Svetlana Gromenkova was born and raised in Moscow, Russia.

 After some higher education at the Maurice Thorez Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages, she moved to the United States and settled in New York.

 Though her early gaming life consisted of bridge on a professional level in Russia, it was in the United States that she discovered online poker.

 Gromenkova built a bankroll through online poker, which was where she honed her skills before taking to the live tournament circuit.

In 2005, she tried her hand at the World Series of Poker, cashing in a no-limit hold’em event, though her first final table came at the Borgata Winter Open in Atlantic City in 2006 at a limit hold’em tournament.

 In 2007, she cashed twice at the WSOP and final tabled events at the L.A. Poker Classic and the Legends of Poker in Los Angeles, and the US Poker Championship in Atlantic City.

Her biggest year came in 2008 when she hit the WSOP again. That time she cashed in a HORSE event but won the $1K buy-in ladies-only NLHE tournament, which awarded her a coveted WSOP gold bracelet and nearly $225K.

She also made deep runs in two World Poker Tour Main Events that year. Since then, she has cashed at the WSOP five more times, putting her live winnings total over $423K at the end of 2010.

She continues to reside in Brooklyn, New York, support her daughter, and play poker as much as possible.