Liv Boeree
Liv has come a long way in Poker terms. Having studied physics with astrophysics at the University of Manchester before moving to London, she was a peripheral figure on the London Poker scene when she caught a break when selected as one of five contestants ("poker virgins") in the reality TV show "Ultimatepoker.com Showdown" in late 2005 on Channel Five.
From then on she presented at the 2006 WSOP for the Gutshot and became a presenter/hostess at EPTs. She was, when a number of us met her at the APAT Welsh Event in the APAT second season in early 2008, a personable player. She final tabled that event but my memory of her play was that she was very tight, and very much like a card-rack early on Day 2!
From that point on though her relationship with Ultimate Bet dating back to that first TV appearance, and most especially a lot of mentoring and coaching from Annie Duke, began to come to the fore. In May 2009 she joined UB.com as one of their professional players, and represents them in tournaments around the world. This was a controversial move, at least within the UK Poker community, in the aftermath of the "SuperUser" scandal that by then had engulfed Absolute Bet and Ultimate Bet, whose logos she was now sporting at events on a Worldwide scale.
Before the San Remo EPT Liv had notched up live tournament cashes exceeding $230,000 including the Ladbrokes European Ladies Championships in May 2008, but throughout what was becoming a successful time on the felt it was easy for many to haughtily dismiss Liv merely as "eye candy" with features constantly in media and magazines such as Loaded Magazine, Maxim, Sport Magazine UK, World Poker Tour, GuitarWorld, Cardplayer, Bluff and Gambling Online.
However this result should reverse this perception. An EPT win through a record 1240 players and a €1,200,000 first prize tends to do that!
You could see how much it meant to her too. Congratulations to her.
Full payout structure for EPT San Remo season six:
1 - Liv Boeree, UK, €1,250,0002 - Jacob Carlsson, Sweden, €750,000
3 - Toni Pettersson, Finland, PokerStars qualifier, €420,000
4 - Michael Piper, UK, PokerStars qualifier, €345,000
5 - Alexey Rybin, Russia, €270,000
6 - Giuseppe Diep, Italy, €210,000
7 - Claudio Piceci, Italy, €150,000
8 - Atanas Gueorguiev, Bulgaria, €90,000
Alexandra Ottewell