There was a time when Liv Boeree seemed to be everywhere in poker. A PokerStars Team Pro, a GPI European Female Player of the Year and an ever-present in the women’s all-time tournament money list, Boeree has always had an analytical and objective approach to the game, supported no doubt by her background in science.
With her degree in physics, her experience being coached by the likes of Phil Hellmuth and Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott, and a major international title under her belt - she won the EPT Main Event in Sanremo in 2010 - Boeree has taken a step back from her poker career in recent years.
Writing and podcasting have taken up more of her time, particularly with her Win-Win podcast, in which she discusses the greatest challenges and dilemmas facing humanity, with some of the world’s leading thinkers as her guests.
The past few years have seen just a handful of tournament results added to Boeree’s poker resume, but this week we were happy to see one of England’s finest players back at the tables at the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event.
And not just back, but back at the top.
A top 10 stack for Day 3
“It’s such a huge event. When I heard about it, it just seemed so incredible,” Boeree tells PokerOrg’s Jeff McMillan at the close of Day 2. The biggest ever live tournament guarantee of $50 million has turned heads across the globe, with hobbyists, players and former high rollers drawn to the events in The Bahamas. Indeed, Boeree was not the only shark who has resurfaced here in the Caribbean, with the likes of Vanessa Selbst - another ex-PokerStars Pro - putting poker retirement on hold for a shot at the riches on offer.
“It was unbelievable, I ran so good,” says Boeree as the Day 2 crowds begin to dissipate, safe in the knowledge they’ve made the money. “I played really well, and now I have 8.2 million chips. I can’t believe it.”
Boeree made an appearance on a featured table towards the end of Day 2.It’s a stack that puts her in the top 10 of the chip counts as the tournament enters Day 3, with $50K locked up already and surely an eye on the upper reaches of the prize money; the top 8 finishers will all bag at least $1 million. It seems she hasn’t lost her touch - is it really true she really hasn’t been playing poker lately? Not even a bit of off-the-table study?
“None. Literally none of that. I mean, I still think about it sometimes, and I’m obviously using it passively in terms of making decisions - because poker trains you to be a decision maker - but no, I’m not actually studying poker at all today.”
‘Just do what the f__k you want’
Perhaps that grounding in decision-making - that zoomed-out, objective view of a situation that poker helps you adopt - is not something so easy to shake off? Poker is a game where strategies evolve and adapt. Exploitative, GTO, small-ball… there are trends and fads, and even the presence of solvers, it seems, will provide merely another direction in which poker thinking can travel, rather than the end of a road.
With the benefit of some time away from the daily push-and-pull of poker strategy, and her analytical background, we asked if poker strategy has changed since it was her bread and butter.
“Poker these days, it’s like: play how you want,” says Boeree. “There’s less rules, there’s less formalities, there’s no, like, ‘you can’t lead here, and no donk-betting’. Just do what the f*ck you want.
“It feels like the game has gone full circle, and it turns out everything the fish were doing back in 2008 was kind of OK.”
Boeree and her 8.2M chips will be back in action today in Day 3 of the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event. Will she win enough to get back into the all-time women’s top 10 money list? Trick question: she never left.
