Walking into the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure poker room, an intimidating figure of Liv Boeree, wearing six-inch heels and wielding a whip, greeted thousands of poker players. Between waterslides and poker at the PCA, I talked to the San Remo EPT and Sunday Warm-up champion on being re-imagined as a poker dominatrix, fish massages, and her tips for women in live super-satellites.

Poker Stars Women (PSW): Tell us about the video campaign, "We are Poker". It looks incredible--you must be getting a lot of questions about it!

Liv Boeree (LB): It was such an epic shoot. They had to sew me into the dress; it was completely made to measure. I had to wear things in strategic places to cover up. The make-up and hair took hours. The actual whip was huge, like 20 feet long. And they asked me to get it going and the actual swinging around the headshot was easy. It was absolutely fantastic.

PSW: How quick were you to catch on to the whip?

LB: Surprisingly quick, or perhaps unsurprisingly, depending on what your opinion of me may be.

PSW: Ha! So, did you get a chance to punish your opponents at the PCA?

LB: I had a deep run in the Main Event and ended up cashing. Overall, this is the best PCA I've ever been to. The weather is insanely good, it's so warm. We've been hanging out on the waterslides all day. We also went to the beach today and some people were dropping bread . . . there was a whole shoal of fish around you, kind of like of fish massage. I've been playing fewer tourneys as a results but I feel balanced and relaxed when I do play.

PSW: It seems that PokerStars is adding a lot of interesting but less typical formats to their live tour spots, like the "Ante Up" tournament, the "Win the Button" and the $1000 + $1000 bounty. What do you think about these types of ideas?

LB: I think it's great that they're being creative about the different types of poker. It keeps people's interest in the game. For instance, Rivers is a very interesting concept. I played that at the EPT in London and ended up coming in third. It's kind of a cross between Omaha, Hold'Em and Stud. Everyone gets his or her own river card facedown. A surprising number of people misread their hands. I'm really impressed with all the innovation.

PSW: One format that often interests our readers at PokerStars Women is satellites, since those are gateways to events like the PCA. Now that you are a pro playing high-rollers, do you still play satellites?

LB: I actually still try to. I haven't played any here but it's important. I was thinking of playing a satellite into the high roller.

PSW: When you won San Remo, didn't you satellite in?

LB: That's right--I did, I didn't have the bankroll to buy-in otherwise. I was in the South of France for something else and I couldn't get home due to the volcano, so I was like all right, "I'll just jump on the train to San Remo" to try satellites. I won the first one I played and then won the tournament.

PSW: Wow, that worked out well! Do you have any tips for live satellites?

LB: Well it mostly comes down to short stack play so you need to know your shoving ranges well. The average stack will usually be only about 18-20 blinds at the end, maybe even less. As for women, particularly in live satellite, if you make friends with people at your table, sometimes people can be extremely chivalrous. The number of walks I've gotten during the bubble of a satellite, just by talking to people and making friends with people at the table . . . it can be amazingly beneficial. I actually like that about satellites. You can make a lot of good friends at them.

PSW: I agree. Personality is key in live satellites. What are you planning to play in next?

LB: EPT Deauville. There will probably be a big turnout and I'm very excited about it. Then I'll play the UKIPT Galway. That's the start of season three of UKIPT, which will be really fun. And then more EPTs.

PSW: How do you find time between all your tournaments and engagements to work on your game?

LB: Mostly by discussing hand examples with people. Just going over scenarios again and again. Try to get as many in your head as possible, talking to friends about correct lines of play.

PSW: Do you have any interesting hands from this Main Event?

LB: Yeah, I had one on day two against David Bach, a very well-known mixed game cash player. He plays very high-stakes and has also won a WSOP bracelet. He is an incredibly accomplished player, but I don't know if No Limit Hold'Em is his best game.

I opened the button with queens with about 33 big blinds (effective stack). He defends. The flop comes T93 rainbow. He check raises me. Obviously ten-nine can be in his range here a lot, but also straight draws. I don't think he's likely to have tens or nines so the only set I'm really worried about is threes. One important thing about this hand is that I had overheard him talking about a hand previously, saying "I should have raised that turn." He had Ace-ten and the turn was a ten, but there were a lot of straights and so on out there and I thought it was weird he wanted to raise for value.

So after he check raises me in our hand I think that there are a lot of Ace-tens, King-tens and maybe Queen-tens in his range. His raise was pretty small so I called. The turn is a seven . . . not too bad, the only straight that got there is Jack-eight, and I don't think he's defending that. He bets again quite big and I call. The river is a three. And he bets 5K and I've got 11K total. So I go for quite a thin value-shove . . . and he calls me off with queen-ten.

PSW: Nice, you doubled up. So did you think about calling instead of shoving the river?

LB: Well, when the board paired on the river, I beat ten-nine... if not, I probably would have just called.

PSW: You don't think he played it well? You didn't like his check/raise?

LB: No, I don't like his check-raise, barrel/barrel, call line at all.

PSW: Do you have any tips for members of PokerStars Women for improving online?

LB: Practice, practice, practice. Get in the maximum number of hands. I would recommend using tracking software if you're interested in playing a lot of volume. If you can train your mind to think of things like VPIP (Voluntarily Put Money in Pot), steal percentage, 3-bet percentage, etc., then similarly when you're playing live, you're going to be thinking along the same lines. So instead of thinking vaguely, I think this person is active, you're more likely to think, "Wow- they've actually played 30 of the last 70 hands."

PSW: Yet some very strong online players don't use this software for tournaments . . .

LB: Yeah, a few of my friends don't use it . . . Then they're just amazing. But I believe anything that can help your edge, why not?

PSW: Well, you've certainly had a lot of recent success online, like your 2011 Sunday Warm-Up win. How did that feel?

LB: It set me up for an amazing year online and was a real confidence booster. I just wish my live year had been as good as my online year. The plan for 2012 is to combine it and crush online and live. Cashing the Main Event of the PCA was a great start.

This was waspish television presenter Jeremy Paxman introducing Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree on a special Christmas edition of the BBC's University Challenge, the quiz show for boffins that makes the likes of you and me question if we, in fact, know anything at all.

I'm not sure if University Challenge, which has been an institution on UK screens since the 1960s, is shown elsewhere, but here's a quick explanation: Two teams of four face off against each other in a series of first-on-the-buzzer questions, called Starters for Ten (points). Whichever team gets the answer then has a series of three supplementary questions worth five points each. As the show's name suggests, each team of four comes from the same university, and winners of each episode progress to the next round and on to the final.

The Christmas editions see well-known former students representing their old university. Our Liv was on last night, representing the University of Manchester. Here's how she introduced herself:

"Hello, I'm Liv Boeree. I studied physics with astrophysics, graduating in 2005 and now I'm a poker player and TV presenter."

Then it was off with the quiz. Liv's team went on to win by 125 points to the 120 of York, and it was great for poker that one of our own showed herself up as a brainbox on national television.

I asked her what the experience was like. "I was mildly terrified at the prospect of University Challenge - mostly because my once-good knowledge of academia had until recently left my brain in place of poker," she said.

"Fortunately, it turned out my fear was shared by every other 'famous graduate' contestant as we met in the green room prior to filming. Everyone's goal was very much to get through with a semblance of reputation intact, and fortunately our team managed it!

"Jeremy Paxman is not the intimidating fellow you see from University Challenge and Newsnight (his current affairs programme). He was incredibly charming and friendly, and went quite out of his way to make sure each contestant was at ease (at least off camera!)."

University Challenge is far from easy. Below are the 18 starter questions that I noted. How many would you get right? Your writer's progress is recorded next to some of the questions, but keep in mind that for the contestants these are asked under pressure in a TV studio and answers have to be super quick. Also keep in mind your writer spent most of his student years in a pub.

The answers are at the end - no peeking, and no switching tabs to Google!

1 Quote: "When a man is tired of London he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford." These are the words of which literary.. one of the team's interrupted and buzzed with the answer.

2 The Inn, Enns, Drava, Tisza and Sava are among tributaries of which river, formed by the confluence of the Breg and the Brigach, both of which rise in the Black Forest?

3 If the full name of W begins with T, with what letter does the full name of K begin in terms of chemical symbols? (I fluked got his one - SY)

4 In which opera by Verdi is the title character a hunchbacked court jester cursed by the Count of Monterone?

5 Give the pronunciation of all three of the common homophones that mean, mark that shows a proposed insertion in a text, unit of measure for precious stones, and a metaphorical means of persuasion. (Another lucky one for me - SY)

6 In Greek mythology, the maenads or raving ones were the female followers of which God?

7 "Man owes his entire existence to the State and has his being within it alone." These are the words of which German philosopher in a work of 1830?

8 Shared by 12 Popes between 140 and 1958, what name is the Latin form of an English name meaning dutiful, religious or devout?

9 The Wino Bar is an anagram of the title of which 1915 novel set largely in Nottinghamshire? Its characters include Tom Brangwen and Anna Lensky. (I luckboxed got this, too - it was the only book I bothered reading for English Literature A Level - SY)

10 What adjective links two-word terms meaning in chemistry ethanol that contains less than one per cent of water by weight, in politics a majority over all rivals combined, and in physics the lowest temperature that is theoretically possible. (Another insane guess score for Young - SY)

There was a music starter for ten with a bit of classical music, and the teams had to name the composer. It was Bach (and I got that right, only because it sounded dreary - SY)

11 Which city is being described: Lying on a coral outcrop in the Indian Ocean, its first known European visitor was Vasco da Gama in 1498. It's separated from the mainland by Tudor Creek and Kilindini Harbour and is the second largest city in Kenya.

12 Which decade saw the publication of George Eliot's Middlemarch and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, the first performance of Bizet's Carmen and the first impressionist exhibition in Paris?

13 Names denoting the current geological era, the President of France from 1995 to 2007, and the writing system used in Bulgarian and Russian all begin and end with which letter? (One correct for me on behalf of the University of Life - SY)

14 In 2010, an unmanned spacecraft from which country became the first to return a sample of an asteroid to earth after a... interrupted when a team buzzed the answer.

15 Which work of 1949 was described by the Irish Times as a play in which nothing happens... twice?

16 Peru and Guinea-Bissau are among six sovereign states with English names that end in the letter U. The other four are in the Pacific. Ten points if you can name three of them. (Liv so nearly got this, naming two of the islands correctly, but forgetting the third. I have never heard of any of them - SY)

17 Pronounced differently in each case, which sequence of five letters ends three common words meaning vocalist, digit and red haired? (Another for me - the red-haired bit clinched it; I was thinking of blogger Stephen Bartley - SY)

18 Thought to be the first of its kind in the world, the surcharge on foods that are high in saturated fat was introduced in October, 2011 in which EU member state?

Answers:
1 Samuel Johnson
2 The Danube
3 P (as in potassium)
4 Rigoletto
5 Carrot
6 Dionysus
7 Hegel
8 Pius
9 The Rainbow
10 Absolute
11 Mombasa
12 1870s
13 C
14 Japan
15 Waiting for Godot
16 Palau, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Nauru
17 inger
18 Denmark

How many would you have got? Leave a comment and show off your brain power.

Readers in the UK can probably catch up and watch the show this week on BBC iPlayer

When you win an EPT title your world changes overnight; and if you're Liv Boeree, the whole world comes knocking at your door. Or at least that's the way it seemed when she described it to me recently. Liv's win at the PokerStars 2010 EPT San Remo netted her € 1,250,000 and changed her life forever. It also brought her into the public limelight in a way she hadn't imagined. PokerStars was the first to come calling, but there were so many others that her phone "rang off the wall" for days. The BBC, the Daily Mail, and others kept her going at warp speed, just fielding all the calls. "I was in national newspapers and magazines," she said to me more than once, as if she still has a hard time believing it. "I was amazed at the positive reaction."

Watching her as she describes it all, I can see clearly why she has garnered so much attention. Not only is she stunning in a natural girl next door kind of way, with no makeup and dressed casually in jeans and tennis shoes. But beyond all that, the petite twenty-six year-old brunette has a confidence and an intensity that radiates from her to light up the room, and those around her. As I listen to her description of those few days, I'm reminded that Team PokerStars Pro players are chosen not only for their tournament wins but for their ability to connect with people and to be ambassadors for the game. With her media background as an announcer on British television and various other gigs in the public eye, she's relaxed and articulate, but there is something more. When she speaks, you can see and hear the massive intelligence that spurred her to obtain a degree in astrophysics at the University of Manchester. But beyond that is the enthusiasm she has for the game and for what poker has brought to her life, an excitement that translates into everything she says. But with all that excitement comes a certain level of stress too.

As she recalls it, "I remember winning the tournament and being really exhausted, then going out partying that night afterwards. I woke up the next day to the phone ringing and it was PokerStars calling. After that, the phone rang off the hook for two solid days." Being the toast of the town and all over the news would seem to be a poker player's dream, and it was "amazing" as she puts it, but all the attention came with its own stresses for a person like Liv who likes to be in control. "It was a very stressful week," she reflects, "basically because I hate the thought of missing out on an opportunity or not capitalizing on it fully, and there were just so many things going on." She says her family was "wonderful, and so supportive," and her mom helped her manage the phone calls and setting up interviews and the like, when it all happened.

But then she goes back to that niggling worry, "Every now and then I look back on it and think, "Did I handle everything correctly, did I miss an opportunity I should have taken better advantage of?" She comments that she now has "sort of a business manager," but she "likes to be in control of everything when it comes to my career. I don't like trusting anyone with too many of the details. I like to make the decisions."

As I imagine it, these are the kinds of things that Liv Boeree worries about on those nights when she can't sleep. Not whether she made the right move in that one particular hand, but those possible missed opportunities and small missteps. She has big plans for her career and for her life, and this is only the beginning. And she has to get it right.

She describes herself as being "absurdly competitive" in everything she does, and says that "it is important to be the best. I hate losing." But being the best in poker was not something she aspired to when she was younger, since she was never exposed to the game until she was 21. She learned poker for the first time when she took part in a reality TV show in Britain called The Ultimate Poker Showdown. Her achievements are all the more impressive when you realize that she learned the game only five short years ago.

She was raised as "basically an only child" in Kent, in the countryside outside of London and says she thinks she gets her competitiveness from her relationship with her dad. She says that they used to play ping pong "maniacally, and refuse to give up," while her mom was "laid back and lovely." She went to a girl's school from ages 7-18 and says that she wasn't around boys much at all during those years. She made up for that fact in a big way by getting into the rock music scene during college where she played heavy metal with a rock band and then again a few years later when she took up poker. Although I can't imagine it ever being much of a problem for an attractive female rock musician like Liv to attract men, poker has increased her attention from the male sector exponentially.

Liv says that up until recently "99.5 percent of her fans were male." She remarked that in the last six months or so "the vast majority of people who have come up to me to ask questions or get photos have been male." But recently, especially at the PCA, this has changed. She commented that the previous evening she had been in one of the clubs at Atlantis, and "three different girls came up to me independently to ask for photos and ask questions. It was really nice. I've never really had that before." This brought us to a comment that reveals what is really important to her about all the recognition she gets from the game. "It's nice to have male fans," she says, "but obviously it's easier to have that, I'm a girl." She continues, "But to have female fans, to be able to convince discerning females--and let's be honest, women are much more discerning--that's a real honor. Having the respect of other women is way more important to me than having the respect of men."

She mentioned that this year she saw many more women playing the Main Event than the previous year and that they "weren't the regulars" she was used to seeing, but new players she had never seen before. She said that at one point she looked over the table to her left and saw three women playing at a table of nine, "at a 10K Main Event." (The player list from the Main Event proves her to be correct in this observation, with 41 women playing this year, as opposed to the two previous years when participation in the Main Event was considerably lower, 14 in 2009 and 29 in 2010.) She also mentioned the amazing run from Ana Marquez, who placed tenth in the Main Event as a portent of things to come. "I think we're just going to see more and more women coming in." She remarked, "PokerStars is doing a fantastic job with the PokerStars Women initiative, and it is the only mainstream site that is actively pursuing women, and encouraging female players."

I asked her if being a representative and a spokesperson for women in the game was stressful in some ways. "I would be telling a lie if I said it didn't add a layer of pressure, but being a spokesperson for women, and for the game in general, is what my long term goal was and continues to be." She remarked that "once you have some major results (like the win in San Remo), people expect you to keep having those results, and of course you know that having even one major tournament win a year is way above expectations for anyone. But I actually like that pressure. It's easy to become complacent, and having that extra drive and responsibility of being a member of Team PokerStars Pro helps to keep me always out there always trying to improve. We're expected to be the best in the world and we're expected to perform well. But I like that; it's something I thrive on."

But can't it be difficult managing all those expectations and requests for interviews, photos, and other media? "It can be tiring when you have a full day of interviews and you're playing the next day, but PokerStars is so good at scheduling interviews and providing support. They make sure we are left alone when we're playing, so that really helps. But I actually love doing media, and I love those special events like tonight. We have a red carpet charity event and I get to get dressed up a bit and have my photo taken. I love that part! I don't wear dresses often and when I do on those rare occasions, it's fun to be a bit glam!"

Her three favorite things about being a Team PokerStars Pro? "Definitely the prestige and the lifestyle--the travel, the chance to live out the pro player's dream of playing the circuit and all that." After a few thoughtful moments, she came up with a third. "The third would have to be the celebrity. The chance to be invited to things you wouldn't ordinarily be invited to, the opportunity to meet all these wonderful people and players from around the world, and of course the red carpet type events like tonight."

Liv says that she definitely has a lot of goals that she hopes to achieve in poker, the first of which is to be the first person to win a second EPT Main Event bracelet. Her most ambitious goal is to go for the Triple Crown of poker--an EPT bracelet (which she already has from her win in San Remo in 2010), a WPT bracelet, and a WSOP bracelet. She says that she also has goals that are outside the realm of poker as well, and that she feels she has something important to contribute to the world in another area (she was a straight A student in college and had plans to go on for a doctorate). But she says that poker will always be a part of her life because she is always striving to be the best, and in poker, that's a constantly moving target. "The day you say, 'I'm great at poker,' is the day you stop being great."

For more information on Liv Boeree and other female Team PokerStars Pro players, see profiles and videos, along with other interviews at www.pokerstarswomen.com.
Evidence of that constant striving to be the best was illustrated when Liv won the Sunday Warm-Up on February 6 for $147,780 against one of poker's most feared online opponents, James "mig.com" Mackey (winner of the 2007 WCOOP and Event # 13 in the 2010 SCOOP Championship). They jostled heads-up for over an hour until Liv finally took it down after coming from 10 million behind at the start of the match.

Despite our desire to have a quiet day here on the farm, it's our duty to report that we have video of Liv Boeree doing something spectacular. We'll wait for you to calm down.

Good? Alright.

You might have heard a little something about Boeree taking down this weekend's Sunday Warm-Up. As it turns out, we have a rare Sunday Warm-Up highlight show featuring of Boeree in the act.

Boeree won nearly $150,000 for her Sunday Warm-Up victory this weekend after defeating James "mig.com" Mackey heads-up.

The good folks over at PokerStars.tv have hooked us up with the highlight show. You can see it below. No pushing, please.

Four Team PokerStars Pros found themselves in the last 1% of the field as Pieter De Korver, Marcin "Goral" Horecki, Liv Boeree, and Daniel "KidPoker" Negreanu were looking to a huge online score to their various live accomplishments. Down to four tables Liv and Marcin got cozy on Table 228 as Daniel and Peter would tangle on Table 300 as the final table was right around the corner after the Black Eyes Peas left the stage during the Super Bowl halftime show.

De Korver was staring at the chip lead with 31 left after finding pocket aces in a three-way all-in against nikolai1986 holding pocket eights, and Supernova Marwetz holding 89o. But the board came down with a straight for Marwetz knocking De Korver down to fumes. Pieter would get some decent gas mileage out to those 66,000 chips with blinds at 30K/60K ante 6K and win his next two consecutive all-ins to get back to over 500K. Three hands later he would retrieve another stack of chips from Marwetz after flipping [As][Jd] vs. Marwetz's pocket fours [4h][4d] and finding a life saving jack on the river [5c] [8s] [6s] [3h] [Jc] to go over a million chips from 66K in just five hands. No, chip-and-chair story however as DNA2RNA would look up Pieter's push from the small blind several hands later with [Ad][Qc]. De Korver was looking good with pocket kings [Ks][Kc] until an ace found its way to the flop [5d] [2h] [As] [Jh] [7s] ending Pieter's night in 24th place ($2,345.58).

Daniel's exit was shortly behind just five hands later with the blinds still at 30K/60K ante 6K after flipping preflop with big stacked Cod Meharly. Pocket sevens [7d][7c] would survive the flop [6h] [Qs] [Kc] for Negreanu against Cod Meharly's [As][Ts]. But the turn hit the gutshot broadway draw [Js] leaving Daniel drawing dead and earning $2,345.58 in 22nd place.

2010 SCOOP Event #13-high and 2007 WCOOP Event champ James "mig.com" Mackey was busy taking down the adjacent table from the two Team PokerStars pros Horecki and Boeree eliminating BLAABAR in 12th place, and after Martwetz shipped his chips to vmnielsen, Mackey would set the final table. With blinds at 80K/160K ante 16K Immm0rtal would shove from the button for 1.1 million as Mackey in the small blind would snap call holding aces [As][Ac]. [Jc][Qs] had an uphill battle and found its first step with a queen on the flop [7c] [6d] [Qc] after the pair though, the second step was never taken as [Ts] on the turn and [2s] river ended Immm0rtal's night in tenth place ($5,652.00) setting up the final table below:

Seat 1: Liv Boeree (4934920 in chips)
Seat 2: DNA2RNA (3671677 in chips)
Seat 3: Aduobe4 (7071757 in chips)
Seat 4: Cod Meharly (6839491 in chips)
Seat 5: vmnielsen (4766508 in chips)
Seat 6: James "mig.com" Mackey (9320760 in chips)
Seat 7: RasA86 (2523124 in chips)
Seat 8: Bjoerni89 (3804035 in chips)
Seat 9: Marcin "Goral" Horecki (4167728 in chips)

Did you order aces again Mr. Mackey?
As the blinds moved up to 100K/200K ante 20K mig.com would min raise from the cutoff as RasA86 took this as weakness and shove for 3.7 million on the button. The blinds folded, Mackey did not and snap called with aces [Ah][Ad]. RasA86 could only produce [9d][Kd] and got a little sweat with the [7h] [Td] [Qh] flop finding four outs. The [6s] was not one of them, and neither was the [3d] finishing RasA86's night in ninth place ($7,536.00).

Team PokerStars pro Marcin Horecki eliminated in 8th place

Watch below as the Polish pro ends up on the short end of a three-way all in with Bjoerni89 and Cod Meharly:

Bjoerni89: [Ah][Ac]
Cod Meharly: [Js][Jc]
Marcin "Goral" Horecki: [Ad][Qh]

An all-low board [2s] [4s] [6c] [8s] [3c] would ship the 16.6 million chip pot to Supernova Bjoerni89 and by rule of chip position Horecki finished in 8th place ($11,775.00) and Cod Meharly who also final tabled Event #8-High at the 2010 SCOOP tournament finished seventh ($21,195.00).

Boeree makes good on her win
After squeezing AQo by the pocket kings of Bjoerni89 for a 10 million chip pot, Boeree put those acquired chips to good use as the blinds moved up to 125K/250K ante 25K. Liv would lead off the betting with a raise to 585,000 from UTG + 1 as vmnielsen shoved for 2.8 million total from the small blind. Boeree covered easily and made the call holding pocket sixes [6c][6h]. A small, suited ace [Ah][4h] for vmnielsen looking for some hearts and failed to find any on the [9c] [5d] [5c] [4s] [3c] board shipping the 6.1 million chip pot to the EPT San Remo champ and finishing vmnielsen's night in sixth place ($30,615.00).

Aces not needed this time, mig.com shoots down another victim
Big run by James Mackey tonight and thanks to a fortunate card on the flop below, it would continue as the chip leader:

Mackey would find himself dominated with the blinds at 150K/300K ante 30K after a series of raises left DNA2RNA all in holding [Kd][Ad]. mig.com was behind with [As][Jd] in this 11.7 million chip pot but no worries, a jack on the flop [6c] [Jh] [8s] [9s] [4c] sent Mackey's stack up to 22 million and sent DNA2RNA untwisted in fifth place ($40,035.00).

Weapons of (poker) mass destruction
Five hands later Mackey was determined to eliminate every player at the final table after shoving over the top of Bjoerni89's cutoff min raise. Holding pocket sevens [7d][7h] and just five million chips with blinds at 150K/300K ante 30K Bjoerni89 would make the call. Only to see mig.com's pocket jacks [Jc][Js] well ahead and the afterburners were set when a jack hit the [Qh] [Jh] [Kd] [6s] [4h] board shipping another 11.4 million chips to Mackey and leave another victim in his wake. The Supernova VIP Bjoerni89 would take home $53,223.00 in fourth place.

Liv knows how to rock
The heavy metal-loving British pro showed Mr. Mackey he is not the only player at this table after staring down a shove from Aduobe4 for 6.9 million and holding [Td][Ad] Liv would make the call. And a good call it was as Aduobe4 flipped up the dominated [9h][Ac]. Both would catch an ace on the turn [3h] [5d] [Ks] [Ah] [Js] but Liv's ten kicker played and collected the 15.7 million chip pot after saying farewell to Aduobe4 in third place ($77,715.00).

Pro vs. Pro
SCOOP, WCOOP, and WSOP Champion James Mackey in one corner holding 28.4 million chips. European Poker Tour champ Liv Boeree in the other corner holding 18.6 million chips and ready for battle as the blinds would start at 150K/300K ante 30K and quickly move up to 200K/400K ante 40K as the Green Bay Packers finished up their champions interviews, we are looking to crown one here.

Not your average heads-up match
Usually heads-up play in the Sunday Warm-up is a quick affair. A quick flip for the remaining chips and $10,000 after the money chop is the norm.

Not tonight. As Boeree and Mackey past the 40 minute mark of their battle and as the blinds moved up to 300K/600K ante Mackey would enjoy his largest lead of the battle at 33 million to Boeree's 13 million and neither player giving a single chip. Five minutes later Liv would double thru Mackey for a 26.2 million chip pot holding [9d][Qs] and catching a nine on the door [9c] [Ah] [2c] [Ad] [5c] to best Mackey's [Kd][Jc].

Team PokerStars pro Arnaud "frenchkiss" Mattern sums it up well: "sick"
The heads-up match would push past an hour and even with the below 30 big blind stacks at 400K/800K ante 80K, both continued to play on with several fellow Team Pros looking on. The two players finally decided to take things preflop with Mackey holding 18 million to Liv's 28 million chips they would get all of them in preflop.

mig.com: [Ad][6c]
Liv Boeree: [7c][7s]

The ace would fail to appear on the [5s] [Qh] [9s] [5c] [Qc] board and Team PokerStars pro Liv Boeree takes down the Sunday Warm-up for $147,780.96!

$750,000 Guarantee Sunday Warm-up results (02-06-11)
1. Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree (Kent) $147,780.96
2. James "mig.com" Mackey $109,743.00
3. Aduobe4 (Waghäusel) $77,715.00
4. Bjoerni89 (Hann. Münden) $53,223.00
5. DNA2RNA (Tempe) $40,035.00
6. vmnielsen (kbh) $30,615.00
7. Cod Meharly (essex) $21,195.00
8. Team PokerStars Pro Marcin "Goral" Horecki (Warsaw) $11,775.00
9. RasA86 (Copenhagen) $7,536.00

The season opener in Galway was filmed and the next event to feature under the glare of the TV lights will be UKIPT Nottingham which runs from February 11 to 14. Other featured stops this season will be Manchester, Cork, Edinburgh and Dublin.

The shows will have UKIPT host Nick Wealthall as commentator with Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree as poker analyst. Set your videos (do people still do that?) for the first Galway episode to be aired at midnight on Tuesday, March 1.

The hotel Arts (where the tourney is held) is probably the best hotel I've ever stayed in, and the architecture of the city is unbelievable. On a day off a group of us went and visited the Sagrada Familia, the famous cathedral designed by Gaudi.

It really is the most breathtaking thing I've ever seen - if you visit it, go when the sun is low in the sky as the stained glass lights it up on the inside, not that my photo really does it justice:

Poker wise, Barcelona was mildly torturous. I made it to day 2 with 30k, which although short was a playable 25bbs. Things were looking up as I chipped up to 40k fairly quickly, and then I picked up AK into aces. Standard, yes, except for I was dished out the worst slowroll imaginable. After we got the chips in (my opponent was the EPT Vilamoura season 6 winner, Antonio Matias), I immediately flipped up my AK and he looked at it and sighed. Sweet, I thought, he has AQ. However, he refused to turn over his hand, saying "I wait for the cameras." The table responded, "no, you can reveal your hand immediately." But no, he waited, a full tick-tocking three minutes for the camera crew to come over and assemble themselves until the dealer finally forced him to reveal. Which he did one card at a time. Whilst smiling. Ace...... Ace. You like? No, sir, I do not like.

Why do people think it's ok to slowroll with the nuts in a heads up pot where your opponent is all in? I can perhaps understand that there can be some edge gained from slow-rolling when calling a river bet with the nuts, where your opponent is still going to be left at the table and getting them so tilted that they can potentially steam off the rest of their chips to you in a later hand, but to do it when they are all-in pre and extremely unlikely to survive? Hmm.

Anyway, onto Galway, Ireland, which was the very first stop of the brand new season of the PokerStars UKIPT. Despite the snow piling up high on the runways of the UK, an impressive 266 runners still battled their way to the event making it a big success. As the event was televised I got to flex the old TV hosting muscles alongside my friend and co-host Nick Wealthall which has got me hungry to do more presenting again! We also did a fun photoshoot on a diving board over Galway bay in -2 degree weather, surrounded by crazy Irish swimmers who apparently like to take weekly dips in the freezing water. Below is a photos courtesy of PokerStars and Mickey May.

The next tour stop is in Nottingham on Feb 11th where there will be a £200,000 guarantee.

I've just spent ten days in Los Angeles for the NAPT - this was the first one I'd been to and was pretty excited as I'd heard great things about these tournaments. I won my seat to it on the PokerStars Steps route and as such played day 1A with most of the qualifiers, again something I was excited about when I saw my table only had one person I recognised.

After winning a few pots here and there, I reached the dizzying heights of 32,000 from a 30,000 starting stack. And that was the peak of my lofty stack - from then on it got chipped away at, particularly by a couple of very frustrating hands - for example when I opened red A-Q middle position, a lady who plays a very strange game of poker calls out the small blind and the board comes [ad][Kc][5c]. She now leads out (she has a weak ace, yay) and I call. Turn is [8c] and she now looks at her cards and check-calls my near pot bet. River is a fourth club and she announces all-in proudly for double the pot. So that hand took a chunk of chips and a few more whiffs with A-K/A-Q dwindled me down to 13,500.

So then there's an open to 750, a raise in mid-position to 2000 and a flat by a big stack on the button. I'm in the small blind with Jacks and shove. First guy folds A-x, second guy calls with A-K and the third guy folds and shows A-K. Good shape, no? No. Bye bye NAPT main event.

However, there was more poker in store for me, in the form of the $3000 side event and most excitingly, a shootout in Compton. Yup, that's right, a 81 person bounty shootout invitational televised for ESPN $5000 that was held in the Crystal casino in the heart of South Central. I found myself at the feature table with Phil Hellmuth, Kevin Macphee, Shaun Deeb, Nick Binger, Jean-Robert Bellande, Chris Moneymaker and Jonathan Little.

I doubled fairly early on by check-calling Little's bluffs on all three streets with top set (which filled up on river), but then had a small blind vs. big blind confrontation against Macphee with my sevens versus his A-10 all-in pre-flop, which he duly won by making quads (the photo below captures our facial expressions as the board ran out perfectly...).

So after that there was no more poker for me - just three free days to enjoy the fun LA had to offer, including messing around on the beach (more photos below) and rocking out with one of my favourite bands who happened to be playing LA that week, too.

A metal end to a pokery trip, what more could I ask for?

Boeree, who was born in 1984, and still so young, is the face to watch, pun fully intended, at PokerStars events. Not only might you get some fashion tips, but it's also nice to see such a friendly, smiling face at these events. I recently caught up with the former model and TV presenter (who found her way to poker through a reality TV show) in between tournaments.

The Team PokerStars Pro's journey thus far has been "a rollercoaster!" she says joyfully. "It wasn't until after graduation that I was introduced to poker, although the attraction was instant, and I knew it was the game for me. Since then I've worked really hard to become as good a player as I can be and to become known in the industry. It's been a long journey (nearly five years) that's taken me around the world quite literally!"

Looking back a few years, she admits that her best subjects were mathematics and sciences. "I always found physics particularly fascinating as it explains everything around us. I particularly loved the astrophysics side, as the universe is surely the most incredible thing. I don't understand how people don't want to spend more time knowing more about it!" (Hmm. . . . no comment from interviewer who barely made it through college.)

The crossover from the two subjects wasn't too difficult when Liv found herself at a poker table. As she says, "There are definitely skills that cross over between the two, such as logic, problem solving, and the ability to process lots of information under pressure in order to make the correct decision/calculation."

Now back to the more fun stuff. I tell her fellow Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso bought a yellow Lamborghini with her earnings, and I wonder what extravagances Liv has cashed in on. With a laugh she replies: "I'm looking for a nice new apartment." Oh come on, Liv, what else? What fancy fast car? She finally fesses up. "I've got my eye on one though, namely the new Jaguar XK."

Growing up on a farm in the beautiful countryside of Kent, Liv admits to having been an uber tomboy. "I was surrounded by animals, mud, and trees. Due to this I'm excellent at teaching dogs how to play hide and seek and other games!"

Asking where those beauty genes come from (she's appeared in Britain's "Maxim" to name just one magazine) she is free in admitting: "My mum! She's amazing, and still has the most incredible figure that hopefully means I have hope for the future. I'm actually very lazy when it comes to primping. I've only had two manicures in my life!" (That's okay Liv, I bite my nails.)

Our conversation ventures to men, but Liv says there is no special one. "No boyfriend," she admits bluntly. "I travel far too much to make a reasonable girlfriend for anyone. I have two pets that live with my parents: a bearded dragon lizard called Mr. Osterlind, and my horse, Bella."

As for fun, this former "ninety-two percent partier and eight percent panic-cramming student," loves to play her guitar when not playing poker. "I love nothing more than cranking up my amp and blasting out some Pantera. If I'm not playing, then chances are you'll find me in a metal bar head banging." She adds: "Table football is another hobby . . . and an excellent way of hustling poker boys out of their cash!"

And now that we know more about Liv Boeree, she fesses up a secret. Ready? She comes clean. "I can't say the word 'Ibuprofen!'" Aha! Must come from all that head banging!

You can watch Liv play online at PokerStars under the screen name 'LivBoeree'.

Boeree won EPT San Remo in April for $1,698,000 to cement her place as one of the most successful female players in the world. Her total live winnings approach $2million and she's had success online as well. Media worldwide have been taken not just by her skill at the tables and her obvious good looks, but also by her background - she's got a top degree in physics and astrophysics. What's that? Well, it's not rocket science (actually, it is).

Here's some more stuff about Boeree, 26, who makes her Team Pro debut this week at PokerStars EPT London...

Tell us about your background before you became a poker player?
"I went to the University of Manchester and got a first class degree in physics with astrophysics. At school I got 'A' grades in my physics, maths, geography and biology A Levels.

"I loved school - I went to Ashford Girls School where I was one of those weird people that hated homework but loved exams! I loved all the sciences, maths, geography, PE, but wasn't so much a fan of English or history."

What about work after you left university?
"I had one for 18 months as a campaign strategist/analyst for an online marketing company where I had to figure out where/when to place ads on Google. It was fun to start with but I quickly got bored of the 9-5 and started trying to figure out how to become a poker pro - fortunately it only took me 18 months to be able to quit and turn pro!"

How did that happen, then?
"After I finished my degree in 2005 and was trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life, I saw an advert for a reality TV show offering lots of money as the prize so I decided to enter. They kept it a secret until the last minute that it was about poker, and it turned out that the contestants would be coached to play poker against one another. I fell in love with the game instantly, particularly after my first live win during the filming of the show!

"On the show I was taught by Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke and the Devilfish. Annie and Phil have remained particularly influential to me and have helped me with my career even to this day. I also have many wonderful friends in poker who have continued to help and assist me which I am so grateful for.

What's your game now?
Mainly No Limit Hold'em, which is definitely my best game. I also play Pot Limit Omaha to a reasonable standard but have a lot of room for improvement there! I've also started learning the other games but I'm not very good yet - however, I have fallen in love with Razz so expect to see me playing that a lot!"

So what's it like to join Team PokerStars Pro?
"It's more of an honour than I can really describe. It's something I've been aspiring towards ever since I learned about the world of poker, and I am over the moon to be achieving such a huge personal goal!"

What do you hope to achieve as part of Team PokerStars Pro?
"I hope to grow my game as far as possible by studying and playing as much as I can. I'll also hopefully get to use the wonderful resource of the other Team Pros - some of the greatest poker minds in the game! Hopefully I'll use this to produce further results and make the Team proud!"

OK, life can't all be about poker. What other interests do you have?
"Music is a major part of my life! I started playing guitar when I was 17 or so - I now own about five electrics which I love dearly. My favourite genre is metal (and 80s rock!) and when I'm not playing poker I'll be found headbanging/moshing to my favourite bands which include Children of Bodom, Metallica, Pantera and Fear Factory.

"I also like table football, making my own clothes (I have a penchant for animal print spandex, embarrassing I know), riding my horse, rollercoasters and extreme weather (storms/tornadoes etc, not that we ever really get them in the UK)."

And what about sport?
"I'm not a huge fan of watching sports as such, but I love playing them! I was very competitive at school and was voted 'Captain of Sports' in sixth form. My best were athletics, netball and hockey. Nowadays my favourite sports are adventure sports like rock climbing, rafting and skiing. I also used to compete in various equestrian sports until I was 18."

What other card games do you play?
I'll play any card games (particularly drinking ones!). I seem to be pretty good at them - I run absurdly well in Chinese Poker which is definitely more luck than skill on my part..."

So there you have it, folks. Welcome to the Team, Liv.