So, a few months ago I blithered on about how I won a freeroll satellite in Copenhagen into the European Ladies Championships worth $2,500? Well anyway, I played that event over the weekend, and guess what... I won it!!! So I am officially the 2008 European Ladies Champion, oh and I won $30,000 to boot, woohoo!

On the Friday they had the welcome party along with the seating draw. One player I was particularly concerned about was WSOPE champion Annette Obrestad. Therefore I had rather mixed feelings to find out she was drawn to my table; she was sat four to my left which wasn't ideal, but Annie and I had had numerous discussions about how best to play against her so I was desperate to try out the tactics! As it started out, Annette played quite conservatively as did everyone else at the table, and so I was able to pick up a few small pots here and there to keep myself afloat.

After a couple of hours Annette started gaining chips and then her aggressive style came out - it was quite a marvel to watch in the first person - almost every other hand she was raising about 2.5x BB, and it worked most of the time! One time she did it from mid-position and it was folded round to me. I was on the cutoff and found Queens, and decided to flat call. The flop came low and unconnected (perfect, she bet about 2/3 pot and I flat called again. The turn came another low card and she bet again, and I made a raise of 3x or so. In her credit she passed instantly, but it took nearly 1/3 of her stack.

After that, you know when just everything goes right? I had successfully labelled every player around the table (something I never used to be very good at) and I just KNEW when I could bully and when I should fold. The player to my left was so passive that I couple of times I raised blind in the SB, foolish perhaps but she ummed and aaahed and passed every time.

Anyway, next thing I'm the chipleader and they want me to move to the TV table (which at one point had Abi Titmus but she'd since been knocked out). The players here were much looser and more aggressive, so I tighten up for a while and try and observe. Sadly, the cards decided to follow suit, and I got very little play until the end of the first day, when we played down to the final 10. Unfortunately just before we stopped for the day I lost a big pot leaving around 18k when the average was 26k. Damn.

That night I was very well behaved and went to bed by 11.30pm (which is a record for me!) as we had to be at the studios by 9.30 am. Despite not sleeping very well due to replaying hands and my short chipstack in my head, I felt bizarrely confident as we got settled down for play in the final 10.

A few hands in, my good friend Shelley Rubenstein doubled me through with her JJs versus my KKs, a rather lucky situation that got me right back in it, and then the rest of tournament went perfectly from there! In the end it was Lena Martyak, Shelley and I who were the last three, and when I eliminated Shelley's shortstacked A-3 push with my 88s Lenna and I were almost exactly matched chip wise with 130,000 each.

No deal was done however, and I chipped away at Lenna from the button each hand to gain a lead (and in fairness to her, she was also uber-aggressive on the button each time). The final hand was a strange one however; I had A-10 off on the BB, Lenna raised (as she always did) from the SB, I flat called, and the flop came 7-3-2 with two diamonds. Lena continuation bet. At this point, I had to find out whether my Ace high was good (which it most likely was as her range was infinite!) so I reraised her all in (as she only had about 4x her previous bet left). She dwelled up, and my heart was totally in my mouth when I realised that my Ace high then clearly WASN'T good. When she called I was mortified as I was clearly about to lose this huge pot to her - she had Q-7 in the end. However, the turn came the miracle Ace and next thing I knew everyone was cheering and congratulating me for the win!

After that everything's kind of a blur - there was an official presentation for the TV show of a comedy sized cheque and a very shiny trophy, followed by a couple of hours of press and interviews. All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, and I can't wait to see the show when it airs in August!

I'm off to get a new car...

posted by Liv Boeree Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 6:46 AM