Sandra Naujoks
The female poker player recognized with numerous awards in a very short duration of her career is the apt description for this lady who exemplifies the fact that poker, like many other things, can no more be considered a macho hobby and that bluffing, betting and shrewd trickery are not exclusively male prerogatives.
Born on July 11th 1981 in Dessau (Germany), Sandra took up the opportunity to enjoy the excitement of a challenge quite early in her life when she chose to graduate with a dual major, one in German and the other in History and went on to work as a teacher. Shortly after that, she decided to switch her career and try her hand at graphic designing and modelling as well. And, as in every other realm of her life, she was a success there too.
However, the adventure- seeker within Sandra Naujoks didn’t allow her to stop at that and then she went on to prove her prowess in the arena of poker as well. She started by playing online poker cash games and tournaments under the moniker “Black Mamba” which was soon to become her identity at the poker table as well owing to her ferocity as a player. The lure of gambling and the intricacies of the betting game finally quenched the adventure seeker, Sandra Naujoks and she decided to take her skills to live table.
Her first major cash came in at The Casino Austria Poker Tour made a stop in Graz in August of 2008 where she finished at the 5th place winning nearly €16K. At the Bodensee Poker Championships, she ended up finishing at the 10th position and went on to participate in the CAPT in Baden in October of that year. In the €4,000 no-limit hold’em tournament, she came through 163 other players to scoop the $4,000 NLH Event and a first prize of $240,289 defeating the veteran Alexander Kravchenko. Naujoks finished at the 9th place at the PokerStars.net EPT weeks after the Baden victory which led her to the EPT German Open in Dortmund the following spring. She finally won the tournament after battling her way through a tough international field of players only to become the second woman to ever win an EPT open event and cashing for €917,000.
Since then, Naujoks has been adding numerous studs of victory to her crown like the 36th place finish at the 2009 EPT Grand Finale in Monte Carlo. This was her very fist Poker cash world series in 2009 summer time and a tenth place at the WSOP Europe €5K Pot-Limit Omaha tournament in September of the same year. She claimed the team cup at the 2009 Mountain Poker Party and made it to the final table at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25K High Roller NLHE event.
The momentum with which Sandra entered the world of poker and made it big in such a short span of time has been tremendous and fetched her the prestigious title of European Female Player of the Year in 2008. Sandra Naujoks is truly a force to be reckoned with.
Sandra is a representative of the PokerStars and plays online as a member of Team PokerStars Pro under the moniker ‘S. Naujoks’. She is also involved in charity and has established her own charity ‘All in 4 Kids’.
