February 2011 Archives

IT'S 5.15am and the exhaustion is kicking in.

More than eight hours of play of the £300 side event at Nottingham UKIPT has come down to this moment.

A field of 164 has been whittled down to 29, and I'm facing the last hand before the tournie ends for the day, to be continued tomorrow.

Sitting on a half decent stack of 36,000 chips - compared to the average of 54,000 - I have no intention of playing this final hand, especially when the early position chip leader puts in a raise on the 600/1,200 blinds to 2,600.

But then I look down and see AK.

The rest of the players fold like a second hand deckchair... and it is down to me in the small blind.

Then the mistakes began.

SHE'S known as the Iron Maiden because of a ruthless poker playing style which saw her win a £1 million event.

But Liv Boeree, 26, has revealed a softer side by admitting she once cried after crushing an opponent - on hit TV quiz, GoldenBalls.

The former astrophysicist became a world superstar in the male-dominated sport after winning a European Poker Tour (EPT) tournament in San Remo last year, scooping the seven figure prize.

Now Liv - who played a top Midlands poker event last weekend - has revealed how one of her first cash wins on Jasper Carrot's GoldenBalls held bittersweet memories.

''I made it through to the final where you have to decide to 'steal' or 'split' the jackpot,'' she recalled.

''Anyone who knows anything about game theory knows that the only option you can really go for is steal, because if you choose split and they choose steal you go away with nothing.

''My opponent chose split, so I won the money (£6,500) - but I felt terrible afterwards and actually cried.

''In poker you can do a deal with opponents at a final table, but on that show we were taken off to different areas, so that was not an option.''

It's that determined streak that has seen Liv rise to the top of the poker scene in just a few years, so far earning an astonishing $2,000,000 in winnings.

HE had been losing nosebleed amounts in the last few weeks.

But now Viktor Blom - aka Isildur1 - has turned things around in spectacular fashion by banking an astonishing $640,000 in just three days on PokerStars.

The heads-up specialist played his SuperStar Showdown match against Daniel Cates on Sunday night and scooped more than $50,000.

And then things really took off for the Team PokerStars member..