RunGood Champion Tiffany Keathley Dies at 40
The Arkansas regular won the record-setting 2019 RGPS Tunica Main Event and was remembered by fellow southern-circuit players.
Tiffany Keathley, an Arkansas poker player and RunGood Poker Series champion, died Sept. 27 at age 40. No circumstances or cause of death had been made public, and no public obituary had been reported.
Daniel Lowery shared news of Keathley’s death on social media that day. Lowery, a 21-time WSOP Circuit ring winner, wrote that his “heart breaks today upon hearing the news of a good friend,” adding that he had lost too many people who were too young and urging people not to ignore those who say they are struggling.
Fellow southern-circuit regulars Scott Smile and Chris Read also paid tribute. Read called Keathley “a sweet soul” with whom he had spent many days talking.
Keathley’s largest recorded tournament score came in August 2019, when she won the $575 RGPS Main Event at Horseshoe Tunica for $48,796 and a championship ring. PokerNews’ contemporaneous coverage recorded a 632-player field, the largest RGPS Main Event field at the time.
Her victory came after the final five players agreed to a deal, with Keathley holding the chip lead. During the event, she survived a three-way all-in against Lowery and another player by making a river straight against Lowery’s flopped set, then later eliminated Lowery in 15th place after flopping trips against his aces.
That title was the first Main Event win of the RGPS Game 7 championship season. It followed Keathley’s first recorded tournament cash in July 2019, a third-place finish in a WSOP Circuit event at Choctaw worth $10,058.
Keathley remained a regular on the southern live-poker circuit, with recorded cashes in Durant, Houston, Pocola, Tulsa and Tunica. Hendon Mob data cited in the death reports listed her career live-tournament earnings at $115,328.
She returned to the RGPS Tunica final table in 2023, finishing seventh for $10,827 alongside 2003 WSOP Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker. Her last recorded cash was 43rd place in the WSOP Circuit Tunica Main Event in April 2024, worth $3,281.
