turn it’s made.
Rachel recently won the LA Poker Classic $250 Remington for her biggest score yet of $18,940, which she is extremely proud of, because her hard work paid off. She and Dennis are hoping to move to Las Vegas in a year, where Rachel has the goal of playing poker, travelling and continuing to promote women in poker.