Phew! I've just landed back from Copenhagen after a hectic weekend of poker and partying with friends for the last few days of the European Poker Tour. Despite my exhaustion, at the moment I'm rather happy as on Friday I managed to win a $2,500 seat to the European Ladies Championship in May.

The tournament was an exclusive freeroll (now that's value!) with a field of 28 Danish ladies and just 2 Brits, so of course I had to take it down for the home country. The field was a real mix of playing standards, from novices to a couple of very successful online cash pros, but after 4 hours of play I'm very chuffed to say I was the one standing there with the comedy over-sized cheque in my hands!

Just the night before I played my first bounty tournaments here on Absolute Poker. The first tourney of the night was the $1k guaranteed which attracted over 340 runners. My table was full of fun characters with constant chat, most of which was coming from observers on other tables keen to know who this bizarre "Liv" character was, and most importantly, to let me know just how they intended to steal the bounty!

One notable player was Rounderrick, who made it very clear in the chatbox that he was gunning for me from the start. True to his word, he pushed me off a couple of small pots early on with some strong aggressive play, but sadly went bust a few levels later. After an hour and a half I raised from mid-position with A-Q with one caller, and thought everything was rather splendid when the board came A-A-9. Foolishly, I slow played it and allowed Mangler59 to hit his flush with K-J, eliminating me but taking three times his buy-in for his efforts. Nice work, Mangler!

At 9pm was the $6k guaranteed, and quite by chance my new friend Matrix05, who was one of the aforementioned observers on the $1k, was seated to my right. After a slow start, I raised with Kings in mid-position, only for Mikenick00 to re-raise, me re-re-raise and all the chips fly into the middle for a dreaded Aces-vs-Kings confrontation. I was basically saying my goodbyes when all of the sudden the board produces a runner-runner straight for my Kings, and I win the
monster pot. Hats off to Mikenick00 for taking the sick beat so graciously however, and all I can say is that I owe you one Mike!

After that the tourney went perfectly, with my stack growing steadily over the next couple of hours until before I know it we were in the money. Sadly, Karma had its way soon after when my pocket Kings got cracked on the river by SOXSWIN05's A-9. Crippled, I pushed a few hands later with 88s, only for SOXSWIN05 to rub salt in the wound by finding Jacks and take the rest of my chips, earning themselves my $150 bounty.

Still, for my first night as a bounty player, I was more than happy with finishing 16th out of 171. Next week I'll settle for nothing less than the final table, so see you then!

posted by Liv Boeree Sunday, February 24, 2008 at 12:55 PM