Liv Boeree Makes 2010 Poker’s Year of the Woman

Liv Boeree’s EPT score is another big moment for women in poker in 2010.

Despite the problems presented when a volcano shut down European air travel, EPT San Remo ended up being the largest tournament in the history of the European Poker Tour. And as if that weren’t enough to make it historic, a woman went and won the whole thing.

Liv Boeree walked away from the San Remo final table with the championship and some €1,250,000 (US $1,672,750). Not only that, but the 25-year-old charged from a distant third with three players remaining to the chip lead as heads-up play began with Jakob Carlsson, the man who had led the final table from the start. He managed to claw back ahead, but in the end Boeree’s hand-making mojo proved too much for him to overcome and he exited with €750,000 (US $1,003,650).

Boeree’s win comes during what has been a very good year indeed for women poker players. Annie Duke grabbed her high-profile win at the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship earlier this year, showing that she’s still a poker player and not just the ex-bracelet winner who butted heads with Joan Rivers on Celebrity Apprentice. Then just last week Vanessa Selbst completely dominated the NAPT Mohegan Sun main event, firmly establishing herself as a major force in the poker world even while finishing up her education in law at Yale. 

And now comes Boeree, the former astrophysics student turned model turned poker player, metal chick extraordinaire who’s as likely to jam out on the guitar as she is to jam on the river. Her win is only the second by a woman in EPT history, but the sheer size of the win overshadows that previous victory by Vicky Coren at the EPT London in 2006. And combined with the wins by Selbst and Duke, it’s enough to make us declare 2010 Poker’s Year of the Woman.

If those three huge wins by women are a sign of things to come, we might see some more milestones reached this summer at the WSOP. Perhaps a woman will win an open-field no-limit hold’em bracelet for the first time - maybe even the Main Event, which no woman has ever won in the 40 years it has run. Hard to say at this point exactly what will happen, but it would sure be fun to watch those sorts of milestone events unfold this summer. But even if they don’t, Liv Boeree and Duke and Selbst have taken giant strides this year for the cause of the fairer sex in poker.