Georgina James
In the poker world, there are plenty of examples of people who have been around for years. Team PokerStars Pro has someone who hasn't been showing off her skills at the poker tables for very long. Georgina 'GJ Reggie' James, born and raised in Wales, has developed rapidly in a short period of time and now has her own Twitch Channel for the whole poker world to enjoy playing sessions on the virtual tables. She joined PokerStars with fellow colleague Mason ‘pyefacepoker’ Pye about four years ago and has never looked back ever since.
Introduction to Poker
As a result of the Run It Up Platinum Pass Challenge, Georgina decided to invest time in streaming poker. Besides having a full-time job at that time, she was often to find at the virtual tables. All of this was a result of playing video games and watching Twitch streams, on which she at some point got introduced to the EPT coverage. When being at university she also participated in home games with a couple of friends, soon followed by a professional career in poker. Her love for poker started growing day by day, and by doing commentary at one of European’s biggest live events, she gets her hours in pretty well.
Having graduated with a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bath, Georgina decided to go full-time pro and quit her job as Business Improvement Manager. Instead, she is now improving her own poker game, as well as the poker communities. Somewhat she absolutely loves to do. Spreading her love for the game and for streaming, it encourages her to become a better poker player. She really loves to help grow the poker communities to be able to support each other. To help grow the female community inside the poker world is perhaps her biggest ambition, as she thinks that in terms of its potential, there is much ground to gain with this subject.
Besides the love for poker, she had in her younger years a big love for Formula 1 Racing. With her engineering studies, she was even dreaming of being involved in the sports she followed inside out. That her poker career turned out to be with one of the biggest sponsors of one of the world’s biggest racing championships in the world, can only be called a nice coincidence.
Building a live poker Resume
Lately, in 2023, we have seen Georgina James going to live events more often than before, with for example the previous edition of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in Nassau, The Festival Series in Nottingham, and the Nordic Masters in Bratislava. She calls it herself a real privilege to be able to do all such trips, and thanks to her professional poker career, she is able to do so. Her live poker results however are not that much of a real deal yet in terms of quantity, but she has already made some nice runs. During the European Poker Tour in London in 2022, she managed to become 5th in the £550 8-Game Mix event, good for a nice £3,900 payday. Her biggest accomplishment in live poker, she has made during the PCA event when she won the $330 NLHE Women’s Event and taking home $6.539 and the trophy. During the latest Festival Series, where we from PokerListings were attending as well, she managed to become 14th at the PokerListings Championship for £500. For sure we will see more scores of her passing by in the near future, as she has dipped her toes in the water of live poker, we will definitely see her more often during the live poker stops all around the world.
Online is where the heart is
Going by her nickname ‘GJ Reggie’ she is a familiar face at the virtual tables. Logically, as she is a PokerStars Team Pro, she only plays on their poker site. While she is mainly playing low-stakes tournaments, both Hold’Em and Mixed Games, her biggest scores are from bigger buy-in events. Let’s list her top-5 biggest scores to date:
| 05/17/2022 | SCOOP 45-M: $215 FL 2-7 Triple Draw [6-Max], $30K Gtd | $200.00+$15.00 | $3,342.06 |
| 09/18/2022 | WCOOP $530 Women's World Championship, $65K Gtd - 2-Day Event | $500.00+$30.00 | $3,013.79 |
| 05/28/2022 | SCOOP 88-H: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Deep Stacks], $300K Gtd | $500.00+$30.00 | $1,999.95 |
| 11/18/2019 | MicroMillions 84: $5.50 NLHE, $20K Gtd | $4.90+$0.60 | $1,649.73 |
| 05/22/2022 | SCOOP 66-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Million], $1M Gtd - 3-Day Event | $500.00+$30.00 | $1,478.78 |
Her total online winnings of almost $55,000, compared to over 6000 games, is to be called rather a small sample. But if you consider she is mainly playing smaller stakes, it is still impressive. Adding $12,000 of her live poker winnings on top of that, and you have a bit of an idea of what she is capable of. Her biggest buy-in tournament is the $10K Main Event of the WCOOP, of which she received a ticket from her employer PokerStars.
Streaming online poker
Ever since she competed in the Run It Up Challenge by Jason Sommerville in collaboration with PokerStars, streaming on twitch became normality for Georgina. Ever since she has been sharing her online poker adventures with the poker world, she has been dedicated to helping build her own community at first, but also poker communities in general. With 14,2K followers, she has done well for herself already. If you only imagine the online poker beasts such as her colleague ambassadors Lex Veldhuis, Spraggy, and Fintan Hand, are taking the biggest chunk of the stream viewers. Together with another team pro Mason Pye, she has been streaming together regularly as well, which made her play mixed games on a regular base.
Fighting up against all big poker streamers, it is hard to come up with unique content. But Georgina James seems to have found the right remedy by playing lower stakes tournaments, and by playing mixed games. Alongside her great character, she is one of the most entertaining streams out there.
Why do we think she deserves a spot in our Women in Poker Series?
- Georgina James has proved that you can build up a career in poker on very short notice. Of course, she was sailing with the right back wind, it doesn’t take away she really has been fighting for her spot at PokerStars Team Pro.
- As an ambassador for the past couple of years, she has managed to raise awareness for the poker game through her Twitch Channel, going by the name ‘GJ Reggie’.
- Her professional career is just from a very young age, but the impact she has already created is astonishing.
- She might not have won a Platinum Pass during the Run It Up Challenge herself years ago, but thanks to PokerStars she not only got a spot at their Team Pro, but she also had the privilege to hand out two Platinum passes last year.
- Above all her accomplishments in the poker industry, she is just a very welcoming and extremely kind person to have around. Alongside her dedication to the growth of the community and professionalism in regard to her Twitch career, these characteristics are key for her place in our ‘Women in Poker’ ranks.
Women in Poker
In regards to Women in Poker, she stated that there is so much more potential in terms of getting women to play poker. However, she is very realistically aware that poker is just not as appealing to women as it is to men. But for the women out there who do play poker all year round both live- and online, she thinks everyone involved in poker can do much better in general. Women in Poker is still quite a topic, but it is important for women to feel more comfortable than what it is now. Make sure there is a hardline, and that everyone is aware of it such as floor managers, dealers, etc. People need to be aware of this. A hardline that people know where they need to go whenever they have questions is of so much value, that there is always room to improve at such. Ladies’ tournaments are a great initiative for raising awareness for this, and for letting women get used to the casino environment. So that they are getting prepared for the real deal such as Main Events.
