Farah Fath: From Soap Operas to High-Stakes Poker

Farah Fath, also known as Farah Galfond, is an American actress and poker player who married Phil Galfond in 2015. For years, television audiences knew her as Mimi Lockhart on Days of Our Lives and Gigi Morasco on One Life to Live. Poker fans would come to know her at a very different kind of table.

But how does a soap opera star find her way into high-stakes poker? And how much did being married to one of the game’s most respected players have to do with it?

Farah was already playing before she met Phil. Her role on One Life to Live took her to New York, where cast and crew members invited her to their home games. What began as a way to spend time with colleagues became something she wanted to get better at. Getting to know Phil opened her eyes to how much strategy lay behind the game.

Even then, moving up wasn’t always easy. Farah remembered the jump from $2/$5 to $5/$10 as particularly intimidating. The regulars looked tough. A few years later, she was sitting in no-limit hold’em games as high as $2,000/$4,000.

Farah Fath: Personal Life and Background

How Did Farah Fath Start Playing Poker?

Like Daniel “Jungleman” Cates, Farah’s introduction to Texas hold’em came through people she knew. For her, that meant cast and crew members from One Life to Live in New York.

Her father had taught her five-card draw as a child, so she already knew the hand rankings. The betting was less familiar, and she picked that up as she played.

She later played in Atlantic City, then spent more time at the Commerce after returning to Los Angeles. As her television work slowed down, she had more time for poker and became increasingly absorbed in the game.

By 2015, she was winning at $2/$5. She spent roughly two years at those stakes before moving up to $5/$10. She remembered that step as particularly daunting: the regulars looked intimidating, even to someone who would later play much bigger.

How Did Phil Galfond Help Farah Improve at Poker?

Getting to know Phil Galfond, and later marrying him, helped Farah develop as a player. Interestingly, their relationship began somewhere she had deliberately tried to avoid: social media.

Farah had stopped using social media because negative comments about her television work were getting to her even after she logged off. A reality-show contract, however, required her to have a Twitter account. She agreed on the condition that somebody else would manage it. Eventually, she asked for the password and took over because she found the posts being published in her name embarrassing.

If she had to be on Twitter, she wanted to follow people she found interesting. Poker was her main hobby, so she followed a few players she enjoyed watching on television. Phil was, of course, among them.

Farah liked Phil’s understated humor and noticed how often he found something positive to say, even after disappointing results. She had been following him for a while when she replied to one of his tweets, and they began exchanging messages.

When one of her jokes appeared to go unanswered, she worried it had landed badly. She sent him a private message to apologize. Phil told her he simply hadn’t seen it.

They kept talking, and Phil eventually visited Los Angeles. He said he was coming to see friends. Farah recalled learning much later that meeting her had been the real reason for the trip. And, as the saying goes, the rest is history: they married in May 2015, and three years later, in 2018, their son Spencer was born.

Their relationship also gave Farah someone to turn to with her poker questions. She preferred to learn by playing, then talk through difficult hands with Phil afterward. Those conversations, along with time spent around other experienced players, helped turn a hobby into something she wanted to pursue seriously.

Phil described Farah as having a strong memory and being good at reading people. He also recognized that she learned through repetition. She learned best at the table, with their conversations afterward helping her make sense of what had happened.

How High Did Farah Galfond Play?

Farah Galfond has played no-limit hold’em at stakes as high as $2,000/$4,000. But she didn’t jump straight into those games. In the summer of 2017, even an invitation to play $300/$600 felt like a big step.

She had been playing $5/$10 for less than a year when Phil asked how she would feel about joining the bigger game. Farah later joked that the jump to $5/$10 had felt just as intimidating.

By 2018, she had played as high as $500/$1,000. Her progress also brought her onto Poker After Dark. A week titled “Games of Our Lives” nodded to her television career, with Farah joining players including Bill Perkins, Bill Klein and Matt Berkey.

Farah enjoyed the constant challenge of improving. Every session gave her new situations to think about and hands to discuss afterward. It was part of what had drawn her to acting, too: working at something, exploring it more deeply and finding ways to get better.

Why Did Farah Galfond Turn to Tournament Poker?

Farah Galfond shifted her focus to tournaments in 2023 because they eased the anxiety she felt about spending time away from her son. Unlike cash games, where she could leave whenever she wanted, tournaments gave her a reason to stay until she lost her chips.

Her relationship with poker had begun changing after Spencer was born in December 2018. She still wanted to play, but returning to high-stakes cash games proved more stressful than she had expected.

Getting back into the game took time, and Phil helped her put together a study plan. Farah also considered playing small-stakes online poker to get some practice before returning to bigger live games. She was eager to play again, though she suspected that once she sat down at the table, she would miss Spencer.

She wasn’t simply looking for a smaller game. She needed a way to enjoy poker without spending the session wondering whether she should go home.

What Is Farah Galfond’s Net Worth?

Farah Galfond’s exact net worth is not publicly known. What we can document is her tournament record: as of November 2026, The Hendon Mob lists $326,823 in recorded live tournament earnings. That figure does not include her private cash-game results or establish her personal wealth.

Farah Galfond’s Three Biggest Recorded Tournament Payouts

Her largest recorded tournament payout came in April 2023, when she finished second in a $1,100 no-limit hold’em event at the Wynn Signature Series for $87,157. Her top three also include two WSOP Main Event cashes.

These are tournament payouts before entry costs and expenses. They capture only part of a career that began primarily in cash games.

For poker fans, Farah’s story runs from home games to high-stakes tables and then tournament fields. Many television viewers, though, knew her long before she made any of those moves.

From Kentucky to Her First Hollywood Audition

Poker wasn’t the first career Farah had wanted to take seriously. As a teenager in Kentucky, she had her sights set on acting. Growing up in Lexington, she modeled, entered beauty pageants and enjoyed performing. Acting also gave her somewhere to escape when school was difficult. She recalled being bullied in middle school and finding relief in drama class, where she could lose herself in another character.

By high school, she wanted to see whether she could do it professionally. Her mother supported the idea and took her to Hollywood. Her father thought they were being unrealistic, although Farah remembered him becoming proud very quickly once she started getting work.

Her first audition was for Days of Our Lives, a show she already watched. Her babysitter and grandmother watched it too, and she knew the characters and storylines. That included Mimi Lockhart, the role being recast.

Farah was so excited that she talked at length during the audition. Looking back, she thought that might have helped: Mimi was talkative too. She got the part. Instead of returning to her Kentucky high school, she began working on a television series.

Farah Fath’s Television and Film Roles

Farah played Mimi from 1999 to 2007 before leaving to pursue other projects. She wanted more freedom to try different roles, but walking away was harder than she expected. After her last day, she remembered sitting in her car, crying and wondering whether she had made the right decision.

Her next major job took her to New York. In 2007, she joined One Life to Live as Gigi Morasco, a role written specifically for her. She also appeared in the reality series Dirty Soap and later took roles in television movies. In 2018, she briefly returned to Days of Our Lives as Mimi.

ABC announced the cancellation of One Life to Live in 2011, and its final network episode aired in January 2012. Farah returned to Los Angeles with more time to spend on poker.

She later described her life as a series of different eras: acting, poker and motherhood. The boundaries weren’t always clear. A Twitter account created to promote a show helped her meet Phil, while her television work had introduced her to the home games where she discovered hold’em. She hadn’t moved to New York to become a poker player, but the games with her colleagues ended up taking her in that direction.

Social Media & Online Presence

You can follow Farah Galfond on X for her public posts, or explore her tournament results through the player profiles below.