Bárbara Akemi is a Brazilian professional poker player, content creator, and streamer. Born in Londrina, in the interior of Paraná, competition has always been a part of her life. She started practicing Taekwondo at 7 years old and became a professional athlete, winning the Brazilian Championship four times and representing Brazil in international competitions.
Championship four times and representing Brazil in international competitions. She was introduced to poker by a Taekwondo friend, and her journey in the game began in late 2016, playing freeroll tournaments at a club in Londrina. She started playing online poker in mid-2017, playing microstakes tournaments just as a hobby. In 2019, her game volume and studying became more frequent, and in 2020, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, she took the opportunity to trade her job as a nutritionist for the online grind.
With this new routine, Bárbara started streaming her games on Twitch in late 2021, competing daily in tournaments against players from all over the world. With charisma and spontaneity, she captivated the poker audience. But the real turning point was her ever-growing winnings. On February 27, 2023, she became the first Brazilian woman to win the PokerStars Sunday Million, the traditional Sunday tournament that had 10,662 entries, taking home a prize of $92,281 (her largest cash at the time). The victory was broadcast live on her channel to an audience of over 2,500 people.
One of her biggest results on GGPoker was in the GGMasters $150. Facing a field of 7,548 people, Bárbara finished in 6th place and received a prize of $33,765. On September 2, 2025, Bárbara won her first career bracelet by taking down the World Series of Poker Ladies event. The WSOP Online Ladies NLH Championship, with a $500 buy-in, recorded a field of 263 entries and a $20,537 prize, which was also streamed on her Twitch channel. On August 28, 2026, she updated her "big hit" (largest career score) with a tenth-place finish in the €5,300 EPT Barcelona Main Event, earning €97,700 in a field of 1,823 people—the best result by a Brazilian female player in this event.
Bárbara found in content creation a way to bring the audience closer to the reality of a professional player. On her streams and social media, she shares everything from strategy and study sessions to the victories, defeats, and challenges that are part of the daily life of someone who makes a living from poker. Now as a member of the GGTeam, Bárbara represents a generation of Brazilian players who grew up playing online and took that experience to the biggest stages of world poker. Her mission is to continue competing at a high level while helping to show that poker can be studied, played professionally, and, above all, be a game for more and more people.