Justin Saliba 🇺🇸

Saliba was born in Dayton, Ohio. Before taking up poker, he was an accomplished athlete, playing as a goalkeeper for Division I football for the University of Dayton. After earning a degree in chemical engineering, he channeled his analytical skills into the poker table. Initially, he made his mark as an online six-handed cash game expert, accumulating over a million hands of experience and progressing from $25 No-Limit Hold'em to $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em. In 2019, Saliba moved to Las Vegas to focus on live cash games, but the 2020 pandemic shifted his focus to tournaments. He quickly rose to prominence in the GG online poker community and became the first employee of Jonathan Little's PokerCoaching.com. Today, he is widely recognized as one of the most respected theorists in the poker world, striking a balance between playing in $100,000 buy-in tournaments and creating high-quality educational content.

Saliba is known for his highly technical, problem-solving-oriented, and balanced play. His engineering background is evident in his style, prioritizing game theory optimality (GTO) fundamentals while maintaining flexibility to exploit group vulnerabilities. He is particularly known for his disciplined folding, most notably his pre-flop fold of pocket kings on live television, demonstrating his resilience to emotional swings. His strategy includes in-depth range analysis and mastery of blind-to-blind dynamics, often leveraging his online experience to handle the rapid decision-making required in high-stakes tournaments. As a coach, he emphasizes meaningful learning over rote memorization, a philosophy that has led to his success across various formats, from Triton high-stakes to WPT tournaments.

Saliba's total live tournament winnings exceed $10.996 million, making him a formidable force in modern poker. His career-best live tournament winnings are $1.188 million, earned as runner-up in the $50,000 buy-in 8-max No-Limit Hold'em tournament at the Triton Poker Series Montenegro in May 2024. Saliba is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner: first in the 2021 WSOP Online $5,300 High Roller event for $253,800, and second in the 2022 WSOP Online $10,000 Super High Roller event for $154,752. He has maintained impressive form throughout 2025 and early 2026, most recently winning the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open $10,000 Deepstack event in January 2026 for $236,925, and the Poker Masters event at the end of 2025 for $301,000. His continued success in top-level tournaments has brought his poker net worth to an estimated $10 million. (Image source: PokerGo)