Liv Boeree - the latest subject of our regular series, The Interview (click above to watch now) - is not your run-of-the-mill poker player.
While many take up poker in college, Boeree spent her time in higher education focused on acquiring a first-class honors degree - in physics with astrophysics. Poker would come afterwards, and when it did it came courtesy of Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke and Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliot, who personally coached her as part of a reality TV series in which she starred.
Boeree is upfront about how her looks may have played a part in getting her foot in the door of the poker world, but hasn’t always seen herself as a traditionally ‘feminine’ person.
“I've always been more classically ‘masculine-brained’ compared to most women,” she says, “which is probably why I was so interested in things like physics and poker, which is still - on the spectrum of all things in the world - very masculine-coded. And it always will be: I think that's why you'll never see a parity of men and women wanting to play it. It's about risk, it's about being cutthroat, it's kind of psychopathic if you think about it.”
Armed with just the right amount of cutthroat psychopathic energy, Boeree has enjoyed a string of successes, both on and off the table: a WSOP bracelet, an EPT championship, co-founding a non-profit charity and hosting a successful podcast.
With so much already achieved, where else could she make her mark? That question was answered emphatically in The Bahamas almost two months ago, as she claimed the record for the biggest ever live poker win by a female player. $2.8 million for fourth place at the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event cemented a place in history, and took her into the top 4 of the women’s all-time money list.
Now, the latest and most impressive accolade of her storied career: an appearance with Craig Tapscott on PokerOrg’s The Interview!
Watch the full interview above, or see below for links to the audio podcast.
The life of Liv
Our exclusive hour-long interview gets into detail about various aspects of Boeree’s career and the wider poker world, including:
- Her relentless competitive spirit and how it’s driven her poker accomplishments, her career aspirations and her personal relationships
- The reasons why she took an extended break from the professional game, and how and why she returned
- How the rise of AI and solvers affected her thinking about poker, as she convinced herself to trust the math rather than her own intuition
- Her fears over the addictive qualities of social media, and her ideas to help make the actions and motivations of social media platforms more transparent
- The idea at the heart of her ‘Win-Win’ project, as misapplied game theory incentivizes destructive behavior across the planet
If you enjoy this, you can check out other episodes, including last month’s edition with Phil Galfond.
Listen Now! You can now experience The Interview on your Apple and Spotify podcast channels.
Catch Liv Boeree’s podcast at her website, her YouTube channel, or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow her on X.
